Children Are A Charity Drawcard

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday September 23, 2008

Margot Date

Australians are keen to support overseas aid, writes Margot Date.

THERE is competition in Australia for fundraising dollars and for charity staff. Pathways Australia has helped ChildFund Australia in several ways, including with recruitment.

ChildFund is a secular organisation with child sponsorship as its core. There are 52,000 Australians sponsoring children in other countries. The chief executive of ChildFund Australia, Nigel Spence, says it is very competitive to attract fundraising dollars as there are a lot of worthy charities.

"It is a friendly competitiveness. Most of us share similar objectives," he says. "We have been very successful. We think a lot of people like to support us because of a number of factors. The fact that we are child-focused with such centred programming, which aims to ensure that children are directly or indirectly the beneficiaries [helps]."

He says the Australian community has been a generous supporter of overseas aid agencies. "The response to the [December 2004] tsunami was unprecedented ... but even taking that out, the growth has been significant."

His organisation grew by 13 per cent last year and he hopes the tightening of the economy won't have a big impact. "We feel Australians are keen to maintain their commitment to overseas aid."

One such family is that of Dave, Dianna and Max Patterson. They live on the Central Coast and sponsor two-year-old Lackson in Zambia. The comparisons with Max, 2, are stark.

"When Max was born we decided to sponsor a child the same age. The reason is we are fortunate to live here and $20 goes so far in Africa," Dave says.

Dave is a gardener, studying to be a teacher and Dianna is a psychologist. Max goes to day care, is healthy and loves to play football. They pay about $1 a day to sponsor Lackson and hope one day to travel to Zambia to meet him.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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