A New Year’s message from Gift of Adoption CEO Pam Devereux
Pam Devereux, a Loyola alumna, serves as the CEO of Gift of Adoption Fund, a national non-profit that provides adoption assistance grants to unite vulnerable children with their forever families. Her personal and professional experiences inform her work leading the organization.
When you go to places where there are children without families, the need becomes very palpable.
While I was in China adopting my daughter, Lia, I asked the young women who were our in-country adoption guides what I should do when I returned home to Chicago. I was expecting them to say, “ask other people to adopt.” Instead, they said the most beautiful thing: “Update us on how she’s doing, because her caretakers love her, they’ve been preparing her for this next part of her life. Let us know how she does.”
It was a surprising answer. When I later joined Gift of Adoption, that answer informed my leadership. Adoption is really about all of us. I love and admire adoptive families and birth families. I care deeply about the children who need us. But, probably, I have the greatest heart for the donors in our organization — the people who are sacrificing and trusting us with their generosity to bring these children home. To me, every gift is sacrificial.
What’s most powerful about Gift of Adoption is the idea that you don’t have to personally adopt to ensure that a child becomes adopted. Our success isn’t predicated on everyone adopting, because there are so many other people who yearn to adopt, but rather on all of us caring.
Gift of Adoption provides grants to complete the adoptions of vulnerable children — giving them permanent families and a chance to thrive. As of December 2019, Gift of Adoption has awarded $9.3 million in adoption assistance to complete the adoptions of 3,220 children.
We’re the largest provider of adoption assistance grants awarded on a non-discriminatory basis, meaning that we don’t consider grant applicants’ ethnicity, religious beliefs, age, sexual orientation, or marital status. We prioritize grants for children facing what could be their only chance at adoption, including those at-risk of separation from siblings, entering foster care, or aging out of an orphanage and those with critical medical conditions.
Unique organizational design
Gift of Adoption’s design is unique in that personal gifts from national and investor board members underwrite operating costs. This makes it possible for 100 percent of the funds raised through our chapter boards, corporate partnerships and foundation grants to go directly to completing more adoptions. We are governed by a small set of national board policies, a handful of operating standards and three core values: honor, amplify and be scrappy.
As an adoptive parent, Gift of Adoption’s mission is particularly resonant to me. When I made the decision to adopt, I was very active in my church community at Old St. Pat’s and working at Make-A-Wish. Everyone was very supportive. I knew I was adopting as a single parent, but I never felt like I was adopting alone. Lia was welcomed into a huge group of people who loved her before they knew her — we had over 100 guests attend her baptism.
Oftentimes, we hear from people that a grant from Gift of Adoption does so much more than take care of the financial need. It’s a nod of support. From my own experience, I know how helpful it was to have people support my daughter’s adoption. Grant families have told us that the grant was an affirmation they were on the right road. It was hope.
Establishing adoption as a cause
Gift of Adoption is all about making good in the world, one child at a time. Adoption has a deep generational impact with a return on investment that is compelling on a humanitarian and an economic level.
Gift of Adoption’s vision is to establish adoption as a philanthropic priority, so caring individuals and organizations can give to adoption as they give to other essential causes. Once a child’s in a family, they have access to bedtime stories, swimming lessons, therapeutic treatments and a multitude of provisions — all provided out of familial love.
Almost every Thanksgiving, we send a note to the caregivers in China that cared for my daughter Lia. We’ve never received anything back. But we write them faithfully just the same. My mom recently passed away. Before she passed, I invited her to write one last note to them. Her note reads,
“Dear Lia’s Caretakers, Lia is loved and enjoyed by our family. We are very proud of her accomplishments, but most of all we are glad to see she is happy in our family.”
