9 Best Foster Care Charities to Donate to in 2023 | Full List with Details
No child deserves to stay away from a beautiful home with a loving family. Yet more than 407,000 children are in foster care. This sudden change in their life causes trauma and mental stress; if not guided correctly, they might steer off the path and self-destruct their well-being.
This is why charities have made it their mission to overcome this barrier and further devise plans to reduce homelessness to their best extent. While the United States is known to spend $30 billion on foster care, the weak structure leads children to get back into the system regularly. With innovative solutions based on extensive research, these charities are serving their lifespan for kids.
Here are the 9 Best Foster Care Charities to Donate to:
1. Foster America
Foster America (FA) recognizes families who come across complex barriers in their life and build a community to transform child welfare. Established in 2016 by Sherry Lachman and Marie Zemler, this project is one of a kind to lead transformational change in a time span of 18 months. They partner with neighboring communities to implement intentional changes for the child welfare ecosystem.
They address the issue of shortage in staff recruitment in this sector. Training and recruiting professional staff is helping organizations better optimize their finance, marketing, designs, and technology. GuideStar has given them a Bronze Seal of Transparency.
2. A Sense of Home
They strive to prevent homelessness by creating youth-oriented homes with donated goods and furniture. The donations they accept have led to 2,000 children gaining a bed. Additionally, more than 21,900 volunteers installed 182,500 household items and appliances.
ASOH collects recycled household items to turn them into a life-changing gift for individual children. One can donate or sponsor a child to improve their well-being at their newly created homes.
This charity plays multiple roles like maintaining homes, connecting the youth with various business categories to help them be financially independent, providing useful resources to improve their mental health and making sure they have a secure place to live in. their unique project of creating a home in 90 minutes is what gained them a Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar.
All the furnishings are taken from their warehouse to the home being created to furnish and decorate it before the recipient’s visit.
3. The Children’s Defense Fund
They work actively with congress and the federal government to influence their policies to prioritize children. They train the locals, communities, volunteers, and decision-makers to become local advocates for all the children of America.
The programs CDF runs reaches 12,000 children every year, empowering them to make a positive difference in their life. For four decades, their mission has remained to uplift children and prevent poverty by providing the right care and education. Among the various other programs they have, CDF Freedom School Program was founded to ensure every child gains a fair opportunity t begin new chapters of life.
By providing enrichment programs, they inculpate honest policies and multicultural knowledge to enhance their character and develop their skills. CDF has served more than 728,000 meals to children in foster care and provides educational material to them.
4. Think Of Us
They work with multiple foster care systems to improve the lives of millions. Their lab researches and creates innovative solutions for each foster care to work better. From influencing governmental policies to launching active social media campaigns, they successfully shed much-needed awareness to create a safe foster care system for the youth.
They ensure every child is situated with a supporting family with trusted adults belonging to the community the child belongs from. This ensures that the traditional legacy is not pulled out of the child once they leave the system.
Their recent Away Frome Home study centres the voice of youth and their experiences. By understanding their perspective, this charity puts together the missing parts. This has helped more than 48,000 children with perfect placements across 30 states, irrespective of social or gender discrimination.
5. Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
This national nonprofit charity is dedicated to helping children find their eternal homes. With the help of its famous program, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, it hires professionals to support children at risk of not finding a permanent home. Apart from this, they provide free foster care reading materials, raise awareness through campaigns on social media, and host events for the same.
Dave Thomas founded this charity in 1990, along with support from Wendy’s Founder. Another program, ‘Home for the Holidays, ’ features multiple musical acts which share the importance of family bonding and adoption through foster care. Popular music artists in America share some special stories and experiences with a crowd of thousands.
Today they have led 10,000 children to find a suitable homes while they trained 100 mentors to serve the rest children under their current care. They hold a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator and a Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar.
6. Children’s Foundation of America
CFA devises high-quality care programs for children with donations, support from volunteers, and beneficial partnerships for international change. They further have support groups and resources for those who have undergone trauma.
The annual events and seasonal bids raise a huge donation required for all their services and special care packages to adhere to the crisis, mental health, residential treatment, shelters, and schools.
Over 2,800 children received holiday packages at 19 different foster organizations. They have also made partnerships with brands to provide new shoes on an annual basis. They received a Platinum Seal of Transparency on GuideStar and a 100% rating on Charity Navigator for strong financial pursuit.
7. America’s Kids Belong
AKB was established in 2015 by a couple, Briand and Julie Mavis. Their goal was to educate people about the need for proper foster care systems to allow the children to have a safe space to grow and thrive in. their Adopt, Colorado Kids initiative did just that and more.
This charity has credits for having a presence in 9 states and formulating an app to connect suitable families with kids. Community support and volunteers are the backbone of this app. This new platform influenced political leaders to take their stand on it and help create new policies aligning with the same goal.
By releasing educational videos on their social media pages, they have successfully helped 300 kids find their forever homes and trained 350 advocates to deal with trauma. GuideStar gave them a Gold Seal of Transparency.
8. National Foster Youth Institute
This charity was founded in 2012 by Karen Bass to give every foster kid a platform to express their voice and emotions. This would help in a developmental change a bring light to the issues faced by them.
With their National Voices Program they helped developed this platform with supporting hands from local and federal organisations. NYFI members undergo community training for optimum organization, critical thinking, program analysis, and policy designing to make sustainable societal change.
With their internship opportunities, every kid can develop their favored skill to find employment. 750 youngsters gained benefits from this program which helped bring stability to their lives. They Hold a Silver Seal of Transparency from GuideStar.
9. Together We Rise
They were established in 2008 to begin their operations to bring positive change in foster care systems. For more than 10 years, they have been helping similar charities reach their goals through team-building sessions and training.
To implement this, they have various activities volunteers perform. Decorate Sweet Cases is one such activity where trash bags are replaced with decorated duffle bags also called sweet cases to help kids store their stuff in it while they are moving out.
Another one is Decorating Birthday Boxes to ensure each child gets a well-deserved celebration on their special day. These fun-loving activities have impacted over 650,000 children and provided a home to 200,000 kids. These kids receive support ad essential care packages from the generous donations made to this charity. Furthermore, this fund is saved for the care of ex-foster students attending universities.
Final Thoughts
While more than one in three is experiencing neglect or abuse for the time spent away from home, some charities have taken the initiative to build secure spaces for them. They are not leaving any stone unturned; with extreme racism embedded in the population, they are strong with their policies of zero discrimination.
With improved foster care, the stolen innocence of a child is brought back along with additional values of honesty and kindness. One good deed of the charity will instinctively influence the receiving kid’s activities of performing good deeds for society in return. This is what will make every community stronger in the long run in the foreseeable fortunate future.
