While starting a family will unarguably push up expenses, those looking to do so through adoption may face unexpected and unattainable costs — which one nonprofit is looking to alleviate for families of all kinds.
Pennsylvania native Becky Fawcett and her husband Kipp launched HelpUsAdopt.org in 2007 to provide financial assistance to those looking to adopt. The organization has so far awarded $420,000 and helped build 56 families, many of which are LGBT-headed.
Fawcett will present on her experiences with the organization at Equality Forum’s “Adoption Options for LGBT Parents” at 12:30 p.m. May 5 at University of the Arts’ Terra Hall, 211 S. Broad St., in Room 831.
The Fawcetts, who both went to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, started the group after their own challenging journey in the adoption world. After spending several years — and more than $80,000 — trying to conceive via in-vitro fertilization, the couple turned to adoption.
They adopted their first child, Jake, in 2006, and later a daughter, Brooke.
Between retaining lawyers and also paying for the legal costs for the birthmothers, travel, the creation of a home study and a number of other expenses, Jake’s adoption cost $40,000 and Brooke’s $63,000.
Although their savings was nearly depleted by the adoptions, Fawcett said she and her husband felt fortunate to have been able to meet the fees, and were eager to help those who couldn’t.
“Not a minute went by where I didn’t realize how lucky we were that we had our savings account to pursue IVF and then adoption,” she said, noting that they initially planned to offer monetary and in-kind donations to an already-existent organization.
“I’m a publicist so I thought maybe I could take on a pro-bono account or we could donate somewhere, but when I started researching, I honestly almost threw up in front of the computer,” she said. “There were a handful of grant organizations out there but they were so discriminatory in nature, I was really just speechless.”
The groups tended to charge for applications, gave small grants and, most surprising, Fawcett said, defined what constituted a family.
“Most of the organizations only wanted to help Caucasian, heterosexual married couples of a certain religion,” she said. “I talked to my husband and I was just like, ‘This doesn’t work for me,’ so he said, ‘What are we going to do?’ And we decided we needed to lead the way. We needed to start an organization that doesn’t define family, that helps Americans build their families on their own terms.”
HelpUsAdopt.org gives families grants ranging from $500-$15,000, based on their needs, and awards funds twice annually. It is funded through private donations.
Fawcett said the funding selections are typically split evenly among three pools — heterosexual married couples, singles and LGBT people.
Grants have helped everyone from single men to interfaith and interracial couples to a couple in which one partner identified as transgender.
“It’d never cross my mind to exclude anyone in general so why start now with this organization?” she said. “I look at the big picture and there are people who want to be parents and plenty of children who need help. That’s all I need to know.”
Despite its commitment to assisting LGBT parents — most of its marketing resources are directed to the LGBT community, it has LGBT representation on its staff and board and it operates an LGBT outreach committee — Fawcett said the organization doesn’t get as many LGBT applicants as it would like.
“What I’ve heard back from some people is that people really don’t believe that we’re here just to help and to help all people,” she said. “But we’re still making the efforts and won’t stop until we receive more LGBT applications. This commitment to this community is just ingrained in everything we do, and I’m really excited to keep working on growing the number of LGBT applicants.”
Raising awareness about the organization’s work will be on Fawcett’s agenda during her time in Philly next week.
Fawcett first contacted Equality Forum a few years ago to inquire about speaking, conducted her own panel last year and was invited back for this year’s panel.
“I made some friends last year and we stayed in touch throughout the year and they were able to learn more about our organization,” she said. “So I personally feel quite honored to be included with other LGBT adoption professionals.”
Looking forward for her organization, Fawcett, who receives no salary from the agency, said she’s about to hire a major gifts officer, who will join the two other full-time staffers.
“I’m very excited to make this hire,” she said. “We get requests of about $6 million a year and right now we can only grant about 3 percent of those applications. We need to increase that number dramatically. Our first step in our growth was moving this operation from our apartment into our own office space, then to build our staff, and now we’re just looking to move onward and upward.”
For more information, visit www.helpusadopt.org.