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!

Unexpected expenses

   The reality of adoption is that it is unpredictable. Every situation is different. Every agency handles expenses differently. So, this post may not ever be helpful to anyone, but here is what is going on with us right now.

Birthmother expenses state by state

      As a follow up my post earlier this week about choosing an ethical agency, I am going to write about another issue that I have been researching: Is it unethical to pay birthmother expenses*? Obviously we will assume the responsibility of medical bills that aren't covered by her insurance or medicaid, but what about those who are asking for help with living expenses such as rent, phone bills, groceries, maternity clothing, or gas money? What about those who are asking for a specific amount of money without giving specifics about what that money is needed for? Is that getting too close to baby buying? Is it coercive because now she feels indebted to the PAPs?

Adoption loans

     A couple of weeks ago I did a post on the various adoption grants that are available, and promised a follow-up regarding loans. Here is that follow-up!

The 2015 adoption tax credit

  I promise that I will do a post on adoption loans (update: here it is!), as I had said I was working on in this post on adoption grants. Things have been a bit busy around here with my husband spending a couple months working in the trauma unit and me still teaching 4 classes online. But, something came across my radar this week from the Adoptive Families site that I wanted to do a quick post about: the government increased the adoption tax credit! Before you get too excited, they only increased it by $200-- but every little bit helps, right? I figured that I would do a brief overview of the tax credit for those who are in the "how the heck are we going to afford this?" stage, like we are.

Side note: TurboTax software has all of the prompts needed for using the Adoption Tax Credit! So, if you like to do your own taxes, download the Deluxe package from Amazon here http://amzn.to/1KZYHvA and you will be able to put in all of your adoption info, relatively headache free! I was pleasantly surprised!

Adoption grants

    For most of us, coming up with the $20,000-$60,000 needed for adoption isn't a small feat. Thankfully, there are grants and loans specifically intended to help pay for an adoption. BUT, there are many things that can limit eligibility for this money. Many of them are from faith-based organizations, so if you do not identify as Christian and are not actively attending a church where your pastor could write you a letter of recommendation advocating that you receive funding, you will automatically need to check some of these off of your list. Others are intended for those who do not already have children in the home. And, most of them are based off of financial need. So, if you are a Christian who is childless and you have exhausted all of your financial resources on fertility treatment (or otherwise would have a hard time financing the adoption fees) you are in a great position to receive funding. Otherwise it may be more difficult to find money that you are eligible to receive.

So, how much does this cost?

      With the goal of this blog being to help recount our experiences with adoption from the beginning, I guess I have skipped a huge issue: how much money is actually going to be involved here? This is a hard question because it is so incredibly variable. But, I will try to give an idea of some of the things I have found and how we are planning. It is important to note that this is our experience researching agencies. If you are doing a private adoption and just working with a lawyer rather than an agency, this will be VERY different. Also, adoption through foster care has pretty minimal costs, usually less than $3,000.