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Organizing Grant Applications

No one who adopts can care too much about destroying the rain forest because there are millions of papers to fill out/submit/copy/sign etc...

From application, to Uganda manual to home study and now....GRANTS!!

We are committed to a debt/loan free adoption. Our community has rallied around us and donated all but 50 pieces of the puzzle! Check that out, you can actually tell what it is and there is only a tiny pile of un-donated pieces left!!



You can still be a "piece of our puzzle" by donating $10/puzzle piece (For more information click here Puzzle Fundraiser).

We are also diligently saving as much as we possibly can! But, while we wait for our home study to be written and approved, we are filling out at least a hundred more papers applying for every possible loan. Thank you Jesus for all the people/foundations/non-profits who have acknowledged the financial burden but huge blessing that adoption is. Another adoptive mama sent me her long list of adoption grants with helpful notes on each. There are over 55 grants on her list! What a huge gift!! Most of the grants require a completed home study, others require details of our referral and pictures/ medical information of our child/children (which we won't have for a while). But while we wait for the completed home study we are starting to fill out the generic information, financial information, testimonies, desire to adopt etc!!

Because I'm also committed to being highly organized, I made this binder to help keep everything straight.
I have two pages in the front with important information each are asking for like work addresses, contacts for our home study and placing agency, email addresses, phone numbers etc. I created a folder for each grant, I started off with just 10 and will work on adding more after I've tackled these.
 I just 3-hole punched each folder and put the grant application inside each.
 The labels are easy to see and keep everything organized. At the back I have a miscellaneous file which will have a copy of our completed home study, tax files from the last few years, marriage certificates etc. (Things multiple grants are asking for)
My favorite part of these specific file folders are the "notes" section inside the back panel. I'll write special instructions, application deadlines and general notes about each grant.

Thankfully I had the binder and file folders on hand after not using them for work last year so it was all free!! This may not be very exciting to many of you but it makes me eager to get started!!
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