5 years 😔 Cancel Title is required

Sadly after five joyous years I’ve chosen to cancel my sponsorship of my two precious little girls. I’ve been struggling with this decision for over a month but the decision by CI to go completely digital is ultimately the thing that made my mind. Knowing that a card I hand wrote and decorated would reach my child and conversely the hand written letters with drawings from my families and child were the payoff. 
I wish I had the option to cover the costs or at least some better understanding of what the centres provide, what my families experience etc. but I feel like besides those letters I didn’t really understand what was done for my kids. All my love to Charity and Lisa. I was looking forward to see them graduate from the program in five more years. 😔

I am so sorry, this must be very painful for you.

I am SO sorry. I myself dislike not being able to send the kids physical mail. I prefer mailing items. Did you know you can send them direct packages twice a year? You can throw in some letters and pictures too. I am not opposed to an online mail system but I think being able to do both would be really nice. It's too bad for Charity and Lisa to loose such a dedicated sponsor who truly does love and care for them. Wishing you all the best! 

I am sure this was a very difficult decision.  I just started sponsoring a few months ago, so all I am familiar with is digital communication. I know that my sponsored child Hayleene can see the photos I have attached to my digital letters because she replied to one of them commenting on the pictures and said she was grateful that photography can bring us together. That makes me so happy. In terms of what the centers provide, I have not yet asked my kids about their respective centers, but I will in due time.  I get frustrated at times with the lack of transparency from CI about certain questions I have asked, but I try to ignore my paranoia and focus on the privacy that is given to both sponsor and child. I think in this day and age with digital everything, we want everything at our fingertips now, although it doesn't always happen that way.  I wish you the best. Thank you for sponsoring Charity and Lisa. 

My daughter and I just started sponsoring an adorable little boy.  How do we find out how to send packages twice a year.  That was no where in the literature we were given.
Maybe it is somewhere on this website, but there is just so much to take in, I may have missed it.

You have to contact CI for the direct address. :) 

I just chose to sponsor a child, not knowing you cannot mail letters or paper items. I am so disappointed. I sponsor other children through another organization and you can mail letters and paper items that can be scanned, up to 6 pages. I love sending homemade cards and stickers to them. I recently sent paper projects on card paper for Christmas. 
i’m not sure I will continue the sponsorship.

I would not stop sponsoring a child simply because CI has gone fully digital. It is not the child's fault. Digitalization has become the way of the world, because it is less expensive, more convenient, more ecological. Naturally one loses something as well, as I well know after exchanging paper letters and cards with my sponsored children for 7 years. I miss the children's drawings and have a stack of beautiful unused cards bought right before the pandemic and CI's switch to digital communications. However, I have learned to appreciate the ease of free electronic letters and my connection with my sponsored children remains as strong as ever. (And I wouldn't be surprised if all sponsorship organizations eventually phased out paper items altogether, especially now that so many people are working partly from home and are unable to handle thousands of physical letters, cards and other paper items.) 

I can’t blame anyone for wanting to not go digital and deciding to end sponsorship. Frankly I’ve been struggling with sponsorship with the continued roll-back of sponsor relations. I am very unhappy with the current direction. I think different sponsors have different needs to feel connected, and dismissing those under the all consuming umbrella of convenience and cost controls is harsh. These should not be the only considerations in life. It feels very corporate and uncaring. Children International is clearly changing how things are done, but that does not mean that people who want something different don’t have choices about who to support or where to spend their money. Perhaps if CI had been more transparent about the changes from the beginning and offering us a better system to feel connected with the children through letters, cards and photos, people would not be so unhappy. But it’s been three years and we are still being told things are in development and to suck it up. There are other sponsor organizations who do a pretty good job with this and their sponsor retention is quite high. Which benefits the children, in the end. At what cost do we devalue the few tools we have to reach a family continents away? It does not feel like this is a balanced approach. 

Bravo @Kiyoshi, you hit the nail right on the head. I have been sponsoring since the 1980's and things have changed quite a bit. I can recall when one of my sponsored children in Ecuador had her ceremony to the flag in school. I asked CI if they could have someone go and take photos of her during the ceremony for me. A VOLUNTEER from the SOA went and took photos for me. My sponsored child wrote me later and told me she was so happy to send me the photos and she wished I was able to be there and that if I were I would have been her "honored guest". That touched me deeply. Not long ago I made the same request and was told that they could not even consider doing that for me. I was extremely disappointed since most of us do not ask for a lot but special things like that make such a difference and add to the connection we try to build with our sponsored children that a flat out NO was very disappointing. When Jim Cook was the head of the organization it seemed to be more personal, now it seems to be more business and less personal.