Show me the money...PLEASE!

We adopted domestically as well. Here are the things we did to raise funds: 1. We asked our family and friends to give gifts to the 'baby fund' in lieu of presents at birthdays and Christmas. Many would give gifts 'just because' too. 2. We had two garage sales and told everyone who came (& in the paper ad) that we were raising money for an adoption. We got many 'keep the change' and some who outright gave us money. 3. We sold stuff on eBay and put in our prod descriptions and on our 'about me' that we were raising funds for an adoption. 4. We didn't do this, but have seen others raise money through Homemade Gourmet, Party Lite, Mary Kay programs where the distributor agreed to give part of the profits to you as the host. We found that while Ryan's adoption cost us about $14K, the biggest single check we wrote was for $2300 in finalization to attorney and they even offered to take payments. Our adoption was on the high side, most of our friends who adopted domestically paid less than $10K in fees. Hope this helps. Regina, AMom to Ryan Joshua Thomas

will try anythin and everything I can. we have been told to budget between 12k and 19k for our adoption, inc all fees, just to get a homestudy we are looking a6t $700, and the facilitator fee to get placed on the wait list is $8,700. Those are the two most urgent fees, after that we need the atty. and if baby is in our state we are looking at about 4k plus any sort of travel costs and so forth for misc. things. If baby is not from our state we are looking at sig. more for out of state atty, not to mention atty for **. I think the facilitator we are using offers loans, we jsut need to check more into it, we will check with them on Monday when we have a conference. Also I found a couple of pages that offer grants that we can apply for once our homestudy is complete. Thanks for the info will try a few things, but we don't have anything we could sell on e-bay. And we just got rid of a bunch of things through donation at the aslvation Army when I did spring cleaning so I can't really do a garage sale either. I will mention to our friends about $ instead of gifts for us but I really don't see that as a big source since we have such a big family we only buy gifts for the kids and so a gift exchange for the adaults, so that means there would only be 1 gist we would normally receive, and I don't think that gist would be much more than like $20 since that's the max we are supposed to spend. lol... I just have to laugh, gosh it seems like I haven't gotten anyfurther than square one huh? Maybe I can do sone fund raising? I am not exactly salesman material, but it's worth a try! let's me practice... would you like some lotion? How about a candle? Perhaps some tupperware? No you say, well how about a donation? What do you think. lol If anyone has any fund raising ideas please let me know like I said i'll try anything. And maybe I can get people to donate things for a garage sale. :O) thanks

We have processed three adoptions out of India in the past six years. Never once did we have a dime in the bank ahead of time for adoption. Here are some things we did as well as others I know in my area. You take one fee at a time. Concentrate on that one instead of looking at the whole picture. I noticed the fees you listed seem very high...have you checked out other agencies which are lower in cost. The facillitator fee you have listed for one child is more than I paid for three adoptions. So check around and get a good rate with a very reputable agency. Over the years we have started can/bottle collecting. We live in PA...but the deposit on bottles and cans is 5 cents in New York...only about an hour a way. We would collect pop bottles and cans from anyone who would have normally thrown them away...then take van loads to New York for the deposit. Sounds corny but you wouldn't believe how much money you can get. This method paid for our authentication costs for the dossier of our first daughter. Garage sales are a good route and of course advertise that they are for adoption expenses. Start a loose change jar. We have gone on vacation each year with a 7 member family on the amount of money that collects from loose change in the bottom of my purse. My friend went around to businesses where lots of men worked...she took orders for hoagies to be delivered at their lunch time once per month. Then we would get together the night before delivery and make them up. We had a great time doing this and she financed her entire adoption out of Pune India with hoagie sales... She didn't have one cent toward adoption when she started and a year later she flew to India to bring her little one home. Go to your local library and look for a book listing all grant organizations in your state. Then sort through them to find the ones who are permitted to give "grants to individuals". There are not many. In Pennsylvania out of thousands I found only thirty-three...but of those I sent a letter to every one. I got our third daughter's fees entirely paid for in grant money as well as an airline ticket to India. I sent a letter with Maya's photo...and then waited about a month then followed that letter up with a personal phone call. I couldn't believe the generosity of the organizations. What I did was list all expenses I needed help with and then highlighted only one per letter in the amount I was hoping to get from that particular organization. There is a wonderful site that I just happened to stumble across concerning adoption... [url]www.karensadoptionlinks.com[/url] or something close to that. If you go to [url]www.dogpile.com[/url] and type in adoption funding...the site I'm talking about will be one that is listed. Never ever let finances be the reason not to adopt. I am living proof that it can be done. My husband and I live on a very modest income. We now have adopted three times and have made it through financially each time without a loan. One last place you might be able to look is to you life insurance policy. If there is a cash value...most of the time you can borrow against it and then pay yourself back. If you belong to a church...have them do a love offering a few times on your behalf. A local private school near me does a car wash fundraiser with a twist. Instead of washing cars and getting each car to donate a few bucks to the cause...they instead seek out pledges ahead of time. For example...you ask people to pledge so much per car. Then on the day of the carwash...every car is washed for free. The cars go through an essembly line style washing...one person wets it down...the next two soap it up...the next two rinse it off etc. The object is to wash as MANY cars as possible on that day. Then the person goes back and collects the pledges from the people on their list. To give you an idea of this...one person pledges that they will pay 10 cents for every car washed and 200 cars get washed on that day...then the person owes 20 dollars. Get enough sponsors with pledges and it could raise some serious money. The private school here raises nearly 20,000 in one day. If you belong to a church...it would be a great project for the youth group. Advertise that it is a free car wash and that you are literally trying to put as many cars through as possible in one day. I hope some of this helps. I have made it my mission to keep records on inexpensive ways to adopt...as well as funding to help pay for it. If I can make it through adoption financially...anyone can. There are many ways to budget yourself at home so that you spend less. Tighten the belt to keep as much in the bank as possible. As a Christian person I found that prayer is a great way to receive what is needed for adoption. God has answered prayer for us to financially be able to bring another child into our home. He has blessed us with the means and know how to get through it. Everytime we needed money...He would provide. We trusted in God to see us through and He did. We are very blessed with the three little girls he placed into our home. Hope this helps...Karen in PA

Karen; :rolleyes: You got me thinking, we live in Washington and they don't pay very much for cans, but that is something that is easy to do and something is better than nothing. So I started calling anyone who would still be awake and asked them to start saving cans for us. I am making a list of anyone and everyone we know and asking them to help, and to see if they knwo anyone else that would too. My mom wroks at wal*mart and she has a lot of friends that would help, and maybe they will let her put a can in the break room for me too. I am also going to try our two local high schools, they may be able to help if not it didn't cost us anything. I called my husbands aunt and asked her and she said yes and that they would donate things to us to sell at a garage sale as well. But she says that her neighbor takes copper into Oregoen and recylces it. She says that he saves about a 55 gallon drum full and takes it in and gets anywhere between 600-900 dollars, I am going to try and do that too. That may take a while because though my husband is a plumber and uses it all the time his boss does the same. But maybe he would donate some to us. I am so excited! I have an I think ... no no I know we can feeling about this. :D Thanks so much for the idea, hopefully everything goes well. I can't do the loose change jar becasue we never use cash. We pay with our debit card. But the can thing really seems promising even if we nickle and dime it! Not to mention the copper thing! Thanks again to you and everyone.

On the top of each pop can there is a listing of states and the amount the deposit is worth in each state. This is on the plastic part above the label also on plastic 2 liter bottles and smaller. What we did was go to New York just across the line to a grocery store there...you can literally put can after can/bottle into a machine and it keeps a tally of how many you put in. When you are all done it prints out the amount you are to receive. Then you just go into the grocery store and cash it in. We would get nearly 100 each time we went. Think about it...only 20 discarded cans/bottles makes a dollar. AND you are saving the environment from the stuff going into a land fill!! In Washington state there are grants available. Check this out... AWL Charitable Foundation 275 Pine Forest Road Goldendale, WA 9820-three,three (my three won't work on the keyboard) 07. 509-77 three-six one four one (now my other buttons won't type numbers) Sorry. Contact person is Robert E. Morrow, Tr. They provide grants to individuals. You only have to write a letter...no deadlines. You also might want to look up Barbara Burke's site of Angelfire. She is from Washington state and has lots of great ideas for fundraising as well as grants. For the cans/bottles which do not have the 5 cent deposit...these can be crushed and taken for recycling according to their aluminum weight. Copper is very valuable so you are on the right track there. If you get the community effort into it...it is unbelievable how fast the money is available...keep it going to pay fee after fee until you are done. And...you will get an adoption done WITHOUT a loan. I wish you all the best. Please keep in touch...Karen Asche gkasche@usachoice.net Make sure your husband checks with his employer...many employer's have adoption money in the contract and you don't know if you don't ask.

great, will check out all the info Karen. I had my husband check out his employer because I had heard about that before we actually started and he said no, but he did say that he would help out by giving my husband a raise. I don't know how much they guy can be stingie* but he has a good heart too. On Monday I am going to call around to local plumbing co. and sak them to give me there copper, if they receyce themselves, I will ask for maybe a one time donation. I know that alluminum only pays 30cents a pound here and that copper pays like 64cents if it's clean. Cans wont bring in much but hey that's something we can easliy do and something is better than nothing. Thanks again for all the info will check out the stuff you told me about. and I'll keep you posted.

My husband and I haven't started our process yet for many reasons. We have however started thinking of was to earn money. The best one that comes to mind is if you are a part of any type of church, to ask for volunteers for car washes, host tailgate parties and sell ticket. Have a raffle. Those type of things.

Adoption Grants There are huge amounts of money in large Corporation Grants available on the East Coast. I have previously Adopted from both India and Guatemala and received a little under $79,000 per Adoption totally from Grants. What was left over after the Adoptions started Daughters College Funds. They are not listed under Adoption. They are listed under either Juvenile Dependency or Social Services. There is a lot of competition also! You have to figure out how to make your Family stand out from the rest! __________________ JuliannaTeresa This is in reply to JuliannaTeresa's posting. Can you give more specifics by any chance on these grants that are available and maybe contact info. any info you could pass on would be appreciated. thanks! Good luck to all out there.

There are several groups just for talking about raising funds Frugal Funding for Adoption [url]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FrugalFundingForAdoption/[/url] Fundraising - Twin Fund [url]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/twinfund/[/url] Funding - AdoptShare [url]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdoptShare/[/url] Fundraising for Adoption [url]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fundraisingforadoption/[/url] Also quite a few employers offer money for adoption

Awesome resource for fundraising -- at the Numinous Foundation (they do grants for intl adoptions and other special needs stuff) -- they sell a book on Adoption Fundraising with a TON of ideas and how-to's. They're at NuminousFoundation.org Best luck!

OOPS! guess that's [url]http://www.NuminousFoundation.org[/url]

thanks

Here are some sites that offer grants for adoption. [url]http://www.giftofadoption.org[/url] [url]http://www.potters-hands.org[/url] [url]http://www.nafadopt.org[/url] Best wishes Shawnna