You can be the difference for a child in foster care.
Join our challenge to raise $20,000 by June 30. Your gift will help find permanent homes for more children in foster care.
Join our $20,000 challenge!
Make your gift by June 30 to ensure more children can have the forever home they deserve.
Children are placed in foster care after enduring abuse, neglect, parental drug use or other issues, and many have experienced significant trauma, grief and loss in their lives.
The priority of the foster care system is to keep families together. But when a judge has ruled that it is unsafe for a child to return to their family of origin, they need someone to step forward to adopt them.
children are lingering in foster care across the U.S.
of these young people age out of the system without a family every year.
youth will be homeless after age 18 without the support of a permanent family.
At one point, I thought I was going to be out on the streets.
How We Help
At the heart of our work is a commitment to understand the needs and lived experiences of the children and youth we serve, improve access for families who want to adopt from foster care and build an organization that supports the broader child welfare community.
Our strategic priorities and signature programs are grounded in research and created with a racial equity lens.
With help from our caring supporters and partners, we are urgently working to raise public awareness and expand the reach of our life-changing programs, including:
Wendy’s Wonderful Kids®
Using a model proven to be up to 3x more effective in finding permanent families for the longest-waiting children in foster care.
Adoption-Friendly Workplace
Promoting the importance of offering adoption and foster care benefits and providing resources to thousands of employers.
National Adoption Day
Raising awareness and recognizing the adoptions of 90,000+ children from foster care through this annual event.
How You Can Help
There are many ways to get involved and make a difference.
“The more you give to others, the more you get in return.”
In the News
Foundation launches new PSAs
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is pleased to launch a new public service announcement featuring two youth adopted through our Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program.
Marisol and Bridgett spent a combined 21 years in foster care without a room, home or family to call their own. They both were adopted as teenagers, and now their lives have changed. They have the families they deserve and even have their own rooms where they can express themselves, decompress and find peace. Learn more from Marisol and Bridgett in the all-new This Is My Room campaign.
Adoption Means I Have a Family:
Athanial’s Story
Athanial spent 12 years in foster care, as his parents struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and could no longer care for him and his brother Levie. Sadly, the siblings were often separated in the system.
When Mark and Kristine met the boys, they knew they were meant to be a family.
