"Does Child Sponsorship Work?"

Christianity Today grabbed my eye. For one thing, we sponsor a child. But the bigger reason is that this question points toward the complex issue of measurement and success in non-profit organizations, something in which I have a great deal of interest. The child sponsorship question may not apply to you, but there is a parallel question that you should be asking (and answering). For example: “Is our discipleship approach truly producing disciples?” “Is our mission strategy effective?” “Is our way of doing evangelism bearing fruit?” The article in CT reported on several in-depth research projects conducted by PhD economists. As I read about their work, I was struck by several things:

• The research was extremely rigorous. The results that they described were clear and were based on solid evidence. They didn’t rely on anecdotal stories or on how people “felt” about child sponsorship. Even the seemingly subjective topic of “hope” was empirically assessed by the researchers.
• The primary research focused on educational outcomes, not spiritual ones. Perhaps that was the decision of the researchers. Perhaps education is easier to measure.
• Before the research, the child sponsoring organization didn’t have a way to objectively answer the question of effectiveness. Even though they’re an organization with a great reputation, they hadn’t figured out how to do this.

(I’m not going to spoil the findings from the CT article, but I will say that we will continue to sponsor our child.) So do you need a PhD economist to measure organizational effectiveness is? Not really. My biggest take-away from the article is that every church or ministry or non-profit should have a way to answer the question: is this working? In truth, there are a number of ways to answer this question, and they don’t require PhD’s or years of research. They do, however, require a belief that measurement matters and that it’s worth spending the effort to evaluate results. (My book, In Pursuit of Great and Godly Leadership, includes a chapter on the topic, “do you measure what matters?”) So whatever you’re doing, is it working? Do you have anything more than stories or gut feel to support your answer? Are you even asking the question? It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>