Getting all or almost all of your adoption paid for!

One of the biggest questions we all have when we are being called to adopt is "How will we afford this adoption?" The most important advice I can give you on this is to pray and pray again. :) If it's God's will He will provide in exciting and unexpected ways. Here are a few idea's:

First check with your employer to see if they offer an adoption assistance program. My husbands work does but they pay it after the completion of the adoption at $5000 per child. We are adopting 5 children so will receive $25,000 of our adoption fees back from his company within 90 days of the completion of the adoptions. I'll keep you posted on if we caused them to change their policy. ;0 This really does not help us though until the adoption is complete so we first need to come up with the money and then wait to get it back. However, I do have friends that their company policy was different. They would receive their adoption assistance as soon as they submit receipts for their adoption payments so they would start out by making a payment and get that money back and send it in again for another payment! Very clever and handy. You may not think your company has it but it does not hurt to ask, you may be surprised. Our friends were the first and only ones that used the company's assistance (and they are on their 6th adoption so I'll keep you posted on whether or not they shut down their policy as well, kidding of course). Few people have ever used the assistance offered at my husbands work so we've had to research their policy ourselves as the entire HR department seemed unsure of how it works. :)

There is also the option of fund raisers. It would be a good idea to post on a chat site asking for idea's of what to do. Get creative, don't be afraid to ask for help! Many people are excited and honored to help you bring your child home. A couple of ideas: I've heard of one family that made and sold clay crosses and if I remember right made $30,000 towards their adoptions from this! (someone please correct me if I have the total wrong for that). There is also Kingdom Kids at http://www.kingdomkidsadoption.com/Default.aspx?tabid=37 that I know others have had great success with.

Another avenue for funds is to apply for grants. Again, ask a local chat site for referrals for these. They are usually around $1000 or so and are hard to get. We filled out many applications and each one told us that you are more likely to receive the grant if we were adopting multiple children, sibling group, older children, or special needs children. We were at the time adopting 3 siblings, 2 of them older kids, and one of them disabled from a stroke. We qualified in every way imaginable and thought for sure we would get some grants but got zip. I know of other people that are adopting single, young, healthy children, and have received grants. So, if you have the time to fill out lots of forms it may be worth going for it!

While we don't want to go into debt for these adoptions: If you are considering a loan or second mortgage to pay for your adoption it may be helpful to know that it would be a debt you should be able to pay off very quickly! If you can get adoption assistance through your work you can use that to immediately pay off a big chunk of your debt. Even if that is not an option, you almost definitely will qualify for the adoption tax CREDIT. Now I capitalize adoption credit because it is very different from a tax deduction. With a tax credit you can claim up to $10,960 (as of year 2006) per child on your taxes. This is money you will receive back from the government. Most people receive all of it back. It can take up to 5 years to receive all of the credit back but many people get it back much quicker then that. This amount covers almost all of the expenses you will need for adoption from Haiti. If you are careful to earmark this money to go directly to paying off your loan then you will not have the loan for long. For great detailed information about the adoption tax credit here is a great link: http://www.adoptionlearningpartners.org/images/tax_year_update06.pdf

It's kind of a pain that you have to come up with all the money first just to get it all back again, but at least it's encouraging to know that most people do get nearly all (or sometimes all) of their adoption fees back!