Fundraising For the Rest of Us: Part 1

If you've been following along for any length of time, you know that I'm not shy about talking adoption finances. (or much else really) Since we've completed our first few fundraisers now seems like a good time for a couple posts on the subject. My goal here is to give ideas and encourage others - It can be done! You can raise an astronomical amount of money that you never thought possible! (Even those of us who don't get anonymous $10,000 checks in our mailboxes.)

There are basically two routes you can take to raise funds for your adoption:
1. Fundraisers, Events, Etc.
2. Grants and Loans

This first post will address fundraisers, the funner (pun intended) method of raising money.

If you're looking for a good book on this topic check out Julie Gumm's "Adopt Without Debt". If you want to know my thoughts, read on!

Here's a list of fundraisers we've done/have in the works and the results:

• Yard Sales - The old standby. Everyone has junk that someone else wants. Some folks have lots of success with yard sales. We are not those folks. I've heard of people raising 3 grand or more. I like to shop at yard sales but not have them. We've had two and each raised between $300 - $400. If we had put more into it I'm sure we would've gotten more out but it's just not my thing.
  
  The second yard sale we had was a "Donations" sale meaning nothing was priced. We explained to people the purpose of the sale and then told them they could give us what they thought was fair. There were some interesting moral dilemma's going on that day. Some people did not like it at all. Others were curious. It would have made an interesting psychological research experiment. What I learned is this: white people are a cheaper bunch than most.
• Jewelry Parties - I think this is a great idea for anyone adopting from Africa. Of course you can adapt it and sell other items from the country/region you are adopting from as well. We were super blessed by a friend who purchased hundreds of pieces of rolled paper bead jewelry on a trip to Sudan. His intent was to use it to fund raise for his non-profit but that didn't pan out so he GAVE it to us.
  
  We also purchased additional and different style pieces from Outreach Uganda. They sell the jewelry to adopting families at a 40% discount and then you can sell it for however much you want. I've researched every possible jewelry vendor I could find and Outreach Uganda is by far the best. They have the best selection, price and quality. And I'm not getting anything to say that!
  
  In all we raised over $4,000 from the jewelry. It FAR exceeded our expectations. I think it was successful for us for a few reasons: timing, affordability, parties. We started selling the jewelry in September but had the majority of our parties in October and November when people were starting to purchase Christmas gifts. We priced our jewelry affordably so people could... afford it. We still made a big profit because most of it was donated to us. The parties were huge in scope because they allowed us to reach an audience outside our inner circle. We realized pretty early on that we would tap them out pretty quickly and this allowed them to support our adoption in a non-financial way.

• T-Shirts - This is not a new or unique idea. There are lots of organizations that have t-shirts (Show Hope, 147 Million Orphans just to name a couple) and will let you buy/sell them for your adoption but they are getting a cut of your money. We preferred to do the work ourselves, have a personal shirt and get the profit. William designed our shirts and we had them screen printed locally. Unfortunately I cannot recommend the company we used. We did take pre-orders for the shirts to get an idea of which colors and sizes would be most popular and to make sure our close family and friends got the size/color they wanted. We then ordered double (maybe triple?) the number that were pre-ordered. In all we ended up with 148 shirts. We still have a LOT of kids shirts left, they are not as popular.
  
  We had our design printed on American Apparel shirts because we didn't want to support a sweatshop that is using vulnerable kids to make their shirts that we would then turn around and sell to bring a vulnerable kid home... They are a couple dollars more per shirt but well worth it. We made about $1,000 from selling the shirts.
  
  We have realized since starting the t-shirt selling that only people who know you are going to buy your shirt (for the most part). Everyone has dozens of t-shirts in their closet already so it's not something unique that they will want to purchase, or an item that people are in need of - they are doing it because they love you and want your kid to come home. And they secretly want you to stop selling stuff and asking for money all the time.
  
  
• Christmas Ornaments - So in September, maybe even August, my good friend Rebekah asked if she could make some ornaments for us to sell at our first art show that was coming up. Her theory was this: she and her husband could donate $50 to our adoption fund or she could design an ornament, buy supplies with the $50 and turn some kind of profit thus getting more than $50 into our fund. I think I can safely say that she had NO IDEA what she was getting into. 
  
  First of all, she is super talented and the ornaments were amazing. We sold out of the 48 she made very quickly. The plan was for Rebekah to show me how to make them so we could continue the ornament selling through Christmas. At one point I emailed a friend who had a great ornament fundraiser a couple years ago to kinda complaining about not having the connections that they did, and people just aren't buying our ornaments online, wah, wah, wah.
  
  People, be careful what you ask for. Or, in my case, whine about.
  
  One Tuesday afternoon in mid-November I was in Bloomington visiting my sister. I checked my email before heading home and had received 4 or 5 Etsy orders in less than an hour. I told my sister how strange it was since it was more than we had in the last few months. She made a comment about Christmas coming soon and people starting to buy Christmas stuff... By the time I went to bed that night we had received over a dozen orders. I checked the next morning - over a dozen more. Crazy! I couldn't figure it out.
  
  I posted on Facebook about the Etsy shop ornament craziness and a couple friends commented that they saw the ornament on Pinterest. "Ya," I thought "But I pinned it to my board weeks ago. Of course you saw it." It wasn't until the following day, and over 50 orders later, that someone told me that no you idiot it was on the Pinterest HOMEPAGE. Oh! Hallelujah, God is sovereign over Pinterest! (Was there ever any doubt?)
  
  So the blur that was the end of November and all of December began. I made ornaments every waking minute. We had ornament making parties. I took ornament supplies to a bar so that I could have a drink with my pals and make ornaments at the same time. (That is not a joke, it really happened.) I overnighted ornaments on December 23rd. It was intense. We made well over 300 ornaments at $10 a pop. The supplies cost less than $2 per ornament and people paid their own shipping so we made around $3,000 from an idea from a sweet friend just trying to make the most she could with 50 bucks. God is so good.

• Parents Day Out - Some friends of ours did this for us and it was a great idea. They offered to watch our friends kids one Saturday afternoon for 3 hours so the parents could have a "day" out, or in our case, go Christmas shopping for a few hours. The parents donated money for the childcare that went into our adoption fund. This contributed close to $200 to bringing our little man home!

• Self Defense Seminar - This is just one example of how your friends and family can contribute without actually giving you money. Just like the ornament and parents day out ideas, people who want to support you can use their talents and ideas to multiply what they could give or do on their own. My dad teaches karate and woman's self defense. Next month, our church is going to host a woman's self defense seminar that my dad will teach for a suggested donation of $25. The great thing about other people utilizing their talents and ideas is that it usually requires very little of your time and mental energy. This is good. 

• Lifesong for Orphans Both Hands Project - The organization sponsoring this project is called the Both Hands Foundation and here’s how it works: we find a widow in need of home repairs. We assemble a team of our friends. Then the team (including us) will send letters out to family and friends asking for sponsors for the day of our project: when the team works on the widow’s home. All of the sponsorship funds go toward our adoption. (And are tax deductible)
  
  
  It’s just like asking someone to sponsor you for a 5K or a golf scramble.The idea has been replicated successfully over 100 times all around the country! Here is a link to a video that might help give you a better idea of what the Both Hands Project is all about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98PD-O97N3I
  
  
  We are planning our project for March of this year. Our prayer is that the project will raise the remaining $16,000-ish needed to bring our little man home. If you are reading this and we have not invited you to participate on our team and you're thinking "Wow, I'd really like to be on the Wallace Both Hands Team." let me know.
  
  
  So that's what we've done and plan on doing. Here are a few things I've heard of other people doing: Photo shoots by photographer friends (one day of shoots, 45 minutes each, money raised goes toward adoption fund), haircuts by stylist friends (same as photography idea), any other skill your friend has that can be "donated", raffle off adoption goodies, use your skills to raise some extra money like this family did. Gobena Coffee. 
  
  
  What did I miss? There are as many ideas as there are kids who need homes!