Speaking for Childreach is Steve Sookikian, public relations manager.
The mission of Childreach is to “achieve lasting improvements in the quality of life of deprived children in developing countries.” The idea is – and always has been – to connect caring people with children and families who need the basics of life, and so much more. They are children and families living in impoverished areas. Their village – be it in South America, Central America or Africa — may lack adequate plumbing. Their school building – if there is one — may lack books to read, or perhaps, paper, pens and pencils. And in all too many cases, they may need their most basic rights protected.
In the agency’s most recent annual report, Samuel Worthington, Childreach’s national executive director, said; “What is unique about Childreach programs, whether funded through child sponsorship or institutional donors, is that we keep our programs focused at the community level and keep communities focused on the future – their own children.”
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Now, like a lot of non-profit agencies, Childreach is boarding the Information Superhighway in an effort to better accomplish its mission.
Through www.childreach.org, the agency is reaching out to a wider audience and finding more people willing to help. While tapping into the possibilities of the Internet is something very new to this seasoned non-profit agency, it appears to offer limitless potential.
”It makes you feel like a kid in a candy store – look at all we can do,” said Steve Sookikian, the agency’s public relations manager. “The challenge for us is to find out just what we want to use it for.”
Based in Warwick, Childreach is part of PLAN International. PLAN International is the world’s largest, privately funded, non-sectarian, child-focused development organization.
Childreach was incorporated in New York in 1937, and moved to Rhode Island in the late 1970s. With its U.S. headquarters located on Plan Way, across from a mammoth United Parcel Service facility off Jefferson Boulevard, the agency employs about 75 people in Rhode Island.
The Childreach program is designed to “help families help themselves,” said Sookikian. Individuals contribute $22 per month to sponsor a child overseas.
The funding, however, is not directly used to purchase food. It is used to supply resources and materials.
“They decide what projects they want to work on, and we provide the resources,” Sookikian said.
The sponsors are often women in their middle years, he said. They tend to be highly educated. Sookikian said the program is also popular with servicemen who have traveled overseas and seen close up, impoverished conditions.
“We also hear from a lot of businessmen who travel overseas and see different parts of the world,” he said. “They see how some people live and then figure that they would like to contribute a few dollars a month to help.”
Fundraising and reaching out to potential donors is the key to the success of Childreach. Always has been, always will be.
At Childreach, you learn a lot about tapping into – and making the most out of — resources. The Internet was an obvious avenue to explore.
Today, the company raises money and lines up sponsors directly on the Web. They are people who have visited the Web site and been introduced to both Childreach and to the children and families in need of support. Children like Tuwarni, a 13-year-old boy who lives in Indonesia.
Visit wwwchildreach.org today and you learn the following about Tuwarni;
“Tuwarni has completed elementary school and can write his own letters. He enjoys playing football with his friends and helps his family gather firewood at home.
He lives with both his parents in a three-room house. Tuwarni and his family speak Javanese.”
”We get a steady stream of people – about 100 a month – who select a child to sponsor on the Web site,” said Sookikian. “That is with only a nominal testing of online marketing opportunities.”
Ironically, said Sookikian, the agency felt pressured, in a sense, to put itself online.
“We were responding to a demand of our sponsors,” he said. “We were getting letters and telephone calls from people every day wondering why we were not on the Internet. We felt the pressure. People wanted us to h
ave a presence online.”
The experience of Childreach comes as no surprise to Charles Kroll, president of Andera, a Providence consulting company that has been maintaining Web sites since 1996.
During the past year, Andera has shifted its focus to help non-traditional types of businesses capitalize on e-commerce and non-profits take advantage of the Internet.
“Online fundraising is an incredibly powerful tool,” said Kroll. “It is a very efficient way for a non-profit to attract new money.”
Kroll adds that the Internet is also a tremendous record-keeping tool.
“It cuts into administrative overhead, manual labor and human error,” he said.
Sookikian agrees. The Internet, he said, has turned out to be an invaluable resource – a way to catalog records, benefiting both the agency and the sponsors.
”Non-profits have to be run with a business mentality, not a charity mentality,” said Sookikian.
Sookikian said Child-reach is purposely traveling as slowly as it possibly can on this Information Superhighway.
The agency has been able to get as far as it has with a minimal investment – so far, about $50,000. It also has an in-house Web person, who spends about 20 hours each week keeping the site updated.
Childreach, said Sookikian, has been learning and growing for more than 30 years. Its latest lesson is that, in fact, it can raise money effectively via the Internet.
And that’s good news for those children and families in those villages where books and pencils can’t be taken for granted.
