Adoption Fundraising

This is my first post to my blog about our journey in the adoption process. We are currently in the process of adopting internationally from the Philippines. The overall process from time of application to time of travel to meet our child is approximately 28 months. We started our application process at the beginning of May 2007. We have completed our Homestudy and sent off our Dossier paperwork several weeks ago. We are hoping to hear by the end of December that we are officially on the country list of approved applicants. We are okay with this long time frame (well I say this now, but may change my mind) for several reasons. We have two little girls under the age of 3. By the time we receive a referal and child assignment, our girls will be 5 and 3. Our child will most likely be between the age of 1-2. We wanted to have at least a year between the ages of our children. We also needed the extra time to save money for all of adoption fees. So this brings about the topic of my blog post, Adoption Fundraising. Over the last month, I have been on the internet searching for adoption fundraising ideas, adoption grants and loans. I have researched and found many interesting ideas, but now I need to come up with a plan and get busy implementing some of them.

I found a great Squidoo lens about the adoption financing. http://www.squidoo.com/adoptionfinancing/ The author of this lens has organized several lists and included links to Adoption Financing Websites, Grants & Loans, Families with Fundraising Webpages, and other general fundraising links.

I also came across http://www.chipin.com/overview. ChipIn is a free online site that allows you to easily collect money from others. ChipIn is used for a variety of fundraising themes. Your purpose of the ChipIn account could be to collect money for a certain adoption fee (homestudy, dossier, or country fee). You set a goal amount that you are trying to raise and a date to be accomplished. The ChipIn widget can be placed on your website or blog and then people are able to log in and donate to your cause. You could share the link with people from church, work or relatives.

I have also recently joined an Adoption Fundraising forum group on Cafemoms.com. The owner of the group, Miki aka Adoptionsong is very inviting. She is active in the group and responds quickly to any posts. She has a fantastic fundraiser going for her upcoming adoption. She has a website called http://www.adoptionsong.com/ where they sell downloads of her husband's adoption song called "Waiting" for $1.50. I think this is one of the most creative fundraising ideas that I have seen yet. The song will be a neat keepsake for their child. The group is fairly new so there aren't many members yet, but it would be a great place to join if you would like to talk about raising money for your adoption. Please visit the forum group at http://www.cafemom.com/group/11614

As for me, my biggest fundraising effort is my Ebay store, The Sugar Bean's Closet. I primarily sell both new and gently used baby and children's clothing and toys. I have been working very hard to stock my store full of items ready for purchase. This has helped us to fund some of our early fees such as the homestudy and dossier.

http://stores.ebay.com/The-Sugar-Beans-Closet


Please feel free to comment! I would love to hear from others about their adoption fundraisers. There are so many children in the world who need a loving home and so many parents who long for a child. The expensive adoption fees sometimes stand in the way of making a family dream come true. Hopefully, some of these ideas will help inspire you to your journey of adoption.

PS - The Making Of A Mom blog is having an Adoption Blog Carnival. A carnival is a great way to meet fellow bloggers. The topic is Adoption. If you have an adoption blog post that you would like to share please enter it at this link http://makingofamom.blogspot.com/2007/09/adoption-blog-carnival.html. Please join in on the fun October 1st to find a list of some great adoption blogs.

Here is the compiled list of all participants in the Adoption Carnival. http://makingofamom.blogspot.com
There are some fantastic reads. Don't miss out!