Fundraising Details

It still hasn’t fully sunk in that we are done. That in 7 ½ months, God brought over $27,000 to our door. Wow.

I have been debating in my mind about how detailed to be in the information I share about money. For some reason we have the idea in our culture that financial information is supposed to be private. It is considered “tacky” to discuss one’s personal finances.

But I desire that my blog and our website to be as helpful and encouraging as possible to families who are considering adoption or are in the process of adopting. I don’t see any reason to keep these facts secret. I hope that by seeing how we raised our money, others will see how God has provided for us and be reminded that he can do the same for them.

I lean a bit toward being a nerd. OK, maybe a lot. I am an accountant by profession, and so, naturally, I have a QuickBooks file set up for our personal family finances as well as a separate one for our T-shirt sales and fundraising efforts. :) Consequently, I can provide precise data regarding where our $27k came from.

So here you go:

$6,050 Donations
$2,040 T-shirt sales (after deducting our costs)
$2,890 Yard sales (after deducting our costs)
$500 Gold party (friends sold their gold to a broker and I got a cut of the profits)
$900 Selling personal items on the internet
$500 Picking up trash at a community picnic (yes, we really earned $500 for one day’s work doing this!)
$2,130 Tax refund (thanks to the addition of Madeline - this was totally unexpected!)
$2,280 Insurance “profits” from our break-in in May (a great example of how God can use for good things that others intend for evil!)
$470 Unexpected reimbursement for a medical bill
$160 Change that I gathered from around the house, rolled, and deposited $4,360 Extra work that Sarah picked up
$1,360 Extra work that Daniel picked up
$4,050 Money that we saved from our regular budget by cutting everything that we could

I hope that this info will be helpful to someone out there. To those of you still fundraising: Keep up the good work! IT WILL HAPPEN. Keep praying and trusting God and working your tail off. I know that it is exhausting. But remember that it will be entirely worth it. God bless you!