SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Couples short on cash now crowdfunding babies
Jul 16, 2013, 10:41 AM | Updated: 2:20 pm
Bill and Nicole Radtke are pictured her with their adoptive son Manny. (Image courtesy Facebook - Bill Radtke)
(Image courtesy Facebook - Bill Radtke)
Online crowdfunding is fueling all kinds of projects these days, from films to science inquiries, but going online to raise funds to get a baby? This is a new one that some people are unsure about.
KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson points out, “If you can’t afford to adopt a kid, how can you afford to raise a kid?”
Bill Radtke, a man who’s gone through the experience, joined Monson to talk about his experience raising funds online to adopt his son.
Radtke tells Monson it was really just the large lump sum up front that made adoption difficult for him and his wife.
“For domestic U.S. adoption, it’s $23,000 to $25,000,” says Radtke. “It’s the price of practically a luxury car. International adoption can reach $35,000 to $40,000.”
Very eager for a child, Radtke tells Monson they would have gone into debt if it meant getting a child, but if they could start their family not having that heavy debt, they thought they should take a shot.
Opening up the funding page at adopttogether.org, they invited their family and friends into the process of their adoption.
“Some people, when they decide to adopt, they keep it a very private thing. My wife and I we just decided, ‘hey, we want to bring people on this journey with us because it is difficult, it’s tough, you need support.’ We needed our family and our friends, so we started creating these little videos kind of keeping people updated.”
Through donations from family and friends at adopttogether.org they were able to raise the money they needed to bring home their son, Manny. The experience didn’t increase his family only by one, he says.
“What we found is the people who gave, like friends especially, all of a sudden when our son came … they became like aunts and uncles to him. It was this weird thing where they felt they were a part of our family because they were a part of this story.”
Dori says if the result is a loving family, he can’t say anything bad about it.
“If the end result is a baby’s got a loving home and you’ve got a loving kid, it sounds like a win-win to me.”
Radtke says there are around 400 families currently fundraising on adopttogether.org. Families interested in getting support from Adopt Together can request a fundraising profile at the site.
