Adoption Fundraising Idea: T-shirt Sales

        We all know adoption is expensive  (unless you do the foster-to-adopt route). Many of the organizations that offer grants want to see that you have done some fundraising on your part. This post is going to discuss a great new t-shirt fundraising site called Modfund (they give more per shirt to your fund than many other t-shirt fundraisers), show an example of an adopting family who has an active Modfund campaign, and invite you to share links to any fundraising campaign that you might have so that we can all help each other out!



        We know that everyone loves a good t-shirt... that's why t-shirt fundraisers are so great. The problem with many t-shirt fundraising sites are that YOU need an element of creativity: you are in charge of designing your shirt. If you are a creative person, this is not a problem. But for many of us, coming up with a design that people will actually pay money for and want to wear can be a major hurdle. This is why ModFund is genius (no, I don't have any personal ties to them and am not being paid to promote them). You tell them about your cause (in this case, your adoption) and why you are trying to raise support and funds, and THEY will design your shirt! They will be in charge of design, inventory, shipping, everything. You just have to promote your shirt using a link they will send you. At the end of the selling period, they email you a check for 50% of all profits. And, by the way 50% is pretty generous. I've seen several campaign sites that sell shirts for $20 and give $3 to the cause fund, or that want you to price your t-shirt for $25 if you want to make $10-$12 per shirt. Another big perk is that ModFund uses Bella+Canvas, which is comparable in both fit and quality to American Apparel (and SO much better than some of the other big name t-shirt brands that most t-shirt campaign sites use).
       Here is an example of a current adoption fundraising campaign using Modfund: http://www.modfund.com/product/tygeradoption/

    The Tygers are currently in their homestudy process, which is a great time to start fundraising. Since nearly all grant programs require you to have an approved homestudy before applying for funds, but also want to see that you have done some fundraising yourself, starting early allows you to tap into as many sources of funding as possible. Their adoption journey is going to be quite different than ours, as they are seeking to adopt through a special needs program in China. They are also blogging through their adoption, and you can find their page here: http://www.fortheloveofone.com/. The story behind their shirt slogan is that We started this journey "for the love of one" of the millions of orphans in the world. That is another one of the great things about Modfund's process-- even though they take charge of designing your shirt for you, they do welcome you to give them some ideas and preferences for anything from shirt color or ink color to specific words or phrases or graphics. I ordered my For the Love of One shirt this week, and when I receive it I will give you an update about the quality of ModFund's product. They print all of their shirts on Bella+Canvas, so I have no doubt that they will be great!

    So, now that we are on the other side of our adoption, here is one of the big things I want to use this blog for: let's help each other out! If you have a fundraiser going on somewhere, whether it is an Etsy shop or another t-shirt fundraising site or you start a ModFund fundraiser, post about it in the comments or use the email box to the right to shoot me a message. I'm going to create a page of current fundraisers so that we can all share links and support each other's fund raising efforts. I love me a good t-shirt, so you'll probably be able to count on me for an order! :)

   Happy Fundraising!