Last chance at sponsorship Cancel Title is required

To piggy back what debbies said about acquiring sponsors for older youth with other avenues. Our recent waiting child request was specifically for our older youth and 888 youth are now sponsored!

thank you for the good news about CI's efforts. ramfam. Yet, I will still fret about the remaining unsponsored older ones.  Most sponsors prefer cute tots.  Perhaps because I was an awkward pre-teen and teen -- I was much overweight plus I had raging acne, thick bifocals, big, shiny teeth braces -- my peers taunted me, called me froggie, perhaps that is why I am especially concerned about unsponsored youth whose waiting-for-a-sponsor photos show their changing bodies, their angst and their bewilderment -- this is an opportunity for an active sponsor to be their supportive friend, to help them be strong and focused, to help them stay committed to bettering their future.

CI has been doing a wonderful job. This post keeps getting interpreted a criticism which it is not. It really is all about 17+ youths not on the site needing sponsors. Perhaps an example of a youth we are talking about. Ariel Josafat does not come up in any search on the site. His 18th birthday is in June so he has 5 maybe 6 months left in the program. He aged off of the site and is in another cycle. It seems it would be difficult to find sponsors for these youth. I suggested via site feedback that the board be given a chance to sponsor them at a discounted rate thus allowing placement efforts to go toward younger youths.

The flip side of offering older youth at discounted rate is that new sponsors wanting to sponsor younger children for a longer-time paying at higher rate can't (then) be justified.

I'm with you on allowing 17+ group on the waiting list to be given exposure WE deserve for them, even though they may not necessarily be keen as younger children to have a sponsor at this late stage due to preparing for their adolescent life ahead!

As a passionate advocate for these youth, I suggest you setup " 17+ Action Group " to find sponsors and helping with their any other needs through crowd-funding campaigns. You can promote the group without giving reference to anyone in particular and set a budget for one youth at a time for 2yrs ($36 x 12 x 2 = $864) from their 17th birthday (today two turned 17 and will soon be taken off the web listing).

Once the funding is secured, you/CI can nominate a youth at the time to benefit. CI sponsor, Kristen Palana has successfully done similar through her Aura’s House project [aurashouse.com].

Hope this helps.

Talking about youths as "discounted rates" sounds so gauche lol

True, out of context it sounds like they are in the discount bin and the next stop is the curb with a free sign. But the context is that everything revolves around being sponsored. There are those here that would write to these youths letters of encouragement as these youths graduate the CI program. However, they are currently maxed out with existing sponsorships. It perhaps sounds better that at some point there is a cut off for these particular youth and at that point someone open to a writing them could do so by covering the cost of that activity. 

I have had to think about this for a while and this is the long route to an answer. Raising funds is a good idea for a few youth but with 70 centers and the number of youths if there were only 3 per center per year there are hundreds. So I think the answer lies somewhere with transparency. If there was a page to go to see those in the other cycles not only could one see these youths but also the longest waiting. Just an observation but some longest waiting just appear on the site and makes me wondered where they come from. Perhaps they are coming off of the other cycles. This other page would be a little different in that one could only request to sponsor a child because their file may be deployed in a campaign. If they did not get sponsored their file would surface and get assign to the requestor. I just think that such a page would reduce the overall time for those without sponsors and provide sponsors for these youths.

I believe, there are around 1000-1500 (out of thousands!) waiting children coming up on the website daily in rotation using complex computer algorithms to find sponsors. In addition, other ways of campaigning exist (e.g. mailing, phone, traditional media, social media and public canvassing).

You can check the status of the children (sponsored or no sponsor) at anytime using their ID – even, if they do not later show up online using the following link:

www.children.org/make-a-difference/sponsor-a-child/child-details/ (enterID)

If interested, may be you can set up a microsite to have visibility for all waiting 17+ children and then find groups of (say) 8 sponsors to share the total cost for sponsoring a youth for 2yrs. Multi-sponsor groups will not only reduce per sponsor contribution to 12.5%, but also have a good chance of corresponding with the child more often in the time left.

As we know, a few 17 year-olds do briefly appear in the Waiting to be Sponsored photo/list.  Yesterday I chose one: 17 year-old Charity in Lusaka, Zambia.  Today it is official, she is the 15th on my profile page.  Both of her parents are deceased, she lives with relatives. The income is listed as $80, and she sleeps on a mat on a cement floor. This morning, I sent an online hello letter, written in my shaky Nyanja, already translated, and I also sent a $150 EG (Extra monetary Gift).  I post this to encourage other sponsors to consider choosing a short-term relationship with a CI youth. 

@rgfischoff I think it's wonderful that you added a 17 year old. Plus you wrote a letter already and sent an EG