Frequently Asked Questions

In addition to your monthly sponsorship donation and encouraging letters, you may wish to send gifts to your sponsored child. We are delighted when sponsors decide to provide additional support. We do not mail parcels because delivery in developing countries is unreliable and expensive, but you are able to send paper items like stickers, posters and colouring pages.

We also provide an opportunity to send a monetary gift. The options are: Birthday Gift, General Gift, Family Gift or Child Development Centre Gift. Child Development Centre staff assist children and their families to ensure funds are used appropriately and to discuss how to best use the gift to benefit the child and family. If you have a specific gift in mind, we will forward your suggestion, but ultimately the child or their family will make the final decision.

Send your child a gift online.

No less than 80 percent of your donation goes to ministry activities, including all expenses that occur within the country your sponsored child is from,  which directly benefit sponsored children. Children and families do not receive cash but instead are recipients of goods and services, carefully designed, delivered or purchased according to their needs. Independent and internal audits of our work are conducted to ensure donor support is being used efficiently and with integrity.

Compassion Canada’s financial statements are available online at Financial Statements .

All donations given through online fundraisers are receipted by email shortly after completing the donation online. If you did not receive your receipt via email shortly after making your donation to an online fundraiser, please email volunteer@compassion.ca.

All donations given through Text to Give for Unite to Fight Poverty are receipted separately through the Mobile Giving Foundation of Canada. For more information, please visit their website here. If you did not receive a tax receipt for your Mobile Giving donation, please email us at info@compassion.ca or call us at 1-800-563-5437.

Once you have signed into your My Compassion account, hover over your name in the top right corner. Select “Tax Receipts” from the dropdown menu options. Scroll down to the box that says, “I only want a digital tax receipt”. If you wish to receive a mailed copy of your receipt, please ensure this box is unchecked.

Our Supporter Services team is available to help serve you with these inquiries. They can be reached by phone at 1.800.563.5437 8am-5pm EST, through live chat on our website or at info@compassion.ca

All contributions of $10 or more to Compassion Canada are tax-deductible in Canada. To be eligible for a receipt, all year-end gifts and donations to Compassion must be received by December 31st. Compassion receipts for income tax purposes are issued by February 28th of the following year. Receipts can be sent by mail or are accessible through your My Compassion account.

Compassion Canada’s CRA Business number is 11887-1516 RR0001

Absolutely! Please email us at info@compassion.ca or call us at 1-800-563-5437. Tax receipts are also available for you to download in your My Compassion account. For each year, tax receipts are issued no later than February 28th of the following year.

Compassion’s holistic child development program activities take place at church-based child development centres. Sometimes activities take place in the church building or the church may have another facility designated for the child development centre. Each centre is within a 30-minute walk of the homes of the children it serves.

Program activities vary in detail according to the culture, environment, or needs of the area where the individual centres are located. However, there are common elements in all Compassion child development centres which ensure that all Compassion-assisted children are given the greatest opportunity to be released from spiritual, economic, social, emotional and physical poverty.

Each child development centre:

Meets on a regular basis.
Uses the facilities of the local church partner through which the program operates.
Provides a programmed curriculum of activities for registered and sponsored children.
Has a committee which provides local accountability and support.
Has a director employed by the church to manage the day-to-day activities.
Employs staff and volunteers selected by the local church.
Operates under Compassion International’s carefully monitored standards and guidelines.
Provides reasonable levels of safety for children relative to the realities of the surrounding community.

In areas where there are thousands of families needing help and only places for a few hundred children to be enrolled at the Compassion centre, the local staff may limit sponsorship to one child per family. However, in some areas, up to three children per family may attend the project. You are welcome to contact Compassion Canada to ask if your sponsored child’s siblings are already registered with Compassion, and if so, whether they are still awaiting sponsorship.

Children are required to write to their sponsors a minimum of two letters a year. If there is something wrong with your sponsored child, we will contact you. If it has been 6 months since you have received a letter, please contact our office. We may have an undeliverable address for you and have been unable to send your sponsored child’s letters through to you.

You can reach us by phone at 1-800-563-5437 or by email at info@compassion.ca

Children don’t necessarily write back to you on the same day that they receive your letter. Instead, they reply on a scheduled day when all the children at the project write to their sponsors. Your sponsored child may have proudly taken your letter home to share with family & friends and may not have it handy to remind them of the questions you answered. Please remember that it can take up to two months for your letter to be translated (if needed) and delivered. Please check the date of your sponsored child’s letter so you can work out whether he or she would have received your questions before they last wrote. In some cultures children are rarely asked about what they think and do, which may explain why your child doesn’t always answer your questions, or has difficulty expressing an answer. Compassion is working on a program to ensure that questions are recorded by project staff, so they can ensure that the children answer them. You can help in this process by underlining or highlighting your questions in your letter and making them easy to understand.

Compassion’s child development ministry is not based on material handouts. We facilitate individual child development by providing learning opportunities that a child may not encounter in another situation. Learning is central to Compassion’s mission-we provide life skills that foster each child’s success. Learning opportunities also are provided for parents, which enables them to improve their parenting skills and provide for their families. Therefore we do not allow extra money to be given every month, but there are several opportunities over the year for you to bless your sponsored child and family with a special monetary gift.

To give a child, family or project gift online click here or connect with our office directly.

Sponsorship plus Urgent Needs provides funds for additional benefits for sponsored children, their families and communities that cannot be provided by child sponsorship funds alone. While sponsorship funds provide activities which directly benefit your sponsored child, the extra $10 from Sponsorship plus Urgent needs is used to fund initiatives and programs which sow further into the lives of Compassion assisted children, their families and communities.

As Compassion raises more funds for these activities, we will be able to assist more sponsored children with these additional benefits.

Some of these include:

• Emergency medical care
• HIV and AIDS Initiative – includes education on prevention as well as care
• Education and training programs for parents of sponsored children
• Partner church development – including church partner staff training

There are a number of reasons why we ask that you do not communicate directly with your sponsored child. One of the important features of our program is that it enables centre workers to understand the child’s struggles and to provide help and support. Having your sponsored child’s letters processed through Compassion allows the centre staff to become familiar with your child’s needs, and to help them appropriately. Corresponding directly with your sponsored child would prevent the centre staff from knowing what support the child is requesting and may limit their ability to act on any child protection concerns. By limiting all correspondence through Compassion centres, we are also able to protect sponsors from receiving unsolicited or inappropriate requests from members of your child’s community who may otherwise gain access to your personal details. Most sponsored children speak other languages, so by having the correspondence go through Compassion, we are also able to translate the letters, from your child, for you.

Within your My Compassion account you can track the status of your gift (on the “Gifts” tab available on your sponsored child’s record).

Once the gift has been delivered, you should receive a follow-up letter from your sponsored child acknowledging your gift and how the gift money was used. Please remember that each letter may take a few months to come through for translation and delivery. Please check the date of your child’s letter to work out whether he or she would have received your gift before they last wrote back to you. Many times, the children aren’t writing to you on the same day that they receive your gift, rather they reply on a scheduled day when all the children at the centre write to their sponsors.

If you are in doubt whether your sponsored child has received your gift, you are welcome to write and ask or contact our office.

We understand your concern for your sponsored child. Our staff are working hard to provide us with specific information concerning Compassion children and their families. Communication is difficult as many centres do not have a phone. We are in regular communication with our office and they will let us know which children have been directly affected in time. As we gain specific information that would relate to a particular Compassion child, we will let sponsor’s know by email.

In many countries where Compassion works, letter writing is not a normal part of the culture. Therefore, the letters written by your sponsored child are probably the only ones ever written. Our Compassion centre workers endeavour to teach the children how to express themselves in writing, and will often use the letter-writing days as an educational activity. Many children write what they think their sponsor might want to hear. If your sponsored child is young, please be patient while he or she learns how to write. In some cultures, it is not common to discuss personal things like hopes and dreams, or even what daily life is like. Your sponsored child may need your help to understand that you are interested in the small details. You can help your sponsored child to understand that you want to know him or her better by asking lots of questions in your letters, and telling your sponsored child about your own life. You may consider highlighting the questions you would really like answered.

Children and families receive no cash. Benefits are only ever in the form of goods and services, carefully designed, delivered or purchased according to their needs.

Note: Child and family gifts (donations) are allocated exclusively to the child / family you are supporting. The Compassion centre staff will involve the family in purchasing gifts that are appropriate and meet specific needs.

If you are interested in learning more about how Compassion Canada handles finances, click here.

No less than eighty percent of your donation will be directed to Compassion’s Response programs. No more than 20 percent is used for fundraising initiatives and administration. Compassion assisted children and their families receive no cash. Benefits are always in the form of goods and services, carefully designed, delivered and purchased according to the children’s individual needs. We encourage you to check out our financial statement for more details.