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hi everyone my name is Amy Sylvester thanks so much for checking out my channel I'm glad you stopped by you obviously are here because you want to know how to fund your adoption that's what we're going to talk about today if you are in the adoption process or you want to be in the adoption process if you even looked into it a little bit you can you already know you already know that there are cost involved and there are emotional cost but there are also does the reality is is there's financial cost and that there are a lot of reasons that's the case and I won't necessarily go into all of that it's definitely more money than any of us want it to be but the reality is if you're gonna adopt a child it's going to cost money there are some scenarios where it's not gonna cost money if you adopt through the foster care system which I have friends and family who have done that and it's great and I think that's wonderful and we it's not even off the table for our family but if you are going to do most any other kind of adoption it costs money whether its domestic infant domestic whether its international or all the things in between every kind of adoption there's money involved and so even if you if it's a friend of a friend of a friend connecting you you're still going to pay a lawyer to figure out all the paperwork part of it so even if you don't go through an agency per se you're gonna have to pay for a home study things like that are going to have to happen so today I just wanted to take the time to talk about that and help anyone I can possibly help who wants to adopt to not let finances be a barrier it is so important that people who are able to give their lives to children who want that for their family that they are not stopped because of finances I know that there are people that probably look at the numbers when they first get into it and think we could never do it or they hear of someone adopting and they hear the numbers and they think we could never do it and I'm here to tell you it is possible where we are in our journey we are we have not adopted so it a little bit outside of I'm still in this with you so to speak we are funding our adoption but we are so close to already having our funds and we hopefully are close to adopting we've been at this for quite some time and we hope that we will be adopting sooner than later and so we are on the tail end of our funding journey and so I just wanted to sit down and take the time to share with you some of what I've learned along the way so here goes so if you're just checking out what it costs to adopt the numbers could be shocking so I'll just tell you that there's a quite a big range and there are a lot of reasons for those ranges lawyers have different fees states I mean I have seen home studies cost $800 and I've seen home studies cost fifty four hundred dollars so depending upon what state you're in what ages agency you're with the cost can vary a lot and again there are lots of explanations that somebody who knows more than I do can explain why it costs what it costs but it is what it is so let's figure out how to get the funds I will say that most infinite options or even adoptions that are through a private agency like the cheapest I've ever heard it happening was somewhere around 20 thousand dollars and it honestly could even go upwards towards $50,000 and money can make everybody uncomfortable and money and adoption definitely make people uncomfortable but I think we've got to push past those things and get the funds needed to adopt the child that you long for so I'm not gonna go into breaking down what all the cost are I can maybe do that at another time and even maybe just share our journey I'm very open about it because I again I don't want money to stand in the way of your adoption so I'm gonna first start talking to you I have notes so sorry if I look down a little bit but I don't want to miss anything so I will link everything below I have written out an article for you I will link that below so if you want to take notes great but you can also check out some of my tips and things that I have written out for you first I'm going to start talking about grants grants are a great way to fund your adoption and there are grants all over the place for lots of different reasons and I'll just tell you gear up adoption takes a lot of paperwork and then when we did our adoption journey we also did grants right alongside it so we were doing our home study and as soon as it was done because most grants require the home study to be completed we jumped into the grant paperwork and I mean I don't have a picture of this I wish I did but at one point like our dining room table was just stacks of papers and mail and just everything out all the paperwork that was required because I was working on multiple grants at one time and I felt like those back in graduate school you know cuz that's how I lived in graduate school just surrounded by papers and research and books and I was like I feel like I'm back in those days so like I said I will list the grants for you on the link that I already have it done for you the article is ready to go and I'll just show you our journey with grants has been up and down we've had we did receive several grants some like a little bit of money that helps pay for the home study and then we we got to larger grants that have really knocked down the price for us that makes the fees doable for kind of a middle-income regular financial situation yeah so it just has helped us so much so that's grants I will say that gear up for paperwork and do your research I will tell you - with grants you want to know that you won't qualify for all of them we didn't qualify for all of them there are grants that are spent just for special needs situations there are grants for specific children even like if you want to adopt a certain child there's a grant for that child we weren't and adopting internationally so you know there are grants that will fit more for your family there are religious affiliation grants there are income requirements some require your income to be a certain level and so just know that you might click on something and say this doesn't even apply to us don't get discouraged because I'll say I probably looked at kind of ballpark maybe 10 or 15 grants and we only were even remotely qualified for maybe like seven but there are seven groups of people organizations that are willing to help you with your adoption don't give up you know even if you found two even maybe say that say we've been looking for grants that you know didn't that we could help us with our adoption and you're one of the only ones that we qualify for and then there are grants out there that almost anybody can apply for to share your story answer their questions my tip with grants is read everything about the grant before you do your paperwork or answer the questions because some grants want to know your situation they want to know why you want to adopt they want to know your financial situation they want to know what is leading you to adoption and the other grants really want to know the story of the child you're adopting and so I'll just tell you like if just make it really clear answer their questions don't tell them what you want to share tell them what they want to know so cuz you never know who formed the grant and why they formed it so one of the grants we received really wanted to know if this child had adopted what's the future for the child kind of they didn't want it that way but that's kind of what you could tell they wanted to know what is adoption gonna happen it wasn't even about Corey and I my husband and I being called to adoption and feeling that that need and that just that not need but just that desire to grow her family to adoption through adoption it wasn't about us they wanted to know about the child which is totally cool and appropriate so that's what I'll say about Grant says no what they're asking for get all your ducks and together and answer their questions and don't miss their deadlines I can tell you they probably get just so many applications so if you miss the deadline you may not even get looked at I will say also some grants have like three deadlines a year or one a year some like we did get denied by a few but they invited us to apply again so maybe in that season they didn't have the funds to fund us or we were denied by one grant because they want you to already be in a match and they want like a due date because we're adopting an infant or they want like a travel timeline they want to know that there's a specific child in mind and so we applied for one they denied us but they said when things move along on your adoption reapply doesn't mean they're going to give it to us but they did invite us to do that so that's the grants and I will you know hopefully you you can get a grant because it can say your adoptions twenty five thousand dollars or thirty five thousand dollars if you get a ten thousand dollar grant all right eight thousand dollar grant it starts to feel way more doable right it starts just knocking chunks off of it so it makes it just feel like oh gosh maybe we can get there um and so there you go there's grants for you and I really hope you will put the effort in to do the paperwork and I I keep thinking it tips for you I will say another thing to do with grants is this do them all at once they ask a lot of the same questions so get your stuff together read through it see like oh I need a copy of this you're gonna need a copy of your home study for almost every single one get that stuff together and almost like have like a little session of grant doing and it will make your life a lot easier so man next tip is crowdfunding and I will say that some people their journey and adoption feels quite private and I completely understand that our journey has been so emotional we've had failed adoption disruptions matches that didn't happen and it's just it's very painful and it's hard to let a lot of people in on that um so it's hard to do it alone but it's also hard to invite people in and so then to say oh you want to donate to this I don't really want to talk about it you know that can be a little bit awkward but I will say that crowdfunding has helped us right we've raised almost half of what our need has been and maybe not half because when you think about you're gonna have to travel to the match or whatever and we more than likely will travel out of state you're probably staying in a hotel or an extended-stay or an Airbnb type place for you know weeks at a time like we've not really figured that into our numbers just yet that could be thousands of dollars or renting a so but I will say that crowdfunding has helped us and you have to push past some of that privacy and some of that it just takes a little bit of humility to say we're really longing for this as a family will you join our team will you join our journey and helping us bring bringing this child into our family but there can be a bit of just some people are quite I don't know it's a little bit weird for them but most people will rally around you and most people will be so excited to be part of your story in your child story we used adopt together which is a great fight it's made specifically for folks who are adopting there is a little bit of like an acceptance thing that you have to go through it's been a while for us so I think we even maybe had to have a home study done it's worth it because anyone who makes a donation to your adoption will get a tax receipt it'll be a it's a tax-deductible gift and so that just really helps people be able to say you know I'm gonna give this year anyway why not help my friends or my family bring a child into their home and into their family so that has been a huge cup help to us I will also say there is GoFundMe which you may be already familiar with so there's a dock together and then there's multiple but I'll just mention these two and then there's GoFundMe GoFundMe is not tax deductible or it's not as of when I'm doing this video but people are very familiar with it and so if you want something that people don't have to like Oh what is it opt together or whatever then GoFundMe might be great if people are in your community are more familiar with that but I will say that it op together works the same way so if you just send a link it may not matter if the tax-deductible thing is a big deal to you then you're gonna want to go with adopt together so that's crowdfunding for your adoption I'm going to share with you several quick tips that have helped our family not one of these things will pay for your adoption but each of them combined will just take that number down and down it down and you know make it more like oh we can do this as a family this may sound silly but like I I am NOT even crafty and I just kind of got this idea and it was a little bit therapeutic for me that I would find or purchase like solid wood furniture and upcycle it and so I went to fish shops I went to Goodwill I even found a few pieces on the side of the road but they were solid wood pieces who just they just needed a new life they needed a new fresh life and I can ask anyone who knows me well there are things I do well and there are things I don't do so well and I don't do crafty well and so it was a learning curve for me and you have to buy your supplies you have to buy your paint and you have to buy your brushes and whatever but in the end I did several pieces and like I said it was just giving them a new life and I watched a few tutorials about chalk painting or whatever but I made 250 bucks doing that and it is something I did end up enjoying doing it was kind of like I said like a little therapeutic and I did this in the warmer months when I could be outside and be in the garage and it not be freezing cold and again it was a little therapy work for me to do that and like know that I'm doing something to help our family move towards our adoption and $250.00 is not gonna cover a large amount of your adoption but it's one thing towards and maybe you're better at something like that maybe you can a friend of mine is making earrings and selling them for ten dollars she's just doing it through Facebook and people are buying the earrings into every little bit she is moving towards her adoption and if you're really crafty you may be able to do way more than me buying a few pieces I mean I got one like desk thing for seven bucks solid wood piece painted it beautiful sold it what I can traverse all that one for I got another little and I think it was an end table type piece no it was a coffee table and it was a great like cool lines and cool design on the front and paint and it was like a wood color and I painted it black and stained it a little bit 95 bucks for that thing and I think I paid like in the teens 1516 dollars so anyway just to say like think think crafty and think how you can use some of your like skills or hobbies maybe you're really good at photography and you do some photography sessions I'm just throwing out ideas so think craft do you think how you could maybe use some of those skills to make a little cash we also we did not do this for our adoption but if you've watched any of our other videos you know we lost our son Hudson and he lived to be eight months and we loved him so much we did a t-shirt drive for him and we just did Hudson strong I'm the shirt and they're red and they're awesome and it helped us so much in a time when we were in at just a desperate place so I think at the time we used booster calm but I think they are now called custom inks and I don't I've not ever used custom inks but I'm assuming it's the same and this isn't an affiliate link or anything like that I just I'm telling you what we did so hopefully like you could do t-shirts and get your faint friends and family to buy one and then you get the and there's a obviously like your the t-shirts have to be paid for one thing I did know about the ones we did they mailed them for you that like your friends just bottomed online and they shipped him out there was none of that like labor with it so with art we were in crisis so that was like something there's really helpful you may be able to do it in a way where you distribute the t-shirts and you may even make more of a profit and then another idea is you could do a yard sale you could do one with like maybe you just do one for yourself but you could also have people donate stuff now again you're having to figure all that out you're gonna store stuff at your house um whatever or you could just say the day of the yard sale have people bring everything over early morning and help you pull off the yard sell I mean you know some people would maybe you could even do it in a church parking lot or something like that where people are donating pieces it's free to you and then the proceeds go straight to your adoption again it's not gonna pay for your whole adoption but it's gonna just knock down the price this is another one that I didn't learn about until recently it's a restaurant collaboration and I know specifically Chipotle does this where you if the money does have to go to a non-profit so like if your home study agency isn't not like they aren't they're not-for-profit because some agencies are not not-for-profit that's a double knot but anyway I'm being weird so um but a restaurant collaboration is where like somewhere like Chipotle you have guests come and they say we're here for this agency or we're here for the Silvestre adoption and they will give 50 percent of whatever so if someone comes in and spends twelve bucks on their meal six of it will go to your adoption again not gonna pay for your whole adoption but if your whole community your whole neighborhood yours like if you have a child maybe the whole school you let them know about it or whatever your community your gym your YMCA whatever invite them to come and then the proceeds will go to your adoption I know there are other restaurants in our community that do that like local ones that will do that as well it might just be twenty percent that they'll donate or fifteen percent but still it's you know it's it's free money you have to organize it but it's free money towards your adoption and they won't again they won't give you the money the money is gonna go to your agency and it has to be a tax a non not-for-profit agency typically one thing that my husband has so sweetly done he had an opportunity at work to work overtime they had some folks leave his job and he just has picked up all these overtime shifts and he's been doing it for months but it's moved us so much further in our adoption and I just I look at him and I'm just amazed at how he's been able to do this just working double shifts and just but it's for a season you know we've said it's first season and I've done the same like I most of my work as freelance and it's been we've had some stressful weeks where we both are like you know he's gone and we have our four year old and I'm trying to pull off a project that's due I do like freelance writing and so it can be stressful when I've lost some sleep at night because I'm up I'm on a deadline and something is due and you know that can be stressful but is it worth it yes because we're working towards a goal and it's not long term like we're not saying we're gonna live stretched like this for the rest of our lives we're gonna take these so this many weeks or this many and this is what we're gonna do and then I'll mention to our my job because I'm you know contracted or freelance that doesn't work this way and my husband's job doesn't offer this but there are some especially corporations they offer an adoption benefit and I know like some banks that I have friends that work at different banks the adoption benefit is $5,000 and all you think you have to have worked there for a certain amount of time like twice maybe it's 12 months but they literally will send $5,000 to your agency just because you're their employee for your adoption don't miss that opportunity make sure you ask your employer about that so those are just a few things that you can consider for funding your adoption I'm gonna link below all the the link there's a article I wrote and I'll link to that and in the article are a lot of these tips may be a few more I'm not even remember everything that's on there and there's a list I linked all these grants on there I didn't remember how many are on there maybe 8 to 10 I'm not sure but you can click on each one I linked it for you so you can go to the page and then click on each of the grants and see if you qualify for any of those go for it check their deadlines check their requirements and jump into the paperwork and I'm gonna invite you will you follow our adoption story I'm sharing this information with you because I don't want there are so many reasons people can't adopt and I get it but I don't want money to be a reason people don't adopt if their desire is for that let's figure it out let's figure it out together and so we're in this and like I said we're getting really close to having the finances we need to fund our adoption and now we got to start thinking through the travel portion of those like raising that money you're earning it or however we're gonna do it but we're in the journey with you we are we have not yet adopted and we desperately want you we so desire to adopt and we really want to share our journey with others and for it to be an encouragement we've had some high our weary days through our journey with several broken matches and it's like you have a due date for your baby and then now you don't and so it's very painful but there's a lot of hope and so we are so excited and we really want to invite you will you come along for our journey and we're just so excited and we're gonna try to document our journey and our story of adoption so we're gonna share it and we hope that you'll follow along and maybe one day I'll be able to introduce you to my child so as soon as we find out we've we are expecting a baby you better believe I'm putting a video up and so will you subscribe because I want to share our story with you I want you to see our baby's face and we're gonna reveal the gender and reveal the name and all the steps that will come with it after this long wait so will you come along subscribe so you don't miss anything I think we're kind of new to this but I think you can even set a bell so if whenever we get that call you'll know so you can be along for the ride so thank you so much I'm gonna pray for your adoption if you want to share with me below where you are if you're about to be do your home study if you're in the fundraising process if you're considering adoption I'd love to know what your journey has been like and where you are if you're even just considering it like I said I have no expert but I'd love to hear what you're going through and if you have a question or even if you have ideas for funding please put them below so we can help each other out let's do it together folks and like I said we're gonna let you know just as soon as we get that call so I hope you'll follow our story so we can all celebrate together bye guys thanks so much I'm Amy Sylvester bye