![A group of three smiling school boys sit at a desk donated by Save the Children within the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in Uganda.]](/content/dam/usa/images/sponsorship/uganda-refugee-sponsorship-ch1342852-hero.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.webp_thumbnail.2562.2562.webp)
How Does Child Sponsorship Work?
When you support children through sponsorship, you’re helping to ensure that they can grow up healthy, learning and safe — no matter where they were born. Too many children right here in the U.S. and around the world aren’t getting the opportunity to reach their full potential. But you can help make a difference.
Top 3 Questions About Child Sponsorship
What is Sponsorship?
Child sponsorship is a program that enables you to support children, their families and entire communities — giving them the chance to grow up healthy, educated and safe – forever changing their life and future.
How much does it cost to join sponsorship?
Making a difference through sponsorship with Save the Children costs about $1 a day. Just $39 a month is pooled with the donations of others and make a powerful investment in children’s lives and futures!
Why join sponsorship with Save the Children?
Save the Children is one of the most highly regarded charities in the world, with top charity ratings. We are the word's leading expert on childhood. We work in over 100 countries -- including the United States -- to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. Thanks to our supporters, we achieve tremendous results for children each year. In 2022, we reached more than 183 million children, including 837,000 here in the United States.
What You Receive When You Sponsor a Child:
- A personal welcome kit, including a photo and information about your ambassador child, their community and programs you’re supporting through sponsorship, opportunities for you to get more involved, how you can contact us and so much more!
- Annual updates and ongoing print communications highlighting the impact you’re making through sponsorship.
- A personalized online account where photos, videos and information about your impact will be shared to keep you engaged.
- The joy of knowing that your support is driving change that will ripple throughout children's lives, their families, their communities and their countries.
What Children Receive:
- Safe and friendly places to learn and play.
- Your continued support and investment in their community.
- The opportunity to participate in the empowerment of their community.
- Community-led change that impacts education systems, healthcare and protection.
*Letter-writing is only available through individual child sponsorship, not lifeline sponsorship. To learn more about the different sponsorship types, click here.
How to Support Children through Sponsorship
- Choose an area where you want to make a difference in children’s lives and their communities. No matter where you choose, you’ll help give girls and boys the opportunity to learn and grow.
- About 10 days after you sign up, you’ll receive a welcome kit in the mail. Your welcome letter will introduce you to the children in the area you chose, including photos and more information about how your sponsorship impacts their entire community.
- Watch as your ongoing support enables the work that empowers true change in the lives of children who are impacted by your generosity.
No matter where you sponsor a child, your sponsorship will go towards giving children a healthy start in life and continued support as they learn and grow.
You can sponsor a child in many countries around the world, including in:
Sponsoring a child in need provides a decade of empowerment – and beyond
Child sponsorship programs are structured with growth in mind—the growth of the child and the growth of the community.
By partnering with communities for 10-15 years, this long-term commitment allows us to work with the community to thoroughly assess and understand their community’s unique needs and work with them to deliver successful sponsorship programs that achieve lasting results. Learn more!
When our teams transition out of an area, we work to ensure local community members feel confident in continuing the programs we started together without our ongoing support. This allows us to move on to help girls and boys in other communities while ensuring the successes we achieved for children continue.
Stories from Sponsored Children
In 2020, more than 200,000 sponsors worldwide supported programs that directly benefited over 2.4 million children in 22 countries around the world – including the United States. Thanks to our growing community of child sponsors, we continue to increase our impact and reach, helping more children than we did the year before.
Beauven
At 12 years old, Beauven is already making the world a safer place for kids. She trained to become a Child Health Promoter through her school's sponsored health and nutrition program. Read more
Ahmed
In the rural farming region of Egypt where 16-year-old Ahmed lives, it’s common for children to be forced to leave school so they can help support their families. When Ahmed joined a sponsorship program that allowed him to earn money over the summer and stay in school, his future opportunities changed. Read more
Hope
Hope loves to read, but she didn't start out as a bookworm. Every time Hope was asked to read aloud in class, she would cry. But that all changed when she joined Reading Rocks, the sponsored literacy program at her school. Read more
Other Frequently Asked Questions About Child Sponsorship
- What is Save the Children's sponsorship program?
- How much does sponsorship cost?
- Is child sponsorship effective?
- Can I write or email my sponsored child?
- What are the different types of child sponsorships?
Other Frequently Asked Answers About Child Sponsorship
Your support will be pooled with the sponsorship gifts of others for distribution to Save the Children sponsorship programs around the world. This will allow us to effectively distribute resources to the communities we work with to enable stable funding, long-term support and high-quality programs. That's why you can feel confident that you're joining a growing, global community dedicated to doing whatever it takes for children, transforming their lives and the future we share.
Back to TopSponsorship is just $39 a month. Your generous monthly support will go towards helping empower the lives of children and families in your sponsorship community through our innovative programs. Your sponsorship is truly an investment in children’s lives and futures!
Back to TopWith an ambitious vision and over a century of leading expertise, Save the Children is one of the oldest and highly regarded charities in the world. We are consistently recognized for our proven program responsibility and fiscal accountability. We earn high ratings from independent services like Charity Navigator and Charity Watch, and we are accredited by the Better Business Bureau.
When you become a Save the Children sponsor, you can be sure you’re joining a growing, global community dedicated to doing whatever it takes for children, empowering their lives and the future we share.
Back to TopYes, individual child sponsors can exchange letters and emails with the child they sponsor.
Please keep in mind that there may be delays or inability to deliver letters in a timely manner. We will do everything in our power to deliver your message while keeping staff and children safe.
Back to TopSave the Children offers 3 types of child sponsorship:
Lifeline sponsorship is where you contribute monthly support to a sponsorship community and receive information and updates about a single child, but there is no one-on-one relationship or ability to communicate with the child. This is a great option if you’re interested in learning how an individual child participates in sponsorship, but you aren’t able to or interested in corresponding with a child.
Program sponsorship is where you contribute monthly support to our programs in a specific sponsorship country. Program sponsors receive updates and success stories on our overall results in the country, but have no individual child communication or updates. This is a great option if you’re interested in supporting sponsorship programs, but you aren’t interested in corresponding with a child.
Individual child sponsorship gives you the opportunity to develop a one-on-one relationship with the child who you sponsor, while benefiting children in their community as well. Individual sponsors have the opportunity to exchange messages with their sponsored child via email or postal mail.
You can become a sponsor online. If you are interested in program sponsorship, please contact your Supporter Experience Center team at
1-800-728-3843, Monday-Friday 8am-5pm (EST).
Thank you for signing up! Now, you’ll be among the first to know how Save the Children is responding to the most urgent needs of children, every day and in times of crisis—and how your support can make a difference. You may opt-out at any time by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of any email.
By providing my mobile phone number, I agree to receive recurring text messages from Save the Children (48188) and phone calls with opportunities to donate and ways to engage in our mission to support children around the world. Text STOP to opt-out, HELP for info. Message & data rates may apply. View our Privacy Policy at savethechildren.org/privacy.