$1.4B Christian Charity Kept Sponsor Who Asked a Teen for a Bikini Photo Amid Donor-Loss Fears: Report

Compassion International, a Christian child sponsorship charity with an annual budget of about $1.4 billion (£1.04 billion), kept a sponsor who asked a Filipina teenager for a bikini photograph in 2022. In September 2026, its vice president of risk management warned that ending sponsors' letters would cause some donors to stop giving, according to internal documents, the charity, and a whistleblower.

The sponsor, a 75-year-old identified only as Wayne, wrote to the girl in August 2022. 'Would you send me picture of you wearing a bikini or a bathing suit?' he asked, adding, 'I couldn't help but notice your very pretty legs!!!'

The letter appears in an internal report obtained by The Roys Report, a Christian investigative news site.

Compassion spokesman Tim Glenn said reviewers intercepted the letter. Staff spoke to Wayne, who apologised, and he went on sponsoring the girl at $43 (£32) a month until she graduated from the programme in December 2024.

Wayne was still sponsoring seven female participants as of 7 October 2026, according to Andrew Vezey, a former Compassion analyst who resigned on 13 October 2026.

Hundreds of Letters Flagged

Since 2018, Wayne has sponsored 128 children and young adults, 122 of them female, Vezey said. An AI screening tool built partly by Vezey flagged more than 400 of his letters to 60 of them for suspected grooming. The scan showed he told a 16-year-old Haitian girl she had a 'lovely figure' and, months later, tried to persuade her to contact him privately, outside Compassion's system.

Compassion did not immediately respond when The Roys Report asked whether any of those 400 letters were stopped.

A grant-funded scan in spring 2026 checked up to 20 digital letters per sponsor written between August 2018 and May 2026. Handwritten letters, about half the total, were excluded.

The scan logged 25,810 suspected grooming cases involving more than 20,000 of Compassion's roughly 1.5 million sponsors. The Colorado Springs-based charity reaches about 2.4 million children.

On 1 May 2026, Vezey sent his findings to senior staff. Investigator Jason Pearson replied, 'I am also ashamed and dismayed that so many of the examples of letters you have found were never reported or stopped.' James Hansen, vice president of risk management, promised to take the matter to the executive team.

Executive Warned Cutting Letters Would Cost Sponsors

Vezey spent months urging the charity to stop unvetted sponsors writing to children. In a September 2026 message, Hansen wrote, 'The reality is that we cannot just cut off letter-writing.'

Hansen said doing so 'would cause a percentage of those sponsors to stop sponsoring,' adding that it could have 'a devastating impact' on children who lost their sponsors.

Vezey said the charity pushed letter-writing because it believed it 'drove supporter retention'. President and chief executive officer Jimmy Mellado told staff in 2025 that sponsorship revenue was flattening, and in June 2026 the charity laid off or demoted 50 US-based employees.

Vezey said sponsors flagged for suspected grooming have not been removed. In spring 2026, he said, senior product manager John Edom told him not to send flagged letters to investigators because staff did not know how to confront the sponsors.

'We're being told we can take no action because there's no business process in place,' Vezey said.

Compassion Disputes the Whistleblower's Account

Compassion called the scan a 'training test' of 'old letters' already checked by translators and church workers overseas. Glenn said they stopped almost 45,000 inappropriate letters out of nearly 20 million over that period and that the charity is halfway through a 10-step review of sponsor letters.

It also said Vezey likely 'didn't understand the complexity of all of Compassion's child safeguarding efforts.'

Vezey said translators see one letter at a time, while grooming builds across many. 'A translator is not going to see that pattern over 20 letters,' he said.

On 26 October 2026, 10 days after The Roys Report sought comment, a law firm representing Compassion wrote to Vezey asking him to stop sharing internal documents and return all copies. It warned that 'Compassion is prepared to take the steps needed to protect this information and the people it concerns,' including by seeking injunctive relief.

Vezey said he followed the charity's whistleblower policy. 'It's still the right thing to do,' he said.