June 07

Dear friends and members,

Establishment Appeal

Members and friends will be aware that for several years AFC has been working with DOCS to become an accredited intercountry adoption agency so that we can continue to assist families to adopt from overseas countries.

As someone who has already been through, or is going through, the overseas adoption process you know how difficult it is and how important the support of AFC is. To continue to provide this support we must evolve into an agency that also handles the actual process including many aspects currently undertaken by DOCS.

Accreditation is now a necessary requirement under NSW adoption legislation.

It is, however, a very costly exercise. Although we have operated for 25 years as a voluntary organization we now must establish an office, appoint professional staff and put in place the full infrastructure to be able to, in effect, offer a DOCS type service.

The AFC Board has prepared a detailed business plan and established that we need to raise $600,000 to enable the transition from a voluntary organization to a fully staffed professional agency. We envisage that it will take two years before we will be financially viable.

To assist us to raise these funds the AFC Board has engaged Lander and Associates Consulting Pty Ltd (LAC) to run an Establishment Appeal. LAC’s Director, Ken Lander, has 30 years experience in the non-profit sector and fundraising. He is also personally committed having adopted children 25 years ago.

Over the next few months as part of our fundraising efforts we will be holding small, home based functions, approaching potential major donors and conducting a direct mail campaign.

We will need your help.

Volunteers to help with the Establishment Appeal

Volunteers are needed urgently to assist with the following tasks.

If you would like to offer your assistance or want to know more please contact either Ricky Brisson or Ken Lander (contact details below).

Hosting a home based function.

Some people have already come forward and offered to not only let us use their home for a fundraising function but will also invite their friends and relatives. The type of function will be decided with the hosts and generally comprise cocktails, supper or perhaps dinner together with a presentation and appeal.

Please consider hosting a function, or maybe co-hosting a function in someone else’s home.

Be a presenter

Are you a good public speaker? Do you think you could be with training? Are you passionate about overseas adoption?

If the answer is yes, then we could use you to present to our fundraising functions.

Your task would be to tell the function about our needs and convince them to donate. We will give you a script, an accompanying PowerPoint presentation and the necessary training.

A number of people have already come forward but we do need some men to balance the numbers. A presenter could either be a parent or child.

Open a door

Do you know someone who could make a major donation to our Appeal? It could be a family member, a neighbour or a work associate.

Would you be prepared to ask that person to meet an AFC representative to hear about our needs?

This is an important request. All it takes is a phone call to say “I have someone who I would like you to meet.”

Campaign administration

We need volunteers who are prepared to help with a wide range of administrative tasks from helping with mailouts to making phone calls.

Recommend a friend”

We need to increase the size of our database for our direct mail appeal and we need your help.

Would you please consider who else you know who we could add to our database and give us their details. They could be family (grandparents, uncles/aunts, cousins), neighbours, work associates or social acquaintances.

We will respect their privacy and only mail them for the Establishment Appeal. They will be given the opportunity to be removed from our database if they so request. AFC will only use their name for its own purposes and no names will be divulged to other parties for any purposes whatsoever.

Attached to this newsletter is a form to fill out. Please do so urgently and either email it to (info@australiansadopt.org)

or fax it to the AFC Offivce (Fax: (02) 93142074).

Photos

If you have photos of your children/family that you would like to let us use in our appeal and publicity material please send them as soon as possible.

We particularly would like ‘then’ (as a baby/child) and ‘now’ shots.

‘Now’ shots that are of activities, graduation or special occasions are especially needed.

Digital format is preferred and please email to either Ricky Brisson or Ken Lander.

Testimonials

We can always use testimonials in our publicity material. If you would like to share your feelings of gratitude to AFC for its efforts please send us your letter as soon as possible (email preferred).

We would appreciate if you could also send a photo (digital preferred) with the letter.

We are counting on your support to make this a reality.

Kind regards

Ricky Brisson

Executive Officer