Getting Your Bang for Your Donations Buck

A professor of Economics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco set out to determine if child sponsorship really works. So he interviewed more than 1,800 formerly sponsored children in a Christian-run program. He found the following about the sponsored kids:

. They were more likely to stay in school longer.
. As adults, they were more likely to hold steady jobs and overcome poverty.
. They were more likely to become leaders in their communities and churches.

According to Science Daily, "Child sponsorship is a leading form of direct aid from households in wealthy countries to children in developing countries, with approximately 3.39 billion dollars spent to sponsor 9.14 million children internationally. The Journal of Political Economy shows international child sponsorship to result in markedly higher rates of schooling completion and substantially improved adult employment outcomes."