Child sponsorship programs developed with growth in mind – for children and their communities.
Child sponsorship is a type of fundraising in which a charitable organisation associates a donor sponsor with a particular child beneficiary. The sponsor receives updates from the child, typically including photos and translated letters, which help create a personal relationship with the child.
The donated funds are generally not explicitly spent on the sponsored child. Instead, they are pooled with other contributions to fund a myriad of unmet needs concerning education, health, security, infrastructure, or other projects in the child’s community.
Becoming a sponsor means giving children a chance to grow up healthy, educated, and safe, forever empowering them and changing their lives and futures. The sponsor’s joy is knowing they are genuinely making a difference.
Child sponsorship programs are structured with growth in mind – the growth of children and their respective communities.
Therefore, facilitators and organisers must assess and understand their community’s unique needs and strategise a long-term commitment to work with them to deliver successful sponsorship programs that achieve lasting results.
SCHOLARSHIP, BURSARY, AND GRANTS
A scholarship is a financial support awarded to a student based on academic achievement or other criteria that can include the financial need for schooling.
Scholarships are typically awarded based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to academic achievement, departmental and community involvement, diversity and inclusion, employment experience, area of study, and financial need.
Support for further education can include enabling a student to attend a private or public post-secondary college, university, or other academic institution. In addition, students with talents – say, in athletics – can be awarded this form of financial aid.
Scholarship criteria usually reflect the values and goals of the donor or founder of the award.
While scholarship recipients are not required to repay scholarships, the awards might require that the recipient meet specific requirements during their period of support, such as maintaining a minimum grade point average or engaging in a particular activity (e.g., playing on a school sports team for athletic scholarship holders or serving as a teaching assistant for some graduate scholarships).
Scholarships can provide:
- A monetary award.
- An in-kind prize (e.g., waiving tuition fees or fees for housing in a dormitory).
- A combination of the two.
There are various types of scholarships. The two most common ones are merit-based and need-based. The donor or department funding the scholarship sets the criteria for recipient selection, and the grantor explicitly defines how their contributions will be put to the preferred use. The funds are used to defray the costs of tuition, books, place of residence, board, and other expenses directly tied to a student’s educational costs.
Merit-based scholarships are based primarily on a student’s academic, artistic, athletic, or other abilities, talents, extracurricular activities, or a good community service record.
Need-based scholarships fall under the “grants” financial award section and not under “scholarships”.
Other common scholarship classifications include:
Student-based
for which applicants initially qualify based on gender, race, religion, family, medical history, or other student-specific factors.
Individual colleges and universities offer college-specific sponsorship to highly qualified applicants. These scholarships are awarded based on academic and personal achievements. Some scholarships have a “bond” requirement. Recipients might be required to work for a particular employer for a specified period or in rural or remote areas; otherwise, they might be required to repay the value of the support they received from the scholarship.
is offered by corporations trying to gain or draw attention to their brands or cause (branded scholarships).
Most high school students check with their guidance counsellors, non-profits and charitable trusts, community foundations, music teachers, foundations, labour/trade unions, religious centres, and interested corporations when exploring scholarship opportunities. Schools and other volunteer organisations sometimes offer such awards.
While these terms are frequently used interchangeably, there is a difference.
Grants and scholarships are both types of gift aid – awarding money that does not need to be earned or repaid. Although “grant” and “scholarship” are often perceived as synonyms, there are differences.
Grants are typically need-based, whereas scholarships are merit-based. Scholarships might also have a financial need component but rely on other criteria.
Bursaries are non-repayable awards allocated based on financial need without undue emphasis on academic standing.
Both scholarships and bursaries cover the educational expenses of students based on academic performance and financial need. While scholarships are more inclined to fund students with outstanding academic performance, bursaries are applied more to supporting students in financial need.