Which Waiting List?

Tonight I wondered if the day would ever come where Compassion International could flip from having hundreds and thousands of children waiting for sponsors to hundreds and thousands of individuals and families waiting to sponsor children.

Just consider that the National Football League has enjoyed success in selling out many of their venues from season ticket sales alone. Some teams have legendary waiting lists that number thousands of names and stretch into decades long waits. Some teams changed their waiting list policy to require a $50 annual maintenance fee to remain on the waiting list. However, due to the long list of names and high renewal rates among existing ticket holders, there was uncertainty about the fees a person may possibly have to pay if they remained on the list for many years.

The Green Bay Packers have the most famous waiting list with names well past the 70,000 mark. Turnover is generally low with as few as 70 tickets becoming available each year. It is a common custom in Green Bay to put a baby's name on the list as soon as the birth certificate is obtained. The Washington Redskins have the most number of names on their waiting list at over 150,000.

The Washington Redskins waiting list was started the year I was born 1966. There are 155,000 names on the waiting list. The average wait for tickets is 30 years. If each of those individuals donated their annual $50 for 30 years that would total $1,500 per person. It costs $32.00 per month to sponsor a child through Compassion International which equals $384 per year. With $1,500 one individual could sponsor a single child for almost 4 years. Just imagine if those 155,000 individuals each sponsored one child for 4 years. And if all the thousands of people on waiting lists with other teams did the same.

Would we then be able to go from a list of children waiting to be sponsored to a list of waiting sponsors? And what about the price of those tickets once your name is at the top of the list? How many children could that money have helped? One ticket is often more than a year’s worth of sponsorship. Are we really sitting around waiting for tickets that may not materialize in our life times or are we willing to get off the side lines and help eliminate the waiting for a child on the perpetual waiting list?