Lifeline Children’s Services coordinated a conference last year that featured speaker Julie Gumm, author of, Adopt Without Debt. Julie lives in Phoenix, AZ with her husband Mark and their 4 kids; two of whom were adopted from Ethiopia.
Julie is a big Dave Ramsey fan and subscribes to his philosophy that “God will never call you to do something and require you to go into debt to do it.” She finds that many families who are considering adoption fall into one of two traps: they either think they can never afford adoption, or that they would have to mortgage their house to do it.
In short, Julie proposes three solutions to avoiding either of these traps:
1) Savings,
2) Grants, and
3) Creative Fund Raising.
For more information on these and other topics, visit Julie’s website: AdoptWithoutDebt.com.
Here’s a little snippet of each section to whet your appetite:
Savings: The average family spends $225 per month eating out. Just cutting back in this category alone could go a long ways toward raising the money for an adoption.
Grants: There are three basic types of grants: fundraising, direct, and matching. For more information on tips and tricks for grants, Julie recommended visiting, resources4adoption.com.
Creative Fund Raising: This part of Julie’s presentation was both valuable and entertaining. She showed example after example of strategies that adoptive families have used to cover the costs of adoption. Her examples included ideas like online actions, karaoke nights, benefit dinners, and corporate yard sales. Read about more ideas on Julie’s fundraising blog.
Or buy the book!
Adopt Without Debt- Interview with Julie Gumm from Children’s Hope International on Vimeo.
Photo from adoptwithoutdebt.org.