Raising Funds: Adoptive family website like no other…

Hey all - this is a message I've wanted to post for months (no, not a referral post yet .. WE WISH! :) ... I’ve said time and time again on here that I would tell you “soon” about the project I’ve been working on … well soon finally got here!!  it's a project God has had me on since we pretty much got on the waitlist. And I'm going to apologize now as I can already see this being a long post...

Since we brought our son Silas home 2+ years ago, I've been praying for direction. As many of you who have traveled to bring your child home, my life was forever changed when we traveled to Ethiopia. And I felt a void. My prayer was that God would match the talents He's given me with the passion (orphan care & adoption) He put in my heart. He revealed part of that plan about a year ago and I've been working nights/weekends on it ever since.

The idea is a website that will that will be a one-stop shop (Amazon/etsy-like) site for raising funds for families adopting . The idea of the site is to bring vendors who are willing to "wholesale" their products and let the family have the proceeds. I am asking vendors to consider giving 30-50% to the families (eg: Item retails for $20 - asking vendor to donate $6-$10).   The family does not have to buy or purchase anything – the orders goes directly to the vendors to fulfill and ship the products. 

It will also allow adoptive families who are selling product to sell your shirts/products/etc on there. You can still make money for your adoption but it allows other adoptive families to make money from them as well. Families helping families. I will continue to connect with missionaries to get products from their countries back to the USA to sell so it's a win/win by helping their country’s economy and helping adoptive families. Also, we have 'donation' items so someone could buy chickens, mosquito nets, baby formula, etc, etc that would be sent to the specific country mentioned.

So ... vendors can be...

• Just a regular vendor who has product to sell and a heart for adoption/orphans
• Adoptive families who are selling product
• Missionaries who can get products back to the USA
• Organizations working in other countries that need product donated

The name of the site is Olive Tree Promise (after Deuteronomy: 24:20) because vendors are leaving some behind for the orphan. The site is http://www.olivetreepromise.com. Some of you may recognize the “old” AGCI family that it is loading – they are stepping out in faith again - amazing. The site is set to load a 'featured' family when someone hits just www.olivetreepromise.com because we want the site to be all about our families. Future featured families will be changed out every so often (eg: family about to travel that need funds as being on the main site will give them more exposure).

Families will have their own URL to give people so those sales goes toward the family. (eg: http://alexanderfamily.olivetreepromise.com).

(As an aside, once this site is up and running with all the kinks worked out, the next site that will launch will be Olive Tree Faith. Instead of adoptive families receiving the proceeds from the vendors, it will be missionaries (short term and long term). This site will hopefully be launched this winter.  And the 3rd site will be Olive Tree Hope. If someone is not an adoptive family or a missionary but wants to help an orphan care ministry, they can create a site and the proceeds would go to the orphan care ministry of their choice. Orphan care ministries can also sign up for an Olive Tree Hope site for the proceeds to go to their ministry.)

I hope some of this made sense :) I know that many of us are raising funds and have different sites where we are doing that. The thought with this site is that 1) we can help vendors who want to follow God's Word to care for orphans and 2) a site for families to have many different types of products available to attract multiple different circles of family/friends.

In saying all that, I need your help!!

1) If you know any vendor (yourself included) that would be interested in selling products on the site, please have them sign-up on the site (under the vendors section) or contact me for questions/more information. You can email vendors AT olivetreepromise DOT com. The site will only be as good as the products on it. We currently have 45+ products and hope to have over 100 by the end of the year.

2) If you're interested in signing up as a family, please fill out the information requested on the site (sign up is under the families section). As we are trying to go slow on this, I will work with the first 10 families that sign up and then the next 10, etc.

We have a facebook page set up as well at https://www.facebook.com/OliveTreePromise.  Go like us :)

I would love your feedback. Especially, if you do sign up, I will definitely ask you for it ... the good, bad and ugly. I want to make it easy, intuitive and fun for the vendor, family, and people buying products.

I can't wait to see how the LORD uses this site to make known His heart for the orphan.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

THANK YOU! (and thanks for reading - I told you it'd be long :)

-Troy

http://www.OliveTreePromise.com