See Compassion at work!

You work hard for your money. When you part with it, you likely want to get the most for your money--the freshest food, the most durable toys/clothes/electronics, etc. If you are one that will give to charity, you want to make sure that the organization who receives your money will do what it says with your donation.

Compassion International is one of many charities working to provide humanitarian aid, as well as provide Christian training in the twenty-five countries in which it works. Compassion works with the world's poor, focusing particularly on children, providing them with food, clothing, an opportunity to go to school by paying for any school fees/supplies/uniforms that the family can't otherwise afford. Also offered to the children are age-appropriate skills and trades that can be directly used to help provide an income for themselves and their families as they grow older. In short, Compassion provides the opportunity to leave poverty behind, to have a better life.

How does it do this? Rather than having donations go primarily to community development, such as building wells, roads, and playgrounds, Compassion's primary means of "fundraising" is to link children to sponsors--each child only has one sponsor. That sponsor has a name and a face to invest in, rather than a more general community "somewhere over there".

My money is going directly to help Gabriel in Indonesia. My money helped to provide for his medical care when he got sick last September. Not only was his family now able to take him to a doctor, they were able to get a second opinion--one that could possibly have changed the course of his life. The first hospital gave him the wrong diagnosis; the private hospital correctly diagnosed him and gave him the life-saving treatment he needed for typhoid fever. Now, rather than being ill for months (or possibly dead because of his illness), he is now a healthy child, able to go back to school and church. He has a chance to grow up to become a pastor (his current dream), or something else if he changes his mind--as children often do.

How do I know that my money is going to Gabriel in Indonesia, rather than a community in Africa? Compassion does regular internal audits to make sure that the money I contribute for Gabriel's support goes to his country, student center, and directly helps him. In addition to their internal audits, third-party (often secular) non-biased auditors regularly come in to ensure Compassion's finances are straight. You can find a record of their most recent financial statement here.

And yet there is still one additional way that I can make sure Gabriel is benefitting from my contributions. I can personally go visit him, take a tour of his project and the Indonesian country office in Bandung. I actually plan on travelling with a Compassion-organized sponsor tour to visit him in 2010, if I can save up the money in time to travel with them.

This weekend, there are two groups out travelling--one group is in Peru on a sponsor tour, seeing the different things Compassion is doing in and around Lima, from the Child Survival Program (children under 3), the Child Development Sponsorship Program (ages 3-21), the Leadership Development Program (a select few high school graduates who are going on to university), and the Complimentary Intervention Program (malaria, HIV/AIDS--particularly in Africa, though, etc.). So they're seeing the whole process within about 10 days.

Another, smaller group is in India, who are likely seeing the same things, but these travellers are committed to blogging about their experience before, during and after the trip. Check out their progress here.

I've been personally impressed with Compassion's transparency, their commitment to financial integrity, and the comprehensive work that they do to invest in the lives of the children registered in their projects.

Do you have room in your heart to reach out to one of the "least of these"?