How Fundraising Makes Us Successful
Behind every nonprofit is a team of individuals who believe in the work that they do. Without that team and their donation of time and resources, a nonprofit cannot survive. Absolute Love is no different.
Non-profits that exist in the for-profit adoption space face unique challenges…
- Most adoption agencies are large, for-profit organizations.
- These nationwide, profit-driven agencies flood the marketing space with thousands of dollars obtained through high service fees (as much as $80,000!), effectively hijacking Google search results. This means local moms needing support are either (1) being pulled outside of their area to receive services (more on that in our blog about transporting moms out of state) or (2) are receiving no services from a real human case worker, in real life.
- These agencies work outside of the state in which they are licensed. Or they achieve licensure, only to set up satellite offices in shared workspaces without actually having a human available to serve local clients.
- These practices are especially problematic in PA, as our state doesn’t have laws that protect vulnerable women from these predatory practices. (Good news: our agency is working on this with lawmakers!)
- For-profit agencies can charge huge fees in this privatized industry. This takes advantage of hopeful adoptive parents who will pay these high fees just to have a child, and it takes advantage of expectant moms who are in a desperate situation.
Adoption is so complex and has a lifelong impact on all who are involved. We believe that for adoption work to be done well, it should solely be the job of nonprofit social services providers trained in social work, mental health, family systems, and grief and loss.
Absolute Love strives to do our work with intentionality and integrity. We pride ourselves on being accessible, ethical, collaborative, and well-informed. We aim to do our work rooted in the National Social Work Core Values, and to deliver care that protects and empowers our clients during one of the most vulnerable experiences in their lives.
Why does Absolute Love fundraise?
The short answer is because we need to.
For-profit agencies are income focused.
Non-profit agencies are service focused.
This means that we are reliant on community support in volunteering and donations to achieve our mission. Our proceeds support our staffing to complete our work, but are also necessary to reinvest in the mission. To maintain our nonprofit status, we are also required by law to secure a certain percentage of our funding from donations.
What does your money raised from fundraising go towards?
Birth Mom Expenses
While all of our clients are important, we prioritize expectant mom/birth mom care. Pregnancy is difficult, and an unexpected pregnancy is life-altering. Making a permanent choice while emotions are high is impossibly difficult, and doing so under the pressure of a due date enhances the stress. Our goal is to provide expectant parents considering adoption with unbiased information so that they can decide on what is right for them and their baby. If they choose to place their child for adoption, we will support them through that decision.
However, in delivering care to moms, we strive to understand who they are and what their holistic needs are for wellness, not just related to pregnancy. Often, women are “putting out other fires” during pregnancy, such as mental or physical health challenges, food or housing insecurity, financial strain, lack of support system, or even domestic violence or incarceration. All of these challenges influence their adoption decision, and they usually need community resources and support to manage these during pregnancy, and after.
Absolute Love Adoptions does not pay for any of these resources – Unlike other states, Pennsylvania law dictates that adoptive family expenses can include only legal and medical expenses related to pregnancy and adoption (for good reason, as it reduces the risk of coercion in adoption). When our clients have needs, our team spends hours and hours researching, networking, and setting up appointments to build a network for the expectant mom in their communities.
What does this look like?
If an expectant mother needs a ride to a doctor’s appointment, our social worker may seek to connect her to organizations that provide bus passes so that she can independently meet this need. Of course, some of our visits with her include transporting and accompanying her to these appointments, so that she has the physical support. But ultimately, mom needs to be successful after placement, and the way to achieve stability is in resources. Having her reliant on us or our dollars isn’t sustainable.
For-profit agencies don’t work this way. Rather, they provide lump sums of “birth parent expenses” to mom as a way to put a band aid on her resource deficits. While effective immediately, once a placement occurs and the agency withdraws, mom is back to where she was before adoption.
Our fundraising money ensures our clients have a network when we are done with their care plan.
Further, many women consider adoption for many weeks, or even months, before deciding they’d like to parent. Once basic needs are met, parenting feels doable. In those cases, our hours of social work and resource brokering provide a mom with enough support and confidence to parent. This is absolutely a success. In the adoption industry, however, that means the work related to that mom is not paid for by an adoptive family and their placement fees. As a nonprofit, our fundraising money allows us to do this work without connecting it to adoptive parent fees, meaning this work is sustainable and not reliant on an adoption happening.
What else does fundraising money go towards?
Education
Our course, A Tale of 2 Mothers has become a critical component of our education process for home study families, as well as for families completing the course outside of our program. The course was designed to reduce the fear associated with open adoption. The course also helps support adopting families understand their own motivations to adopt and their beliefs around parenthood, and provide them with tools to enter an adoption relationship with confidence and competence. The data in post-course evaluation confirms that 100% of participants achieve this goal with our course.
Since creating A Tale of 2 Mothers, we have identified additional educational gaps in our own curriculum and in the larger adoption education available to families, and we are working to create additional courses to fill those gaps. The creation of such courses is incredibly time-consuming and demanding on the Absolute Love team resources.
SOLACE
Our SOLACE gift boxes are a line of locally crafted care packages for birth moms. They offer recognition and comfort to birth mothers as they process the lifelong grief of placing a child for adoption.
It’s easy for the focus to be taken off the birth mother after birth. The focus goes with the baby. The birth mom often feels as though she fades into the background. For us, a large part of our job is providing care and comfort to the mom as she works through these difficult experiences and defines her life after placement. Just because her pregnancy is over doesn’t mean we stop offering care. Fundraising money allows us to give these boxes to birth moms, so every mom can feel cared for.
We have found that, beyond our clients receiving boxes, the majority of boxes are distributed to mothers with whom we did not provide placement services. This is achieved through a community nomination form. Anyone who knows a birth mom and wants her to receive this “hug in a box” can nominate her to receive a box. When we receive a donation, we distribute these boxes. In the years we’ve distributed boxes, the most profound acknowledgement from a mother was one who called in tears, saying our SOLACE gift was the first time in the 20 years since placement that she was acknowledged as a mother.
Post Placement Fund
Legally in Pennsylvania, adoptive families only cover expenses of birth mom that relate to medical or legal expenses, and only up until the adoption is finalized. But we don’t stop showing up for a birth mom once the adoption is finalized, either.
We reserve donation funds to support birth mothers as needs arise after placement.
These needs we’ve funded have included:
- Airfare for a birth mom to travel for her first annual visit with her child. (Note, a post placement agreement should never involve a birth mother funding travel to see her child! Most women are not financially stable, hence adoption, so asking them to secure funds to travel is unreasonable. Adoptive families are always financially stable, and this support for mom to visit should be shared by them.)
- Counseling not covered by medical insurance. We have also paid for a psychiatric evaluation, as the wait time for providers accepting insurance was nearly a year, and mom was in crisis. Also, sometimes there are no adoption-competent therapists in mom’s area that accept insurance. We ensure she gets the mental health services she needs.
- Retreats: Organizations like On Your Feet Foundation and The Ampersand Initiative coordinate retreats for birth moms. Often these holistic retreats are the first time some birth moms get to meet and build a relationship with other birth moms. They are crucial to healing. We have provided funds for coordination, as well as sent SOLACE packages for attendees.
So…why not just raise your prices?
Have you ever noticed that a tablecloth has a price on it, let’s say $20. If the maker labels it a “wedding tablecloth” then the price doubles or triples. Even though there is an unnecessary mark up, people will still purchase the tablecloth! Much like the wedding industry, the adoption industry tends to mark up fees simply because it can. People are going to adopt despite the cost – even if it means they take major financial hits like remortgaging their home or withdrawing from retirement funds. Because of this, the industry often targets vulnerable adoptive families’ wallets.
Even though the industry has normalized this, Absolute Love does not participate in this practice. As we often say, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
We pride ourselves on keeping expenses well below the national average, and in line with other small, nonprofit agencies.
Beyond fundraising
Our mission is to create an adoption conscious community – meaning that we need to see more care providers, teachers, and community members who understand adoption, and its impact on family systems, particularly if it impacts the work you are doing. (How many nurses see clients who are adopted? How many teachers have adoptees in their classrooms?)
The more awareness around adoption, the more we can push the industry to reform, and the more we can create spaces where adoptees and adoptive families feel seen.
Pretty cool, huh?
We hope you will join our mission by supporting us!
If you choose to support us financially, give here. THANK YOU!
