Here’s something that tells you about the odd and ego-driven world of fundraising consultants: I’ve met two different, unrelated consultants who claimed they invented child sponsorship.

Neither one of them did. Child sponsorship can be traced back to the early 1800s, when missionary schools connected donors “back home” with students overseas. “Modern” child sponsorship as we know it now may have been started by Save the Children in the UK around 1920.

But I can understand why a consultant might wish to claim to have invented child sponsorship. It is one of the most effective fundraising offers ever. It has raised millions (possibly billions) of dollars by giving donors a human connection with the difference their giving makes.

You know how sponsorship works: Donors sign up for a specific child (usually in a poor community). The donor gives monthly to “sponsor” that child.  In return, they get information about the child – usually a photo and report, updated periodically. In most cases, the child writes letters to the donor and the donor can write back. In many cases, a warm and meaningful relationship develops.

That relationship is powerful. Donors get regular and believable proof that “their” child is a real person who is getting practical help, thanks to their monthly giving.

Compared to that, most other fundraising offers – where at best donors are helping somebody in some way – are pale shadows that only approximately connect donors with the difference they make. Sponsorship gives poverty and its solutions an appealing and understandable face.

The annual value of a child sponsor is massive. The retention of these donors is off the charts. Sponsors are pure platinum in their long-term value to the organizations they support – several times the value of typical donors.

That’s why there are so many child sponsorship programs. Add to that sponsorship of specific adults, like nurses, park rangers, and others doing jobs donors would like to support. And animals, whether those in shelters or in the wild. You can even sponsor inanimate things, like seats in a concert hall.

Most of them work well, but nothing quite captures the magic of child sponsorship.

Most causes don’t fit the model of sponsorship, and the infrastructure it requires to administer it. Many organizations have philosophical and ethical concerns with sponsorship as it is usually practiced.

But there’s a lot we can learn from child sponsorship and use it to make monthly giving programs more rewarding for donors.

The power of one

That’s the most important ingredient of sponsorship. Is there a way you can approximate it for your donors? Here are a couple ways to do it:

• “Unbonded” sponsorship. This is a common form of sponsorship, where instead of donors connecting with individual, they get reports on children in the program. All donors get the same materials on the same children – often a different child each month. In some programs, donors can communicate with children, but children do not directly communicate back. This can look a lot like “real” sponsorship. Animal welfare and environmental organizations can run “sponsor a puppy,” “sponsor a polar bear,” and the like. It doesn’t have all the magic of sponsorship, but some of these programs are very successful.
• Symbolic sponsorship. This is where donors sponsor an inanimate object, something that symbolizes the action donors want to make possible. Sometimes these also look a lot like children sponsorship, with “information packets” about the object, and regular reports.

Impact information

A steady diet of reporting back to capture some of the power of sponsorship for donors. Send something monthly with stories, progress reports, and other ways of keeping donors connected,

Two way conversation

Maybe you can’t have individual beneficiaries connecting with individual donors, but you could create a connection with staff, who can speak with knowledge about what the donor’s giving is making possible.

Extra giving

Most child sponsorship programs give donors opportunities to give beyond their monthly gift. Usually specific actions that connect with the children – things like birthdays, preparation for school, medical care, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask monthly donors to give above and beyond. Many of them are thrilled to do so, especially if you go to them with a compelling need that they understand and value.

Other involvement

Seek ways to enrich the monthly donor experience. Things like:

• Donor webinars, where they get inside information on the cause.
• Site tours. Whether your work happens near the donors are across the world, consider offering tours for donors to see the work first-hand.
• Backstage passes for inside looks at the work,
• Volunteer opportunities. Donors can be great volunteers!

Anything you can do to increase the donor’s sense of connection – emotional and specific connection – is going to encourage your monthly donors to stay with you, upgrade, and get involved in other ways.

I encourage you to become a child sponsor with the organization of your choice to get an inside look at just how powerful it can be.

Want to know how the big-time fundraisers with big budgets and lots of staff do it? Download the Moceanic ebook, 4 Little-Known Strategies the World’s Top Charities Use to Smash Their Fundraising Targets. It doesn’t take big bucks are a lot of time to connect with donors and build meaningful relationships that pay off – both short-term and long-term.

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• Social Media Win: How One Organization Recruited a Lot of Monthly Donors
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• Monthly Giving: Your Secret to Long-Term Success in Fundraising