ChildFund / Christian Children's Fund/ CCF

Analyst Comments [ Back to top ]

MinistryWatch.com’s Take
By Andy Preslar
April 2004

A Hand Up

Christian Children’s Fund (CCF) is an international relief and development organization which serves children and communities the world over, particularly in Third World countries. CCF’s primary role in these countries is to develop, monitor, and provide sustaining funds for community-based health, education, and development projects. CCF raises funds by means of its “child sponsorship” program, in which individuals agree to provide a certain amount of money per month for the welfare of a single child. The child receives benefits from the program activities which the donor’s money helps fund, and the donor gets to know the child through written correspondence (for more details on how CCF’s child sponsorship program works, see below under “Appearance and Reality”).

It is important to keep in mind that, in spite of its name, CCF is not a private foundation but a public charity. CCF does not have a vast amount of accumulated “funds” with which it finances various projects; rather, they are dependent upon ongoing contributions. Another potential source of confusion regarding CCF is the word “Christian.” CCF was founded in 1938 by Dr. J. Calvitt Clarke, a Presbyterian minister who dedicated his life to improving the lives of children in orphanages throughout Asia. In spite of these beginnings, CCF is not a Christian organization in any meaningful sense of the word. CCF’s mission, values, and code of ethics are upstanding and humanitarian, but not based upon any Christian doctrine or creed. While Christians can support the kind of work facilitated through CCF, they should not do so under the assumption that CCF has a specifically Christian agenda.

CCF’s mission is to offer a hand up – over and above a mere hand out – to needy children and communities the world over. CCF works with other organizations, government agencies, communities, and parents to improve the lives of children through an assortment of relief and development projects. These projects are designed to establish sustainable structures such as safe water sources, health care, educational opportunities and facilities, income-generation, housing improvements, and resources for conflict resolution. CCF also responds to crisis situations such as homelessness, war and natural disaster-related trauma, and food shortages. CCF’s work is community-based through and through. The goal is to help these communities become self-sufficient in the areas of health, education, and livelihood, thereby making a lasting difference in the lives of the children. For each project, the goal is to reach a point where it can be designed, managed, and operated by community members in the countries where they are located.

Since its inception, CCF has provided more than $2 billion in services to children. These services have been funded primarily through child sponsorship. CCF uses the money raised by sponsorship to provide grants to more than 1,000 projects in more than 30 countries. These projects have served between four and five million children. At the point where the “rubber meets the road,” that is, in the practical world of serving children and communities, CCF faces a number of challenges. These include identifying needs, developing new projects to address those needs, overseeing the use of funds which sustain projects, and managing relations between project organizations and CCF.

These challenges are met by CCF staff working at the local level to ensure that donor funds are being used in efficient and effective ways for the benefit of children. CCF assures its donors that it “has a strong system of accountability . . . these controls include on-site reviews, budget evaluation, and comprehensive auditing of our program implementation in country.” Project staff and/ or volunteers meet with participating families in the community, collect data on the health and education issues concerning each child and family, and review the data. This information is passed along to the parents, the project advisory committee, and the national office. Decisions are then made about the specific services required in the community. CCF promises that its monitors “ensure that your sponsorship dollars are making positive improvements . . . in your sponsored child’s life.”

CCF divides its program activities into six categories. Here are those categories, together with the percentage of CCF’s total program expenses used for each (year ending June 2003): (1) Education (37%); (2) Health and Sanitation (25%); (3) Micro-Enterprise (13%); (4) Nutrition (12%); (5) Early Childhood Development (11%); (6) Emergencies (2%). These categories can be grouped under three more basic ones: health, education, and livelihood.

Health

CCF’s health programs focus on a wide range of issues and encompass varied activities. Primary focus areas include basic health care, maternal and child health and survival, prevention and control of infectious diseases such as HIV/ AIDS, and health infrastructure development. In some projects, USAID-funded child survival programs emphasize efforts to decrease child mortality rates, stimulate early childhood, improve maternal and child nutrition, and create access to safe water and sanitation. Also, primary health-care, vaccinations, and immunizations and insured for mothers as well as children. . . . Nutrition programs directly seek to improve child and maternal nutrition and/or strengthen the capacity of households for ensuring improved nutrition and food security. Programs are largely related to prevention and early detection of malnutrition, such as growth monitoring, food supplementation, school feeding programs, targeted micronutrition supplementation, dietary/nutrition oriented education and deworming. . . . Families and communities are supported in establishing small-scale household or school vegetable gardens, and small animal, poultry and fish production. . . . Programs under emergency interventions are outside of the mainstream of the “usual” CCF programming and are in response to unexpected situations created as a result of conflict or natural disasters or other unpredictable events. Activities include focus on providing emergency relief in the form of food, shelter and medical supplies (from Christian Children’s Fund, Inc., Form 990, Part III, “Statement of Program Services Accomplishments”).

CCF takes great pains to respect the customs and social structures of people in a given area, while at the same time implementing new structures for the improvement of children’s health as well as for the community in general. One example of this approach is the “Grannies” program which CCF has instituted in societies where older women have traditionally played key roles in health care. CCF’s strategy is to help these grandmothers integrate new ideas and practices related to maternal health and child care into their traditional practices. In this way, CCF tries to respect the dignity of these people and their traditions while helping them to learn more about health-related issues and the care of babies and their mothers.

An example of how CCF gets the community involved in various projects is the well drilling program in Kenya. CCF has imported a water rig into the country to perform the heavy drilling, and has drilled 17 wells to date. Volunteers from the community clear the site for the well, provide night security for CCF’s equipment, and provide day laborers to assist the professional water staff hired by CCF’s Kenya office. The communities are also very involved in forming a water management committee, which selects technical personnel who are trained to operate and manage the well. People are charged a nominal fee for the water (20 cents for 20 liters; for those who cannot pay, the fee is waived), which funds are used to pay the person who tends the well. This becomes a self-sustaining enterprise, which the community owns and operates.

Education

Education programs strive to create an environment that fosters a quality learning experience. . . . Programs under basic education emphasize non-formal and formal learning environments, and focus on skills and knowledge that students should know and be able to perform. Focus is also placed on primary education and basic life skills for youth while addressing the vital standards needed to improve education and equity in education. CCF programs facilitate education through direct support to children via school supplies, mid-day meals, and, where necessary, payment of school fees. In many cases, children are also provided scholarships. Learning programs target adults as well, and focus on issues such as adult literacy, self-esteem and civic responsibility. . . . Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs ensure the cognitive and psychological development of children (0-5) through purposeful and structured activities that stimulate their social competence and promote their physical, psychological, intellectual and emotional well-being and development. Programs are designed to involve mothers and other family members in routine child-care/day-care, non-formal education and after school programs (ibid.).

CCF is particularly focused on establishing greater educational equity in societies where girls have traditionally been denied access to education or discouraged from pursuing such. In Kenya, where girls are often left out of the educational system, CCF has opened a school for girls- the Naningoi Girls Boarding School. This modest facility was built, equipped and staffed by CCF It features four classrooms, a dorm house, indoor bathrooms, and a temporary kitchen, and is home to around 200 girls.

Livelihood

Livelihood programs assist families through training in small-scale income generation activities, and methods for increasing agricultural productivity . . . Activities include vocational and work related training for adults and youth over 18 years; micro-credit activities and micro-enterprise development; agricultural and livestock production to enhance livelihood (ibid.).

CCF works to provide individuals, especially women, with the literacy and vocational training necessary to start a business. Women in Afghanistan, for example, are being equipped to begin or renew businesses in carpet weaving, baking, or tailoring. CCF also provides working capital to individuals who have a trade but lack access to funds. An example is the CCF Community Motivators Solidarity Group in Senegal which took out a $1,328 fixed-asset loan to purchase hulling and weighing machines, cashew nuts and supplies needed to start a cashew-nut processing unit. CCF reports that this group is turning a good profit, and doing better at supporting their families.

Appearance and Reality

The necessarily brief and limited description of CCF’s program activities given above fairly represents the general scope, aims, and undertakings of the organization. Although their major fund raising tool is child sponsorship, CCF’s field work is clearly much more focused on community development than with the particular children sponsored. This is not to say that a sponsored child receives no benefit from donor funds, but that the process involved renders those benefits directly to the community as a whole, and indirectly to the child as a member of the community. This is probably a prudent way to go about relief and development work, but it leaves a noticeable gap between appearance and reality regarding the impression created by child sponsorship, with its implicit promise of a one donor- one child support relationship, and the community-oriented nature of CCF-affiliated projects. To their credit, CCF does inform potential child sponsors that their donations will be used to fund projects which meet the needs of both sponsored and unsponsored children, including children whose sponsorships have been cancelled. The fact remains, however, that a general impression is created by sponsorship ads and language which can be misleading. Various groups have called upon relief and development agencies to develop fundraising techniques which more clearly reflect the nature of their actual programs. CCF has certainly taken a step in the right direction by clarifying (at least on their website) confusion concerning their sponsorship.