How do you make your program more interesting to this potential sponsor than the tens of hundreds of other child-sponsor programs? How do you convince someone that the needs of your kids are great enough to warrant their attention, and their money?

The usual routines, which I’ve seen used, are to take photos of children when they’re looking especially woebegone, poverty-stricken, or sad. And offer those children up to be sponsored. You describe the economic climate of the area you’re serving, focusing on how desperate and without resources it is.

You emphasize how poor, and how without all-the-things-that-children-merit your kids are. You emphasize how important your project is to the future of these children.

I didn’t think about any of these things as I wrote my letter to my friends and family asking them to donate or become a sponsor. I just wrote about how hard life is for some families here in San Pedro La Laguna, especially for single mothers, or women who’ve taken in the child of another family member (daughter, sister, brother). And how appreciative the moms are for the relatively small basket of food we give them every six weeks; how excited the kids are to have new pants, shirts and shoes for Feria. I wrote about our classes to teach the children to draw and paint, encouraging their imaginations and creativity while increasing their self-esteem, as well as future potential earning-power in this town known for its artists.

I talked about the life these kids lead—helping their mom carry wash to and from the lake, where the family bathes; carrying firewood from the mountains to feed the cooking fire; living in one room with several family members. Very few kids in this pueblo use outhouses or fetch water from a community tap, as occurs in the nearby pueblo of my other project. But toilets can be makeshift structures behind a curtain off the kitchen or patio; water in the tap is cold and not really clean. There’s mold on the walls of the rooms in the rainy season, and leaks in the roof. (Heck, I have those in my rented house!)

I wrote about the things that touch my heart. And I took photos of the kids that delighted me: Romeo hunched over his drawing board seated on top of a rock by the lake; three girls sitting in a boat while they painted; a boy in rapt attention while our director showed him a drawing technique.

I love these kids. They are as bright and sweet and sometimes sad, or as pesky as any kids anywhere, and they deserve an outing at times, a refreshment, a chance to stretch their wings. They deserve to learn and be appreciated.

I hope that love comes across.

I hope it’s enough.

Mira Talbot-Pope is currently volunteering with Ayudame a Pintar Mi Futuro.  For more on her adventures, check out her blog. For a different take on the ethics of poverty marketing, read “Photo Project Puts Poverty Into Perspective.“

I talk about Guatemalan culture and history, and tell stories about my life and the people I’ve met here. And I talk about the projects and what they are doing for the people they benefit.

I love the buying, selling and the talking about what I see and feel in Guatemala; so in many ways it’s no effort, except for hauling around the full suitcases, through airports, taxis, bus and train stations.

I’ve done small benefits at house parties and church service social hours, and last year we threw a big benefit dinner in conjunction with the students in the high school Spanish classes — good food, first class service and live music to boot. From this dinner and the sales, we were able to buy a photocopier for the office of the school – a huge boon to the teachers, who had been copying work for the students by hand.

My last visit home we did an art show at a local restaurant– with paintings by the painters I work with in APMF — as well as two house parties, a church social, a booth at a fair, and a sale at a bilingual preschool Mother’s Day event. My goal was to get enough donations to build a climbing structure for the preschool classrooms in the barren yard next to the classrooms and the director’s office. And joyfully, we met that goal.

It seems as though the consistency of my appearances in my hometown, the feedback and thank you letters I write to donors, and my ongoing work in these two projects in Guatemala has had some effect. After this visit to the States, one person who has helped considerably with the benefits is offering to make APMF a project of the NGO she’s connected with, which also helps in Belize and Haiti. This will enable us to have official status, give tax deductions for larger donations, and perhaps to receive funding from other organizations. This is very important for us as it would cost us nearly $1000 to do this for ourselves in Guatemala.

Then another friend has offered to push forward a “Friends of…” group in our hometown, to help us raise money more consistently, and encourage sponsorships for the kids in our program.

I am really excited about both these steps forward, which can only allow us to give better services to our client families in San Pedro and the children of the San Pablo preschool.

So I guess my message is, stick with it. Consistency and duration pay off.

Miranda Pope is currently living in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala and is volunteering with Pedagogia Basica, Estamos Listos, and Ayudame Escribir Mi Futuro. For more on her experiences, check out her blog. For more on fundraising, read “Organizing Fundraisers at Home and Abroad” by Kim Friedland; “How to Fundraise With No Funds” by Andrea Vogler; and “Need Some Cash? Top 10 Ways to Fundraise” by Laurie Norton.