Frequently asked questions

Our unique sponsorship program offers disadvantaged students comprehensive support. You can feel confident that 100% of your sponsorship dollars benefit your student, going directly towards purchasing essential school items for your student (such as uniforms, shoes, books, stationery and covering excursion costs), and contributing to our Learning for Life workers who provide support and connect disadvantaged students and their families with learning opportunities in their local community. 

Your sponsorship also gives your student motivation just by showing that someone they haven't met cares enough to invest in their future.

Sponsorships are for students of all abilities - as long as they are attending school regularly. Priority is given to primary school age children and applicants must

• live or study in a community where sponsorships are available
• the parent or carer must have a current health care card or pensioner concession card and
• the student must demonstrate a commitment to education by attending school at least 90% of the time.

Learning for Life Workers are located in communities where Learning for Life operates. There are more than 133  Learning for Life Workers currently working in 97 locations across Australia. They are trained professionals with various backgrounds such as education, social work or psychology. Learning for Life Workers are teamed with the students and their families to link them to support programs offered by The Smith Family and other local agencies or community groups. Learning for Life Workers try to build community capacity by collaborating with local groups and organisations to ensure that the services delivered are relevant and meet the needs of the individual community.

When you become a sponsor, you will receive:

• Your New Sponsor Welcome Kit - containing all the necessary information about your sponsorship.
• Your student's Profile - completed by your student to introduce themselves to you. This is updated annually, and sent to sponsors during the second half of the year.
• Our newsletter - Real people, real stories. As part of The Smith Family you'll hear about the success of the sponsorship program and the impact your support is having for thousands of disadvantaged Australian families.

You can also write to your student - many sponsors and their students find this an extremely rewarding part of the program.

As you would appreciate, becuase sponsors are are sponsoring an Australian child, surnames, addresses and photographs cannot be shared for privacy and child protection reasons.

Most of our students exit because they complete their studies. However, there are other scenarios that result in a student leaving such as a move overseas, or because they have not met the ongoing requirements of the partnership. If this is the case, a sponsor will be contacted and given the opportunity to sponsor another disadvantaged Australian student.

Learning for Life began as a pilot at the suggestion of families in 1988 with 60 students receiving support from The Smith Family. In 1991 we introduced the sponsorship program which is in existence today.

Each year we have been able to increase the number of students receiving support. Today we support over 33,000 disadvantaged Australian students in 97 communities.

Before a child can be sponsored, we need to know that there is a sponsor willing to help. Signing up a new student can take up to six weeks. We will send you details of your sponsored student as soon as they have joined Learning for Life. In the meantime, your sponsorship donations will be held in trust for the benefit of your sponsored child.

100% of your sponsorship dollars will benefit your sponsored student. Each family receives financial support to help purchase essential school items for your sponsored student such as uniforms, shoes, books, stationery and the costs of excursions.  In addition your sponsored student is teamed with one of our Learning for Life workers whose role is to help the students fully participate in their education.

Our 100% commitment is made possible through the generosity of like minded Australians such as yourself, as well as a number of innovative ways we cover our overheads, including: 

• Operating a Recycling Operation which collects and recycles clothes and textiles which generates valuable profits to offset our administration costs.
• Benefitting from more than 7,800 generous volunteers who donate 340,000 hours of their time, saving us $10.5 million each year in labour costs.
• Extensive support from more than 200 Corporate supporters, Universities, Trusts and Foundations, through contributions that reduce many costs such as legal and financial services, research, software licences and road transport deliveries.
• Using email and web-based communications where possible and encouraging direct debit or credit card payments to reduce communication costs.
• Carefully selecting the communities we are based in so we can focus our efforts where they'll make the most difference.
• Basing our Learning for Life workers in schools in many of our communities which helps to reduce office costs.

If you pay annually, you will receive a tax receipt within 5 business days after we receive your payment. If you pay by regular instalments (direct debit or credit card), you will receive a tax receipt covering all your annual donations in July each year.