How legitimate are the “support an orphan” organizations? [closed]

Question

Note: I am not entirely sure how to make this question broad enough to matter without making it too subjective. Feel free to edit if you see a better way to phrase this. Also, I just guessed at tags.

There are a handful of organizations that offer you a chance to financially support third-world orphans by sending them a monthly payment. The money is advertised as being used for supplies as varied as:

• water
• food
• clothing
• schooling
• English lessons
• housing

The premise is that your money will help take this child from utter poverty and give them a fighting chance at breaking into a self-supporting lifestyle. The scope of these children includes any stereotypically poor country and isn't necessarily restricted to orphans.

A typical behavior is to take a picture of a handful of kids from one area and post them up at a church or local market with the intent to acquire sponsors. The pictures are usually glued to something like a construction-paper heart and clothespinned near the entrance. People take a heart home and there is some contact information that gets you started on a monthly payment.

After a few weeks, the sponsor gets a letter in the mail from the child that is neatly handwritten in English thanking them for the support and describing typical daily events and other things you would expect in a letter from a child. This continues as long as you continue support.

The question for Skeptics is such: How legitimate are these businesses? This system would be fairly easy to abuse given that the only contact you get from the child is a picture and handwritten letters sent oversees. I would imagine that some of these organizations are exactly as they seem and their origin is in well-intentioned, helpful people. But... how would one know? Given the subject material and target market, I doubt much skepticism is entertained at the point of sale and any small amount of anecdotal evidence would be enough to assage small doubts. I see enough red flags in the process to make me wonder but I can see it going either way.

The answers I am looking for are any sort of journalistic or skeptical review of the business model or industry with a summary of the entire thing. I have avoided mentioning specific organizations or anecdotes because I am not terribly interested in answers regarding any organization in particular. That being said, if you happen to stumble across a review or investigation regarding a particular organization, please mention it.

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To narrow this question down a bit, here are some specific claims to check:

• How much money donated to this type of charity make it to the orphan depicted in the photograph?
• Is there evidence suggesting that these donations make a significant impact?

Answer 1

One way to check them out is with Charity Navigator.

It's an nonprofit organization that analyzes charities and gives them star ratings, based on their efficiency (basically, how much of your donation goes toward charitable work rather than overhead) and their capacity (growth and working capital). You can see an explanation here: Our Approach to Rating Charities

Oddly, while they say...

Charity Navigator accepts no funding from the charities that we evaluate, ensuring that our ratings remain objective.

...they do accept ads on their site from charities that they also rate. But then I saw one ad, checked out its rating, and saw that it only got two stars. So, take that as you will.

As an example of actual ratings, a couple of the sponsor-a-child organizations I've heard of are World Vision and Compassion International. Charity Navigator gives them both 4-star ratings. Both have overhead expenses below 20%.

An example of a poorly-rated charity is the Children's Charitable Foundation, which devotes just 10.3% of funding to its ostensible mission.

Answer 2

There are a number of ways you can check these organizations out, and it's essentially the same as checking out any other charity. In all developed countries charities have to register if your contributions are to be tax deductible, and you should check that your charity is registered. That usually guarantees a certain level of financial accountability and reporting, at least eliminating the most obvious scams (the organization keeps all the money itself).

You can also check with various "Charity rating" organizations, which typically give charities a score based on things like their openness and the percentage of money they spend on administration and marketing.

You can also check for personal recommendations. Some of these organizations allow you to go and visit your 'sponsored child'; if someone you know has done that, check which organization it was.

Finally, if you are a member of a church (or similar organization), there may be someone in the congregation who has personal contacts with an orphanage. They will know how to send funds there, and can vouch for them being properly used.