How To Pay For Your Adoption
There are several barriers to adoption, but one of the most difficult ones (especially when you're just starting your adoption journey) is how to pay for your adoption. According to American Adoptions, the average private adoption cost is around $40,000 in the US, and the independent or self matching average is about $35,000.
No matter which route of adoption you choose, paying for your adoption can be a considerable impediment. According to CNBC, the average American only has about $8,863 in their savings account.
When considering these two factors, the cost of adoption can seem quickly unattainable, especially if you're completing an infertility journey where you've invested thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars and your savings may be completely depleted.
Your desire to have a child of your own to become a mother is not depleted, (if anything) it's grown through your infertility journey.
I have a fundamental belief that you should be able to adopt a child no matter your financial situation and you should not have to go into a mountain of debt to pay for your adoption. Nor should you default to a particular type of adoption, just because it's cheaper if it doesn't fit the vision for your family.
You should not default to foster care, just because it is the cheapest option. If you do not feel equipped to parent a child that has been in a foster care system because of the massive amount of uncertainty that can occur in foster care adoptions and it’s not something you're comfortable with, you shouldn’t consider it as an option.
Please know that I am 1,000% supportive of foster care adoption. I believe that it's needed and totally necessary. But I firmly believe that you should not pursue that as your first choice just because you cannot financially pursue another method.
I believe you must be called to foster a child through the adoption process in order for that to be a really good fit for both you and the child. The child is the most important factor here. So please, please, please, only choose the route of adoption that you feel best equipped to parent.
Let's work together to figure out how to financially afford the type of adoption that you feel is best equipped to parent. If it's not your first choice for adoption, or if it doesn't meet the vision you have for your family, let's work together so you don't go into that mountain of debt.
Let's put together a plan so that you feel empowered and know that it is possible to reach your goals.
4 Ways to Fund Your Adoption
1. Savings
When thinking about savings, don't automatically assume that what you have today is the only path to get to where you want to be. You can grow your savings fast.
If you focus on doing a few small things every single day to save $1 or two. I personally love the no-spend challenge that my friend has on Modern Frugality.
The idea of a no-spend challenge is to have a month where you don't spend any excess money. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but I want you to focus on how you can eat through the groceries that are in your pantry, freezer, and fridge first.
How can you reduce your spending or get creative (like using cashback rewards on credit cards) to reduce your monthly expenses?
Of course, there are other avenues within savings around cutting unnecessary expenses day to day, like negotiating your monthly expenses with service providers. When we were starting our adoption savings journey, I went through our monthly bills, like our cable and cell phones to find creative ways to save.
For instance, on our cable bill, I really analyzed what channels we watched on a regular basis, checked to see if any special promotions were available for referring someone, to change our plans, or even by signing another contract.
I was able to cut our monthly bill down by like $75 by just looking at what channels we subscribe to versus what we watched and finding special promotions that we were eligible for.
If you’re entering into a promo that expires, just put a reminder on your calendar for the week before the promo expires that way your bill doesn't automatically go up.
You can renegotiate with them at that time. I did a similar thing with our cell phone, and even with our insurance. I called our insurance company, (both homeowners and car) and asked if there were any promotions that we were eligible for or any discounts. We saved ourselves $300 every six months.
You can really unlock some hidden cash for you to sink into savings.
The other thing I would suggest is getting super creative on other ways to earn extra money for your adoption.
Some quick ideas to make extra money:
be an Uber driver
deliver groceries
edit a podcast- If you edit podcasts reach out to me, I'm always looking for a good podcast editor.
graphic designer (check Fiverr.com or Upwork)
writer (check Fiverr.com or Upwork)
miscellaneous jobs in the neighborhood
you can offer IT services on an hourly basis because there's always someone who wants to know how to do basic computer-related things
Make sure that you're choosing a method of savings that is going to create money over time. Your adoption journey is likely going to take a year, maybe two. If you're really struggling and you've been here for a few years it can take a few years.
Having your adoption funds in a savings account that will earn even a little bit of interest is really helpful to you just to continue to compound that money over time.
My biggest tip for you as it relates to savings is not to drain your account because there will be unexpected things that will come up along your adoption journey that you're going to need funds for.
If you need a little bit more help as it relates to those kinds of hidden expenses along the way, feel free to jump into the Facebook group. I'll help you with a few extra tips that we talked about in there on a regular basis on how we can save money together. To join our free Facebook group, just click the link below.
2. Fundraisers
I will fully admit that not everybody loves adoption fundraisers. This may not be a step for you, but it is something that I would suggest you consider. It is a great way to help fund your adoption.
You can get creative in a way that you're helping others through your fundraisers so that you feel maybe a little bit more comfortable about the fundraising process. Adoption fundraisers are an incredibly popular way to grow your adoption budget fast.
The most popular adoption phrase fundraiser that we all see out there are t-shirts. I have friends who have raised over $10,000 with this one type of fundraiser alone. If you're looking for ideas on how to fundraise or some fundraiser types, click the button below. I’ll send you a copy of my free guide 25 Most Popular Fundraisers (That Aren’t T-Shirts).
The ins and outs of fundraising can be a little bit tricky as you want to make sure that you're keeping the funds in different accounts that people are contributing to. It's important that people know that these funds are being used for a specific purpose when you're setting up your fundraiser.
Some simple tools that can help you accomplish this could be a GoFundMe, or simply a new Venmo or PayPal account. You can name the account something like “John and Sarah Adopt” so that people know you're separating these funds intentionally.
I would suggest that you reach out to your network and see what they use most often as a payment platform and make sure you're set up on that platform. When you are fundraising, your job is to make it as easy as possible for them to donate to you and to communicate what you're using those funds for.
The most important thing to keep in mind when using a fundraiser to help fund your adoption is to plan it out in great detail. Be mindful of your audience and their interest level in that particular idea. If you want a step-by-step guide to how to have a successful fundraiser, get my free guide The Adoption Planner. You can also grab The Adoption Financial Planner while you’re there too.
When it comes to fundraisers, it's really important that you clearly communicate what the fundraiser is.
5 Steps to Make an Amazing Adoption Fundraiser:
1. Make sure it’s something that your audience is interested in
When they are interested in your fundraiser, they're going to want to engage and want to participate in it. If you have an audience full of people that love cats, and you make an adoption fundraiser about dogs, then obviously the people that you are sharing your fundraiser with aren't going to be interested in doing something for dogs if they have cats. So I know it sounds like a silly example. But just make sure that it's something that they're super interested in.
2. Make sure it’s super easy for you to do
You've got a lot of things on your plate, especially if you're getting ready for your home study. So executing the adoption fundraiser has got to be super easy for you to do.
3. Clearly communicate what you are fundraising for
Clearly communicate what you’re fundraising for. They need to understand that if they support your adoption fundraiser exactly what they're going to get for that support.
If you're holding a raffle, they need to clearly understand from the posts that you make (from the graphics that you use) what item they’re entering into a raffle for, and why you are raffling this item off.
Just to give a real-life example - maybe you are working towards your profile fee, maybe you're working with an agency, or maybe you're working towards your home study.
Then you can go into more details like… as part of your home study, you have a lot of fees for the background check or the actual home inspection itself. So, you could be fundraising for the fees for the home study.
I would create a post something like...
“As many of you are aware, we are hoping to adopt a child or to expand our family through adoption. But adoption can be quite expensive. So for those of you that feel called to help us in our journey, we are fundraising.
We are currently fundraising for our home study. The average home study will cost ($ amount). And currently, we are working towards saving X amount of dollars.
As part of our home study fundraiser, we are going to offer a silent auction. In our silent auction, we have worked with people in our local community to give us items to donate.”
You can post your bid for each of the items below the image of the item.
This would probably be best served as a video announcement, maybe with a cute little graphic attached to it. Then below, you would post each of the individual items that people could bid on. Then you would want to make sure you're also clearly communicating how they would pay you when the auction ends and how you're going to deliver the item itself.
4. Create killer graphics
Creating killer graphics are so important in the fundraiser process. These graphics are great as reminders.
Using the silent auction again……
Say it’s going to go on for a couple of days on your Facebook group or on your Facebook page and you want to remind people that the bids are going on or what have you.
So you could post another picture that is just a killer graphic that says, support our adoption. See below for our silent auction.
Then just reshare the post you had before. Or maybe you want to get in there and really drum up support for a silent auction item that maybe not getting the love or support.
So you can make some fun graphics or memes to give people ways that they could use the item.
If you've got some people like in a bidding war, then maybe you have a fun graphic of somebody using the item.
Just have a lot of fun with it to try to drive engagement because that's going to drive the banter and the donations up.
5 Make it easy for them to pay
Lean in again to those platforms that your friends and family use. Maybe they use PayPal or Venmo or maybe they use one of those credit card payment apps. Just make sure that you are equipped to take money no matter which way they want to give it to you basically.
3. Grants
The third way to fund your adoption is through adoption grants. Using adoption grants is one of the least used tactics to pay for your adoption.
Still, it can be incredibly fruitful when you consider the amount of time and effort to complete the application processes versus some of the more complicated adoption fundraisers that you might plan. The one caveat to that might be if you are not one that has the gift of gab or loves to write, which is really key for the grant process.
If you don't love to write, you might consider reaching out to a friend or family member or even asking for professional grant writing help to be able to use this as your opportunity to fund your adoption.
Grant Writing Tips:
1. Do some advanced research on the types of adoption grants and their requirements
You do want to make sure you spend a lot of time clearly understanding the specific conditions or criteria that the different adoption grant and providers require that you meet before you go through the trouble of actually writing the essay or making the application and those types of things.
If you want an in-depth list of current grants, grab our free copy of the 50+ Adoption Grants list below. There are over $350,000 in grants on the spreadsheet.
I would take that list as a jumping-off point to research further because grants change their criteria, their submission, timing, and all of that pretty frequently. As much as I try, I can't possibly keep it up to date all the time.
If you research and you find something that's changed, feel free to drop me a note back and let me know that something's changed, so I can update it for everybody else.
Since these grants have specific criteria and conditions that you have to meet, you want to make sure that you're paying attention to not only when you're going to need funds, but what their decision and disbursement of the funds dates are so that you can make sure they're congruent.
For example - If you are applying for grants in March and the grant decision is not until December, but you're going to need the funds potentially in April to fund your home study, then obviously, that's not a great match for you to count on those funds for the home study.
Not saying you can't apply for the grant, but just be very specific about when you planned to receive those funds and how they're going to be used.
The biggest tip I have for you when it comes to grant applications is to know your audience and write that application with them in mind. So if it's an organization, get to know what they stand for, or what they believe in, and make sure that you and your family are a good fit for that mission.
If you're not a good fit for that mission, then do not stretch the truth or try to elaborate so that you fit the bill, because that'll come off really inauthentic, and you won't receive the grant.
Really get a moment to understand what's important to them as a company or as a nonprofit, from a mission standpoint, and then talk about how you and your family are a good fit for that.
Then bring that to life throughout the entire application every chance you get with real tangible examples. So people learn in a couple of different ways, right? They learn via audio, they learn via visual, they learn kinesthetically, or by doing things. So you want to make sure that your examples that you're sharing in your grant writing process, really appeal to those three types of learners.
It's something really important when you're thinking about applying for a grant that you spend just a minute to understand your audience and to make sure that you're writing in a way that appeals to those reading or watching your application.
No matter which path or combination of paths that you choose to fund your adoption, you want to make sure you have a really clear goal and intention behind each one of them. The same holds true for the grant writing process.
4. Loans
The fourth way to fund your adoption is with adoption loans.
Let's have some real talk for just a second. I highly caution against going into debt to pay for your adoption. It really not the wisest financial decision. It's hard for me to talk about it because honestly, it's the option that we chose the first time around.
We borrowed from my 401k which presented a whole host of challenges. Depending upon where the market is, it could be a good or bad financial decision for you. It also ties you to a company in most cases. If you take a loan from your 401k, the only positive news is that you're paying yourself back the interest so to speak.
It's hard for me to tell you not to do this because I did it myself. I would challenge you to think about what life is like at the end of this journey, and whether or not being in debt is a smart financial decision for you?
I know that you're probably thinking, Amanda, you are absolutely insane. There's nothing that is gonna stop me from getting to my child, not $1, not $10,000. I totally get it. I was there, too. I was not in a position where I had a tremendous amount of savings whenever we started our adoption process, so a personal loan from our retirement was a good option for us.
There are three types of loans that are typical if you're considering adoption loans.
1. 401k Loan
2. A personal loan from a bank
3. Adoption specific loan
I’ve also heard of people getting loans from friends and family. That can get super tricky, but it is an option. It's not really an option that I spend much time on, because that is highly situational dependent, and can get super messy. I wouldn't recommend it unless it's really your only option.
At the time of this blog post, the average interest rate for a bank-specific loan is about 6% for a personal loan, but an adoption-specific loan is about 10%. This changes every single day with the market.
I would highly recommend if you are planning to get a loan for your adoption, that you forecast in advance your monthly expenses of raising a child, your normal monthly expenses, then add $200 to $400 of unexpected expenses, especially as first-time parents.
You're just not going to know what you don't know yet. So add a bit of a cushion into the number to make sure that you can swing the adoption loan payment. On top of that, the last thing that you want to have happened is that you're stressed out about money after you've worked so very hard to get to this point in your family formation journey. Right?
You don't want to be arguing or worrying over how you're going to pay for formula once you get this child home. So do your due diligence upfront.
I am not a financial expert by any means. If there's a mistake to have been had in the financial realm, I'm sure I've made it at one point or another in my 40 ish years on this earth. But I would really suggest that you follow my friend Jen Smith over at Modern Frugality.
She really breaks down how to budget and plan for big expenses like this in a really practical way. I wish that I had found Jen before I had started my adoption journey because it would have saved myself a lot of heartaches.
The key when it comes to loans is finding a company that offers an adoption-specific loan because they're more likely to understand your particular situation and tailor the requirements of what they require from a paperwork perspective to the adoption process.
It is important to understand what happens if there's a disruption. More than likely, if they're the provider of the money or the bank in this instance for you, they don't care.
They loaned you the money they expect for it to be paid for. But this can be really scary when you're handing over tens of thousands of dollars (in some cases) to an unknown situation. Do your due diligence upfront.
The other thing you want to make sure is that you understand how quickly you can access the funds should an opportunity come up quickly. In most cases, if you have a stork drop (meaning a child’s already born) and there are funds needed, you're going to have about a 24 to 48-hour window to provide the funds or the agency or attorney might be required to move on to another family.
The last thing you want to have happened is that the loan provider that you chose says it's going to take two weeks, right? That might not be something that works. I would have a really clear understanding of the loan process. If this is a route you're going to go make sure you talk about that with your consultant, your attorney, and your adoption agent so that you're super clear on what happens in the situation so you can determine if there's a right fit for you and your family.
I want to give you the step by step, guidance, and support you need on your adoption journey. I want that for everyone. And if you have any questions about funding your adoption, be sure to head on over to our free Facebook group. I'm in there every single day answering questions, and I would love to help you move forward with your adoption journey.
We all know it can be incredibly hard, but anything is possible When you have the right plan and support. You can totally do this and I've got your back.
Hi, I Am Amanda
I help women build their families through adoption by giving them the step by step guide to adopt a child and support them on their journey
