The Dangers of Sponsorship

There has been a lot of chatter on sponsorship. It has become the term to throw out in various conversations. Who may or may not have a sponsor. For those who have been out of the loop the term sponsor in our society has now been extended to mean a person, who is not your family or spouse (though they may be somebody else’s) who is taking care of all of some of your monetary requirements usually in exchange for a “relationship”. I gave a talk to university students this weekend and I asked them what do they want out of life. Normal responses you would expect were thrown out such as financial security, experience the world, progress in a business or career, take care of parents, personal fulfillment etc. However one of the responses was to be a sponsor. The young man wanted to be the one people are coming to request for sponsorship. Everybody laughed but later I did get to speak to a couple of people about this topic. We may laugh at it but it is honestly a way of life that many young people are considering as an option. Now I’m not here to get into the morality of the whole issue. But from a financial perspective let me address some of the dangers I see with being sponsored or being a sponsor. This is also relevant for those who have illegally helped themselves to other sorts of sponsorships e.g. our taxes or bribes.

On the surface it may look good. You can imagine being young and even in college. You can afford to dress well, travel and drive a decent car. You have discretionary income to do what you want. You can eat out, go out and entertain yourself well. You may have even been put up in an apartment for the convenience of your sponsor. However in life I have learnt that nothing is for free. Everything comes at a cost. Even though it may seem good you are in fact getting a very raw deal. Something is slowly and unnoticeably been stolen away from you. You may be watching another person in the same college. They survive on the allowances they get and maybe even sell sandwiches to get some extra money. They can’t go out to the places you do and don’t get to go to Dubai on holiday. They save for a full year to afford the bus ticket to the Coast. You feel sorry for them because you think your sponsor is the escape from all that. However they are rapidly gaining the same thing you are losing. Confidence in your own God given ability to make life work for you and ability to cherish and celebrate the journey. No amount of money can buy this. No brand of clothes or car can create this for you. No holiday can override the insecurity that comes with knowing that your next holiday depends on somebody else to grant it. Meanwhile the kid who sold sandwiches learns to make their first ten, then twenty then thirty thousand shillings by themselves. They learn to sell and communicate. That confidence gives them an edge when they go and look for a job. There is fulfillment in taking that bus to the Coast because it is just the first step of the many things that they can do. If you buy into being sponsored you are buying into dependency. I have seen people who got into this way of life in their twenties and have never been able to shake it off even in their forties. Things will look good on the surface but you will suffer the discontentment that comes from not watering the seed that you came into this world with. There is nobody who does not want to discover and fulfill his or her potential.

As for the sponsor you will have played a part in robbing someone of a part of their life. Helped start or continue a cycle that they may never break. But the sponsor also loses something. As we said everything comes at a cost. I have given some talks where people have told me that a line item in the budget should be this “sponsoree”. So obviously it’s expensive. But after talking to various people, over time the problem is deeper than that or just the immediate gratification that comes from this relationship. It’s the temporary validation that comes with someone requiring or needing something from you. The danger however is that this ‘need’ starts to define you. The more you feel needed the better you feel about yourself (and you ignore the things about yourself you know you need to be working on). When you don’t feel needed you are back to being insecure. People who have been honest with me, say it does not feel great to know that the only reason people are with you is what you can give them rather than who you are. It can be masked but that unsettled feeing is always there. If the young man I mentioned above starts life out by being a sponsor that’s what he will know. For people to like him it means he must spend more money and buy more things. There are people who are always upgrading cars for the same reason. No matter how much money they have, sponsors are not people living life on their own terms. Other people’s opinions, whether it’s through need or admiration, have become the drug. The motivation. That’s not freedom. That’s slavery camouflaged in designer clothes. This same drug is the one that literally ensures that most do not become truly wealthy. Think about it if you are busy spending money on other people you won’t have time how to figure out how to make money work for you. If you are busy pleasing other people you don’t have time to figure out what has true meaning to you and pursue that. Then you wonder why your neighbour is happier even if they have less money and no sponsorship burdens.

Don’t do sponsorship. Don’t do being sponsored. You are robbing yourself. There really is benefit in delayed gratification. Do you.

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Waceke Nduati-Omanga runs programs on Personal Finance Management, Entrepreneurship and Career Success. 

Find her at waceken@centonomy.com| twitter @CekeNduati| Facebook.com/CekeNduati