We are proud to announce the CFOS Foundation has awarded nine grants for 2023 totaling $205,000! This once again sets a new single-year record in the history of the Foundation. We are honored and blessed to partner together with such great organizations and do our part to give back to the communities in which CFO Selections operates. Specifically, the CFOS Foundation focuses on investing in nonprofits supporting youth and families impacted by foster and kinship care.
The 2023 grantees include three repeat organizations and six new organizations, including, for the first time, a gift in the Colorado market. The repeat organizations include The Mockingbird Society, HopeSparks, and Kinship House. The new organizations include Adoptee Mentoring Society, Fostering Hope Foundation, Route 21, NorthStar Advocates, Reach Northwest, and Embrace Washington.
Below is an expanded description of the 2023 grantees:
The Mockingbird Society
The mission of The Mockingbird Society is to transform the foster care system and end youth homelessness. Mockingbird creates, supports, and advocates for racially equitable, healthy environments that develop young people at risk of or experiencing foster care or homelessness.
Working in partnership with young people with lived experience, we change policies and perceptions about every child having a safe, supportive, and stable home. We envision each young person, regardless of race or individual experience, reaching adulthood with an equitable opportunity to thrive.
HopeSparks
HopeSparks comprises six core programs that serve children and families in Pierce County who face trauma, adversity, and overwhelming life stress.
HopeSparks intends to use the grant from the CFOS Foundation to provide emergency assistance funds for families caring for a relative through their Relatives Raising Children program. Costs such as childcare, food, transportation, clothing, beds, school supplies, or other basic needs are essential to help fund, so relatives of the children are willing to take in and support the child. Children who are placed with a relative who feels financially overwhelmed are more likely to enter the formal child welfare system.
Kinship House
The Kinship House provides outpatient mental health services to foster and adopted children and their families. They specialize in championing children and families with target interventions during all stages of foster care, reunification, and adoption. Founded in 1996, they are a locally accessible facility based in the Lloyd District east of Portland, Oregon.
Kinship House serves over 500 children annually with innovative and individualized outpatient therapy, helping them work through the trauma of foster care and adoption, connect with safe adults, and thrive.
Adoptee Mentoring Society
The Adoptee Mentoring Society exists to support adoptees through compassionate, virtual mentorship. Their mission is to stimulate connection and build community for adopted persons worldwide. They provide virtual mentorship for adoptees – by adoptees, including group mentorship via 3-8 person support groups and individual mentoring sessions. Although AMS is a relatively new organization, it served nearly 200 people in the last year alone.
Fostering Hope Foundation
In partnership with faith communities, businesses, and other nonprofits, Fostering Hope Foundation supports over 40 foster families in the Colorado Springs region and dozens of teens and young adults who are emancipating or aging out of the child welfare system. Their volunteer network acts as the extended family these kids missed out on, and the foster parents need to keep going.
Fostering Hope Foundation recruits and trains teams of 4-8 people/households who act as aunts, uncles, and grandparents to individual foster families in El Paso/Teller County. These teams provide practical and emotional support to parents and children intending to create the safe, stable, and relational environment inherent in healthy families and known by neuroscience to help heal development trauma.
Route 21
Route 21 is a unique seven-year mentoring program serving youth and young adult mentors. We believe it will be the best mentoring model in the country for youth aging out of the foster care system. The mission of Route 21 is to find young adults who grew up in foster care to be paid and supported to mentor youth currently in care.
Route 21 is a start-up organization currently identifying its first mentees and mentors.
NorthStar Advocates
NorthStar Advocates is a young, small, grassroots organization that is mission-driven and laser-focused. It is the third nonprofit organization founded by Jim Theofelis, including The Mockingbird Society and A Way Home Washington. An early decision was made to support and partner with other organizations focused on improving the other care systems, including foster/kinship, juvenile justice, and inpatient/residential behavioral health. NorthStar Advocates is also a start-up organization.
Reach Northwest
Located in Newberg, Oregon, REACH Northwest mobilizes the community to support & equip children and families impacted by foster care with programs, resources, and tools to help them thrive. REACH NW works in Polk and Yamhill County to love and care for vulnerable children in foster care and their parents and caregivers. Additionally, they organize an overnight summer camp experience for foster children ages 7 to 11 years of age.
Embrace Washington
Embrace Washington is committed to caring for and supporting children in foster care within our community. We do this by raising awareness of vulnerable children's needs and identifying how to meet those needs by connecting individuals and organizations with a heart to serve the foster care community.
They strive to eliminate any roadblocks that foster parents face to provide an everyday happy life for a child in foster care. These roadblocks could be various things, such as providing a foster child a new bed, educational support, paying for summer camp, music or sports, and educational support, to name a few. Activities for foster children and their families build healthy memories and experiences that allow kids to feel loved and stable in uncertain times.
About the CFOS Foundation
Founded in 2007, the CFOS Foundation invests in Nonprofits that support youth and families impacted by foster and kinship care within the communities CFO Selections serves.
The CFOS Foundation annual grant making and application process is by invitation alone. Unsolicited grant request will not be considered.
