Grants and stuff...

Ok, as I said in an earlier post, I know we can't be the only family adopting who doesn't have an extra $15K laying around. I got all excited as I started hunting down organizations as I had 39 possible leads. That has now been whittled down to 8 real possibilities...all of whom we have to jump through all kinds of hoops to show that we're really in this. The scary part is that they could still decide not to give us grant money, which is their right, of course. But, this got us to thinking. If we're having a tough time fundraising, we can't be the only ones, right? We honestly don't have a problem with proving we're serious about our adoption, providing appropriate paperwork, etc. But here's what we are struggling with. When we started investigating adoption, everyone in the Christian community told us not to make money an issue. They said to first figure out if we were meant to adopt and deal w/the money issue later because if we were meant to adopt, God would provide. I do believe this. My problem is that it seems like there were a number of organizations (not the 8 we settled on) who threw up so many roadblocks to getting their grant or their help that they became yet another roadblock to adoption instead of assisting families in need. That got us to thinking about our business, 4-Ever Family and how much we really long to help others like us. We're now praying about either switching to a non-profit or starting a non-profit so that we can financially come along side families who are adopting. We still think that having certain criteria in place to help us determine who's serious or not is a great idea but I don't think we want to put families in a position of not getting assistance if their church doesn't come along side of them or they decide not to use our fundraising model.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you had a bit of a nightmare trying to find grants to help you finalize your adoption or have you had a relatively smooth process? What made or broke the situation for you?