Around the Christmas holidays, many charities send out gift guides. These guides feature many different ways to be generous and help people in need. But what really happens when you give a gift? Do charity Christmas gift guides really make a difference?
At Compassion, we invite you to give through Gifts of Compassion. Our gift guide is uniquely designed to be a meaningful and impactful giving experience for you that meets real needs expressed by the communities we serve. Here’s some more insight into Gifts of Compassion and how your gift makes a difference!
Compassion’s gift guide: Three types of gifts
Accompanying some gifts in our Gifts of Compassion gift guide, you’ll notice a note that indicates that your gift will go towards a cause, such as the Income Generation Fund or Safety and Stability Fund. Other gifts will go towards a specific need, and still others will display a progress bar on them! What does this all mean?
There are three types of gifts in our Gifts of Compassion gift guide:
1. Cause gifts
When you give to a fund, such as the Education & Training Fund or the Safety & Stability Fund, you give a cause gift! Cause gifts help meet the most pressing needs our local church partners face in their communities.
The word “fund” might make it sound like cause gifts are sitting in a bucket somewhere, but rest assured that it’s quite the opposite: cause gifts address urgent needs identified by our local church partners and help them stay on their toes. This “fund” model enables us to respond to needs as they emerge within our church partners’ communities.
2. Focused need gifts
Focused need gifts help meet needs that our local church partners regularly identify for the children and families we serve around the world. These are gifts like nutritious food for families, backyard farming, mosquito-borne disease prevention, access to clean water and more.
You’ll notice that these gifts don’t indicate the specific country or community that will be impacted. Because these gifts are so common, they could go to almost any of our 9,000 local church partners around the world at any time, depending on their needs. This ensures that children and families are getting exactly what they need, exactly when they need it.
3. Specific gifts
Unlike cause gifts or focused need gifts, specific gifts meet a — you guessed it — specific need identified by one or a small group of our local church partners. In this case, we know the specifics of exactly where your gift is going and how big the need is.
For example, one of our specific gifts this year is providing Solar Energy for 5 Compassion Centres in Ethiopia. Many rural communities across Ethiopia have limited access to electricity, an obstacle that hinders our local church partners from providing their communities with much-needed programming and support. In total, this initiative will cost $67,650 and provide five Compassion centres in rural Ethiopia with reliable solar energy, reaching over 1,800 children and their families. Through Gifts of Compassion, you can contribute a gift of $50, $150 or even provide for one whole centre ($13,530).
You might also notice that these gifts have a progress bar on them — this lets us track our progress toward meeting specific needs together. Once a specific gift reaches its goal, we won’t be raising funds for it anymore. Instead, we’ll add new gifts that address needs identified by our local church partners. That means not every gift you see in our gift guide will be available forever. So, if you see something you want to give towards, make sure to do it sooner rather than later!
Have more questions? Get in touch with us. Someone from our team would be happy to chat with you.
Gifts of Compassion Cause Gifts
The Gifts of Compassion gift guide is broken down into six categories, each representing a different cause:
Education and Training
When you give to the Education and Training Fund, you provide children and youth in poverty with access to learning resources, educational opportunities and spiritual education and discipleship, equipping them for futures free from poverty. This includes computers and essential learning materials, tuition for vocational training, college or university, as well as opportunities to grow in faith, character and hope.
Income Generation
When you give to the Income Generation Fund, you provide families living in poverty with resources to earn an income — things like livestock, seeds, skills training and more. This gift keeps giving, as it helps families overcome the desperation that lack of skills, resources and opportunities creates, and gives them the stability they need to build a future.
Moms and Babies
Did you know that most of the millions of children who die every year do so in their first year of life from preventable causes? When you give to the Moms and Babies Fund, you can change this tragic reality. Your gift provides tangible care and life-saving support for moms and babies living in poverty. This includes prenatal healthcare, checkups, critical medical care, desperately needed food and newborn essentials.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Health and Wellness
When you give to the Health and Wellness Fund, you provide children and their families with the resources to meet their most critical health needs and prevent disease and health complications in the future. This fund covers things such as mosquito nets, dental kits, food for malnourished children, access to medical care and preventative health education for children, youth and families.
Safety and Stability
Together, we can see needs, care for children, lift up communities and love one another.
Discover how through Gifts of Compassion.
Last updated October 2026. Originally published September 2024.
