NOW CLOSED: Please come and watch the Plan UK video – and get the chance to win a £100 Amazon voucher (it takes less than 3 mins...)

[HarktheHelenMumsnetAngelsSing]

Hello. Over the past few weeks. we've been working with Plan UK to help them spread the word about their child sponsorship programme and to get some feedback on this for them.

While lots of Mumsnetters have been interested, Plan UK haven't found as many new child sponsors as they were hoping for. We're a bit surprised by this, tbh, and both we and Plan UK are really keen to find out why.

So, we're now asking you to take a couple of minutes to watch this video in which a MNer shares her thoughts about her sponsorship of a child through Plan UK.

And then we'd like you, please, to help Plan UK by posting (on this thread) what you think of the video and of the campaign.

Any feedback you can give is most welcome - and we'll be passing it on to Plan UK to help them when they're planning future campaigns.

So please watch the video and read a bit more the campaign on our Plan UK pages and add your thoughts to this thread.

Everyone who adds a thought will be entered into a prize draw, from which one winner will win a £100 Amazon voucher.

And, of course, if you'd like to sponsor a child either for yourself (or as a gift for your children or someone else), then please do sign up here.

Thanks, MNHQ

mrsde - i was researching ways of making feminism 'current' to young teenage girls (i ran a pathfinder programme through girl guides at the time) and came across plan canada.
so it was accidental really. i'm involved with lots of disability charities, but 'because i am a girl' struck a chord.
so i came at it from a feminism angle, rather than poverty or sponsorship per se. i still don't like it that the default position is sponsorship, but you can make one-off donations as well.

It looks really good but to be honest I don't think people have the money at the moment. If I could afford to commit I would consider this because it would be good to see the good my money was doing.

The video clip using a real mum and daughter instead of actors was a good idea.
The personal contact with letters and photographs is good.

However, I had never heard of Plan UK before today. £15 a month is also too expensive for my budget and a lot of people in this climate. Perhaps if people could pay £5 a month then they would receive more interest in Plan UK.

I agree that video is really good and very convincing. I do feel that £15 is too much for my family just now but would consider such a commitment later.

I feel a little uncomfortable about the whole concept of sponsorship. While I understand that the money helps the community as a whole I can't help but feel for the children's peers who are not sponsored and don't have western families receiving updates about them.

I love this idea, I will take the video link with me to work and see if I can get some interest there and I will ask for it for my birthday gift when my PILs ask me what I'd like as they usually do a donation to a charity of my choice.

We've been considering sponsoring a child for a little while, and while £15 a month doesn't seem a lot of money sometimes it's a real make or break amount for my own family which is why we've hesitated, particularly as it's a long term commitment and I really don't want to stop once I've started.

The video was nice but what I'd like to see is how it changes a child's life - what does your sponsorship do for them? I'd like to know where my money is going basically.

If we had lots of money then I would do this without a moment's hesitation, but I'm self employed, haven't had a great year and wouldn't want to commit to anything in this economic climate.

it is very impressive that this service can be offered to a child for this amount of money per month. i sponsor a child via another charity and it is double the amount for a similar amount of 'stuff'. if i hadnt made a long term commitment to the child throuhg the other one i'd be signing up immediately. the video i thought was quite compelling. our children are just so blessed.

That really is a fantastic video and it does seem a really great thing to do, however I am with the others that £15 per month is a HUGE commitment when my income is so low and I have my 3 children myself.
When I start working in a more stable full time job it is something that I will seriously consider and it is highly likely I would use Plan UK. It is something that my dc's would love too.
Good luck with the campaign, I do hope I could be a part of it in future.

Hello. We've just been contacted by PlanUK, who want to address the issues that tiredfeet raised on this thread. They've asked us to post up the following:

"tiredfeet, We're so sorry to hear you have had a disappointing experience with Plan. We take complaints extremely seriously and we were concerned to hear this.

"We would like to thank you so much for your interest in the campaign and for donating to our girls fund. We wanted to call everyone who donated to say thank you and to tell you more about the campaign. If we were unable to reach you, then we would have tried to call you again as we hoped to speak to as many people as possible. However, this should not have been to a level that was disruptive and please accept our apologies for this. If you were able to let us know more details about yourself, we could investigate this further to check whether any malpractice took place.

"Please be assured that we are determined to run things as efficiently as possible (70,000 volunteers worldwide help us to do so). At least 80p in every pound we spend is spent on supporting and developing our development work and only 20 pence is spent on administration and on raising a further pound."

Positives:

• The video is succinct and still full of relevant information.
• I feel that I've got a good idea of Plan's mission and aims by hearing them through a user's experience.
• It prompted me to think that, although I couldn't commit now, it might be more relevant to me in a few years anyway when the DCs are old enough to share it with.

Negatives:

• The financial commitment is too much at the moment. I wish I was a good enough human to sacrifice £15 of supplies for my own family each month so another child could benefit, but I'm just not. It's a lot of money to us.
• I also feel a bit uncomfortable with the 'lady bountiful' feeling which might come from sponsoring one child. Like Widgeon, I'd feel happier to donate to an entire community. This is one of the reasons that Water Aid get my bucks when I have any spare.

The video is good to see the benefits from a MEDC donor perspective, certainly seeing the series of photos/info but I'd like to see more about how that money is spent in the child's community.

The film emphasises that the commitment must be long term though, with those 10+ years worth of photos and the comment 'we've got six years to go' especially. As others have said £15 a month is a lot of money at the moment, and with so much financial uncertainty I think a long term commitment is too much for many people at the moment. Certainly we prefer to donate as and when, especially to emergency relief causes though I do have (small- £3 ish each) direct debits set up for 2 charities already, one international development focus.

The 'because I am a girl' campaign is good- my Rainbow unit took part in Girlguiding/Plan UK's joint project a couple of years ago :)

I enjoyed the video but would have liked to hear more about how the child and his/her community is helped, rather than the warm fuzzy glow it gives the sponsor (this is absolutely not a criticism of the mnetter btw - this is the angle chosen by the video maker).
I had not considered the long term nature of the scheme, however, which may backfire on Plan as this may make the viewer think twice about sponsoring a child - it's an awful lot of £15s! Perhaps people would prefer to donate money on a less personal basis, such as to a village or school, as you'd feel so guilty cancelling the sponsorship to an individual child (with whom you've exchanged letters, photos etc.) if you could no longer afford it.

Hi and thank you for the feedback from Plan.

In light of their comments I will try and find the time to contact them to explain why I was so fed up.

I used to work in the charity sector so care a lot about funds raised not being fritted away on admin, but I take the point this may not be their normal method.

Good idea in principle though but I think £15 a month would be stretching it for a lot of people in this uncertain climate

Hi and thank you for the feedback from Plan.

In light of their comments I will try and find the time to contact them to explain why I was so fed up.

I used to work in the charity sector so care a lot about funds raised not being fritted away on admin, but I take the point this may not be their normal method.

Good idea in principle though but I think £15 a month would be stretching it for a lot of people in this uncertain climate

I think the video is very good, it's quite a nice length, seems very natural and would encourage a lot of people to sign up.

Although I do give to charities, I often feel a bit suspicious of sponsorship schemes - I think it has been mentioned before, I would feel a bit worried about the other people in the family/village who haven't been sponsored. Although it is nice to receive regular updates on an individual child, I would rather give to a bigger project to cover more people. I think it is slightly irrational but I would also feel incredibly guilty if circumstances changed and I had to stop the monthly payments.

I love this idea but would it be possible to sponsor a family instead of an individual child? And how much would that cost?

I thought the video got across what they do well. But £15 is a lot to ask for. I currently support Barnardos and Shelter with monthly DDs and DH gives to Amnesty. I also support a local hospice, but all are smaller amounts.

For me, I also feel a bit uncomfortable with the sponsoring of one individual. And it made me wonder how much it costs to be sending quite so much info and letters to the sponsor, would that money be better spent in the community they are helping.

The video was very good, informative and interesting (well done lovelyMNer!). I would love to be able to do this, but our income is erratic and I couldn't make the commitment to £15 every month - sometimes I could but often I couldn't.

I have looked at the Because I'm a Girl campaign, and will probably go with that because a) it's more likely we could make the smaller amount each month and b) we could just give a lump sum when we can afford it.

If our income ever becomes stable and we have surplus I shall come back to look at sponsoring a child.

I like all the photos, I wonder if that's standard with Plan, as I think most sponsor-a-child systems don't have that many photos.

I agree with Babster that the video is a bit about the warm fuzzy glow the sponsors get when really I'm more interested in what the sponsored child and community get out of it. But I know what the video woman means, we do have a sponsor child and it's cos my dc can relate to a real child in a real place, and they love getting letters from him.

hello, i agree that the video is good and explains it all in an interesting way.

i also had not heard of Plan UK before seeing them on mumsnet, and perhaps more people will sign up in 2012 after the expense of christmas is over. £15 each month is a sizeable amount and sadly not possible for me at the moment.

I was impressed with the video. DH has just been made redundant but thankfully has another job and we had talked a lot about which charity we would like to support. I will click the link now to request more information because I too would like to know all about how a particular child gets help, whee the money goes etc before committing. I am definitely serious about getting involved with this though, looks like a great scheme and thanks for bringing it to my attention.

The video is really good and the sponsor also has a daughter the same age as her sponsored child. I would want to sponsor a child that was around the same age as my children. She has been a sponsor for so many years and obviously is very close to her sponsored child as is her own daughter. The video is also very warming and uplifting.

I don't like the concept of sponsoring an individual child, and would prefer to donate to projects for a particular village, with reports from a charity/link worker. I'd hate for a person to feel they had to provide things for their sponsor in return for the money tbh

Great video, like the child to child link. My husband sponsors through Plan International already so we are unable to sponsor further in this area. Once original sponsored child reached the maximum sponsorship age my husband was asked to re-sponsor which he was happy to do and was given the option of male or female, he felt very strongly that female children needed the financial help for many reasons.

As far as I know you are not tied in to sponsor for 16 years as is perhaps implied from the video. I'm sure that if you were unable to give whatever the recommended amount is, here seems to be £15, that WHATEVER anyone was able to give is so much better than nothing at all. After all if everyone thought "oh no I couldn't afford £15 but I'd feel silly asking if I could sponsor £5" then plan would lose out by refusing them.