JT Olson On Funding Adoptions
JT Olson founded Both Hands in 2008 to support adoption funding through service projects for widows, having been orphaned as a child himself. The average project raises $22,000. helping over 1300 families nationwide. In this episode, JT Olson and Jared Delong (Executive Director) discuss Both Hands' successes, its business model, and the growing challenges in adoption.
About JT Olson
After being orphaned as a child alongside his four siblings, JT Olson went on to start Both Hands — a faith-based non-profit serving orphans and widows. Olson’s personal tragedy gave him an overwhelming understanding of the need to find loving homes for the world’s orphaned and vulnerable children. With over 153 million orphans worldwide and the costs of adoption on the rise, his non-profit’s goal is to fulfill the call in James 1:27 to care for orphans and widows by alleviating the financial burden facing families considering adoption.
JT and his wife Sara have been married for over 30 years and have five children (four bio and one chosen): Jeff, Daley, Nick, Max & Grace. They now reside in Brentwood, TN, just south of Nashville.
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Spencer 00:06
Today we've got. JT, Olson and Jared DeLong on signature required. Welcome guys.
JT Olson 00:11
Nice to be here.
Jared DeLong 00:12
Thanks for having us. Yeah.
Spencer 00:13
JT, you are the founder of both hands, and Jared, you're the executive director of the organization. Most people, I would imagine, haven't heard of what both hands is. And if I ask people to guess what both hands was, I'm not sure that they would get any closer. So maybe JT, do you want to start us off?
JT Olson 00:33
It's the most irresistible nonprofit in America, okay?
Carli 00:36
All right, that is glowing recommendation.
Spencer 00:41
So tell us it is what you do with both hands.
JT Olson 00:44
Well, what we do at both hands, we help families raise money for adoptions, and we do it by working on a widow's house. How's that? Does that pique your interest? A little bit like, how does that work? Yeah, yeah.
Carli 00:57
Tell me more would be my first question.
JT Olson 00:59
Well, usually when I say it to people, it's funny, because they always, they always, they always look at me really politely, you know. But you can see there's this glaze in their eye that they unders. They're saying, Oh, that's nice, but, you know, they're thinking, how does that work? You know? And I found the best way to really explain it is it tell you how it happened. I mean, I was on the board of Bethany Christian Services, a local board here in Nashville, about the century. In one year, I was in charge of the fundraiser, and I chose to do a golf fundraiser. You know, where you send letters out to people and say, Would you sponsor me while I Golf Classic? Okay, I send my letters out. I had a buddy of mine who was in a Bible study with he sends my letter back to me. Does not include a check. He just took a magic marker and he scribbled on my letter said, JT, if you told me you were working on a widow's house, I might sponsor you, but you're just golfing. Nice cause, but not my money.
Carli 01:49
That's bold.
JT Olson 01:51
It was great. I mean, it hurt my feelings a little bit, but really, the main thing I was thinking was what a good idea. And I called him a couple days later, and we talked about it and laughed, and he still didn't give me any money. But the idea just, I mean, the idea, never left me. Whenever I saw a 5k or a golf tournament, I kept going through my head, if all those people were working on a widow's house, would it be better? Would it? Would it be better? I just didn't have the orphan part figured out, and that was gonna come later.
Carli 02:19
So help me understand. So instead of throwing a party around golf, you throw a community event around helping a widow as your fundraiser.
JT Olson 02:30
Yeah, that's about, that's about, right? Yeah. I mean the way it to explain a little further, the way it happened a couple years later. I'm in church, and I run into a friend of mine. I hadn't seen him in a couple months. I said, Hey, what's up, Don? And he looks at me and says, we're adopting four kids from Moldova. He's already got three kids at home. And I said, what happened? And he said, Well, I went on a mission with sweet sleep, delivering beds to orphanages in Moldova. Fell in love with this little boy, George, got home, started the adoption process, and in the process, we find out George has three siblings. Said we're not going to break up.
Spencer 03:10
How do you separate the family?
JT Olson 03:12
Yeah, well, I mean, if you want to hear the backstory on that, I mean the backstory that that took me back to when I was 12, living on a farm in northeastern Iowa. There was five of us kids, and one weekend, my mom and dad left to celebrate their 16th wedding anniversary, and us kids were kind of farmed out to different places. And I remember Saturday night being brought home by one of the neighbors. He was dropping me and one of my brothers off, and I was dirty. I played in the barn all day, so I had to go in the basement to change. My brother went in the front door, but I remember sitting on this chair in our basement, bending over and lacing my boots, and my brother came down the basement stairs. I looked up at him, and I said, Mom and Dad home. And he looked at me, and he said, Mom and Dad are dead. Oh, and I said, what he said, Mom and Dad are dead. They were killed in a car accident hour ago. And he turned around and walked upstairs. I mean, he had just hurt himself, and he was coming down to tell me he was in shock, but I remember hitting that cold cement floor and crying like any 12 year old would cry. I know what it's like to be an orphan, and I know it's like to hear those words. I know it's like to wonder what's going to happen now, who's going to take care of us, but I also know what it's like to be rescued, because three months before the accident, my mom and dad and my aunt and uncle changed their wills that if anything would happen to one of them, the other family would take them. I would take them. Wow. Maya and uncle were 33 years old. They lived in a really nice suburb of Milwaukee, very different than a farm in rural Iowa. They had three kids their own. They had a two year old, a third grader and a fifth grader. They took all five of us. Wow. They took a three year old, a five year old, a 12 year old, a 13 year old and a 15 year old. Wow, I know what it's like to have someone come up and say, We got you. It's we got you. So back to the hallway in church when Don says he's not going to break up his siblings. Yeah, and you're right. I'm the just right guy to say it too, because I am the recipient of someone having the courage and guts to step up and say, we're going to take them. And you know, I looked at Don, by then we had adopted our fifth child's adopted, and I knew it was going to be expensive. And I said, Don, how much this going to cost? And he said, they're telling us 70 or 80,000 I said, Any idea how you're going to do it? He said, No. And I said, I think I got an idea. So Don and I, we recruited, this is how it works. We recruited about 1415, friends. We all sent letters out to everyone we knew, saying, Would you sponsor me for the day while I fix up Miss lucille's house? Let me tell you about Miss Lucille. All the money I raised from your sponsorship is going to help us bring these four kids from Moldova home. Let me tell you about these four kids. And we found a widow in Franklin who we got all the supplies donated, because everyone we talked to loved the idea. I mean, he's like, dude, yeah, what do you need? You know? And we spent the day working the house. I think about 30 35, people showed up. It was a beautiful March day. It was just awesome. I'll never forget it. And when it was over, we had raised a little over 70,000.
Carli 06:25
Wow, in one day. One day's work,
JT Olson 06:30
One day's work, it trickled in. There was a lot of letters went out. It took time for the money come in.
Carli 06:34
Well, wait, so did your buddy send you back the letter this time with gold? Yes, I will help.
JT Olson 06:39
He has sponsored every year since now.
06:41
Praise God. That's yeah.
JT Olson 06:43
So that's how it started.
Spencer 06:45
So when did you found it?
JT Olson 06:47
Well, we find we founded it in August of 08. That project was March of 2007
Spencer 06:53
Okay, so that was, like the test pile.
JT Olson 06:55
That's like a test I didn't know I was doing, but, I mean, I just knew this idea was in my head, and I talked to my friends, my neighbors, and just I bounced ideas off different business people, just because it was just on my it was just, you know, it was there. It was just, it wouldn't give up, yeah? So,
Spencer 07:08
you know, Jared, when do you enter the picture? So, 2008 it's founded.
Jared DeLong 07:12
Right? Well, so JT, you had some questions for Sarah, or Sarah had some questions for you?
JT Olson 07:18
Yeah, at the end of that. Well, there was a second project, because about a six months later, after that first, another buddy of mine came up and said, Hey, I heard what you did with Don. Would you help me? And I said, Well, yeah, let's do it again. It was fun. So we worked on we found a widow in in Franklin, Miss Diane. She lost her husband in a very tragic car accident seven months earlier, she had a fourth grader and an eighth grader, I mean, and all these products, there's joy, but there's sorrow, you know what I mean? And there's, there's, that's what's a joy. This is comforting some of these widows. But she needed a new roof. She needed, I mean, it was some work, but we got a new roof donated. That's a great story. And and we got, I remember standing on the roof and looking down, counting the people, and I think I counted 52 people, and we had transformed the front of her yard, we had transformed the back of her yard, and we were putting a new roof on and and it was, it was an amazing day. And then I counted the cars, and I counted 19 cars on the street. And I thought, yeah, this is a way to serve. This is a way to show the neighborhood. Here's how you serve a widow. And it took me back to the farm, because about a month after the after the accident, I remember getting off the bus. It was a beautiful April day, and our bus stops about a half mile from the house. It's on a hill, so you can see a lot of our farmland, but they're in our name. In our fields, were all our neighbors with their tractors and their plows and their planters. I mean, it was Bob grana and Leland, Meyer, Burt, juvic, Edward Ellison, Ed Cooper, Doc weimmiller, Jack Melcher, when you're 12 years old, you know, who's tractors, who absolutely you know. And these are my dad's buddies, making sure their buddies kids were taken care of. So I know what it's like to have your feet washed. And when I stood on that roof, I thought, this is living, this is this is so much fun. It was nothing but joy. And then seeing the joy on the 52 people that were there, they weren't there drug they were loving it, yeah, and, and that night, I went out to eat with my wife, and my wife, it said, I think I'm supposed to do this. And she's a stay at home, homeschooling mom with five kids. At this point, she had questions.
Carli 09:41
like, good wives do have
JT Olson 09:43
You thought about health insurance? Have you thought about, you know, have you thought about a paycheck, you know? And we got five kids, this is Brentwood, and I said, Yeah, what would you think about going to work outside the home? And about five or six weeks later, she was at Belmont, she got an entry level. Position and admissions, and she's just really done some unbelievable things with her career in the last 17 years. But that's where we meet Jerry.
Carli 10:10
Yeah? See good wives bring good people. That's what we're hearing. Yeah.
Jared DeLong 10:14
So I went to Belmont, and I started out music business, like a lot of the students there, and then actually switched to entrepreneurship through entrepreneurship schools, incredible. But I heard JT story and resonated with me in many aspects, but one being you grew up on a farm. I grew up on a dairy farm, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish country, and so I actually with our student group that Sarah advised that I was a part of we we just kind of felt we needed to do something. So our team actually kind of took the both hands model, and we had a bunch of students send out letters and raise funds for an orphanage in Haiti, I believe, and we served at a retirement community right next to Belmont, because there's several widows living in the facility. So we fixed up the facility and we raised it was at least 12,000 or more, but I was hooked from that point on, so I came down to graduate, and I,
Spencer 11:21
When you graduate, what year in 2013 okay?
Jared DeLong 11:26
I someone told me that if you want to get into the music business, you have to want to do nothing, but that, like you need to live, live and breathe that and be willing to have make some sacrifices, and it could be a long journey. And I just felt like, you know, God wasn't necessarily calling me towards that, but definitely was. I wanted to do something that was gonna have a kingdom impact, and so that's actually why I switched entrepreneurship. And then when it came time to graduate, asked Seraph she knew of anywhere that was hiring, and had a great talk with JT and joined the teams, and I was, I was at both hands for about four years, left to work at a nonprofit software company for about four years, and then came back. So that's, that's kind of my journey, how I'm here today.
JT Olson 12:16
And he started out as my assistant, so he really got to learn how I think and what I do and everything else, my emails, and he just, and so he's learned the business from the ground floor up in a lot of ways, and just has been an excellent, excellent executive director.
Spencer 12:32
So you majored in entrepreneurship when you graduated Belmont. It's an interesting pivot, in some ways, to go into a nonprofit world, and one that was probably pretty small at that point in time, like was, this was Jared, your first hire,
JT Olson 12:49
No. Third hire, you
Spencer 12:52
Okay, still qualifies as small. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh
JT Olson 12:55
Yeah. This particular month, yes, we were very small. Yeah.
Spencer 12:59
What did you see in both hands that made you say, All right, this is the highest and best use of my college degree. This is where I want to go. Why?
Jared DeLong 13:10
I think just that entrepreneurial spirit. Because my dad, you know, him and his two brothers ran the farm, and so growing up, I worked on the farm. That's kind of the stereotypical, you know, getting up before school certain days, working on weekends, raking the fields, milking the cows the whole, whole bit. And so I just have always loved the idea of, kind of starting something of my own, you know, and then I think I love, there's, there's so many people I will talk to out there that they want to start their own ministry. And I think that's great. But I also think there's, I always encourage them to look at other ministries that are already doing great work, or they're already doing what you're considering doing, rather than having two or three ministries that are all doing the same thing. Can you partner together and so that just, I mean, I mean, his story, you know, was so powerful. But I remember on the first day of, and I may have told you this, I'm not sure if you but the very first day. So I had a younger brother, who's two years younger. He had special needs, very, very severe, 100% dependent on we had home nursing care for him and my parents, he couldn't walk and talk and just just very, very, very high, severe special needs. But the first day I watched one of our families, a both hands family, who had just done a project. And every project, we tell the family, Hey, make a video of your project day so you can share that on social media, send it out in email, so everyone can see the work that was done. And that's a great fundraising tool afterwards to use as well. And so they so I watched the video, and it's a family who chose to adopt little boy with special needs, and so I just felt like that was. Is just in a little way, you know, God telling to me, Hey, Jared, you're in the right place, you know, at the right time.
Carli 15:06
So have to imagine so you're pulling every heartstring I have. We have four kids, and I just, we just had to update all of our estate, our will and planning, and all I can think about is, what if somebody wanted to pull them apart, how devastating it would be to them, how devastating it would be to us. They're a unit. We call them team Patton. They're their own group. So do you often see you have to have seen so many cool stories from the one you just told to your origin story. Are you finding a lot of people adopting whole families? Or is it really a range? What are you seeing?
Jared DeLong 15:43
Well, how much time you got? I feel like on every project, not kidding, every project, there's some crazy story that happens. It's always different, like one that comes to mind, and this is random. It has to do the dumpster. But you remember this one?
Spencer 16:04
Yeah, as most good stories do.
JT Olson 16:05
There's a couple dumpster stories. Okay, so I don't know which one you're telling.
Jared DeLong 16:11
Well, so there was a family, and they were doing a project. And we always, like JT said, we always try to get, encourage them to get the supplies donated, because they want to focus on fundraising, and that defeats the purpose of having to go out and buy all your supplies. And so they did a great job of that, but they still needed a dumpster because there's a lot of demo work that needed done. And so they were trying to they were asking their team, kind of last minute, hey, we still haven't found a dumpster. Or it might have been, they secured one and it fell through. But either way, their team, someone in the back, raised their hand and they said, we were in a jeep competition this past weekend, and the prize was a free dumpster rental.
Carli 16:53
No kidding. Wow, yeah. First of all, who enters a contest where the prize is a dumpster? Right, right?
JT Olson 17:02
It's a Jeep go through the I don't know, but it's Jeep thing. But that's even makes it more remarkable.
Carli 17:08
It's so funny that.
JT Olson 17:09
I mean, it's like, these guys need a dumpster. And, I mean, the way I look at this is, God is oh, you need a dumpster. Yeah? Watch this. Yeah.
Carli 17:18
That's so I just,
JT Olson 17:19
That was, that was a cool story. And another, just, I feel like we got a front row 50 yard line seat to miracles and to great stories and to God moving in people's lives. But one, this lady from California, family from California, they were adopting from Ethiopia. I can't remember what year was, early on, 11 or 12. And the widow they served just loved it. Loved them. She became a grandmother. I mean, she and the mom told me, she we've adopted as a grandma. She's over here on Sundays, you know. And they she loves a child they brought back from Ethiopia. About three years later, they were going to go to Ethiopia again and do a project. This time, they did another both hands project, and the grandmother, the new grandmother, worked on that house of the new widow. But when they went to Ethiopia to get their child, the widow from the first project flew with them. Now that's, that's that's adopting a grandmother, and it's just, you know, stories like that. Just think about how this widow feels like just fulfillment.
Carli 18:29
She's just family.
JT Olson 18:33
Yeah, it's fun, work.
Carli 18:37
Yeah, I don't even know. It's hard to ask a next question, because you're like, please just keep telling me your story. I don't know how to even ask a follow up, because it sounds Patrick, it almost sounds too good to be true, but that is our Lord.
Spencer 18:50
Yeah. JT, I, as a entrepreneur and a business guide, I have one business model question, if you'll indulge me, to just help me understand it from a business perspective, because there's an element to it where you're truly caring for the widows and orphans. I mean unbelievably biblical, foundational to understanding a kingdom purpose to our lives. And that's incredible from a business perspective, when I think about saying My strategy is to raise money in order to be able to cover the cost of adoption, which we've got to talk about the 70 or $80,000 number in a moment. So please, like put a pin in that Carly. You take that one next, because I have to understand why it's that expensive, so just set that aside for a moment. The question is, if my goal is to raise that money for adoption, it seems like you've created a second fundraising necessity in doing kind of a Habitat for Humanity type experience of having to get a. You know, supplies donated, and you get volunteers, some people that may have a heart for giving for an adoption, but may not show up for a service project. So it seems like out of one necessity for fundraising, you actually create two. And I wonder what the mindset is to say, hey, if I wanted to raise money just for the adoption, is the case, in and of itself. Not compelling enough to say, let's just raise for the adoption. What did you feel like was the value add to use a business perspective? So indulge me with that. The value add of adding a service project to what is already a pretty heartwarming narrative of an option.
JT Olson 20:47
No, I understand the value add. I was in business for 35 years. Yeah, I get it. But there are organizations. There's tools that people can raise money like on a GoFundMe type platform, funding thing, you know. And some of them are like, life song for orphans is great because they don't need to take any money out, you know, for their expenses. So it's a great but what I found with this is people have a tendency to give more money if you're sent, if you're, if you've got a, let's call it a GoFundMe, okay for an adoption. And you're sending letters to your friends, Facebook stuff and everything else. You say, Well, with three clicks, you know a friend will click, click, click, and donate 50 bucks if you tell that same friend, I'm serving a widow. This widow, here's what we're going to do, that same person is going to give 250 and I know this because we call people and we thank them for their donation. We're probably one of the best thankers in the nonprofit world, and that's what we set out to be. We want to be the best at thanking people. So I have talked to 1000s of people on the phone who gave, and one thing they always say is, yeah, what I loved about is they were doing something. They were doing something fascinating, it is, and I think that's what people think want to give. They said, You know, I want to give you for something, you know.
Carli 22:11
I think that makes sense, because there is so much demand. Everybody wants your money. And there's always somebody running a campaign on social media or they just want you to click through and send, send, send. But when you see a video of what they're doing, it does create an experience. Even if you can't participate, you get to be part of the story.
JT Olson 22:32
Right? Because you might be project, might be happening in Omaha, and you get a letter from someone, a friend you know, in Omaha, and you live in Michigan, but you see this, and you go, yeah, what are you doing? And then you see the video later. It's got the before and after pictures. It's got maybe 20 seconds of an interview with the widow. And she says something like, I just feel like, God hasn't forgotten me. I thought he'd forgotten but he hasn't. And you hear a widow say that he just, yeah,
JT Olson 22:58
I'll give 250 to that. That's the power of it. It's just
Spencer 23:06
John Maxwell has one of my favorite sayings in this because when you study in the Bible, there's so many things that Jesus teaches that are upside down right, that just you're like, how could it work that way? You have to give in order to receive. You have to do this to see that, and it's exactly opposite of what we would expect to see. So the concept of taking one project and turning it into two projects really feels upside down, like this is not the way the business plan should roll, but what John Maxwell says is that you have to win a heart before you ask for a hand. And I think what's really compelling about your model is that you are serving and winning the heart, not necessarily of the donor, although you are, in a way, by showing that you're serving a widow, but you're, you're, you're serving before you ask for anything. And I think that's really interesting, because most people just ask in order to be able to serve, but you found a way to serve and then ask. And I think that's just really fascinating. I would never have drawn that plan up.
Carli 24:27
It's very Loaves and Fishes. Yeah, I love that. The little boy offering up his lunch before anybody else got to eat. So that's how that feels.
Jared DeLong 24:35
I mean, I feel like, well, we'll say often that this is really God's model, and we're just the stewards of it. Right? All throughout Scripture, widows and orphans are mentioned together, right? And so it's, it's kind of like when it went after that first project with the Myers, and they raised over 70,000 and knocked the socks off Jay. He, you know? I mean, it's like God was saying, this is what is an orphans? What do you expect? Right? And so we're not all called to adopt, but we're all called to care for what is an orphans. And so I think that's what we get to do for every project. And so I think that's why, how God's blessing it. I think all these stories that we're seeing is just affirmation to our team constantly that, yes, this is what we're supposed to be doing.
Carli 25:22
It's blowing up the business model. Look at Spencer's like, having epiphanies over there, watching his face. You're like, glowing as that comes into life.
Spencer 25:31
I want to go out and make things like, 10 times more complicated for my employees, and say, trust me, this is just how it's designed.
Carli 25:37
They're gonna stop the tape. No more. No more. Spencer's not allowed to podcast anymore.
JT Olson 25:42
Well, and here's the cool part, is we started in I just the best part of this is the stats, because now we started in August of oh eight, okay, and the recession was in September of oh eight, so it's great time starting nonprofit. Oh yeah. A month in, it's Oh yeah. We're what smart people we are.
Carli 25:59
Love this brand.
Spencer 26:01
More of the Lord's irony. Right there.
JT Olson 26:02
It's right there. And but now we've done 1352 projects in 45 states.
Spencer 26:10
But who's counting? Amazing.
JT Olson 26:17
1541 widows have been served. Wow. 1571 kids. Are no longer orphans, and we've raised 19 point 5 million. Wow, and 100 and here's a kicker, 100% of that goes to the cause. We don't take anything out for operations. I'm just gonna throw you another little you know, so and it's amazing, 100 when a family does a project, or a group does a project, because we work with, you know, different groups, but 100% of what they raise goes to the cause we I just decided this. When I started, I said, I really did. I wanted to make this the most irresistible nonprofit in America. I wasn't joking when I said that. I mean, I said, this is so good. It's going to be widows and orphans, and we're not going to take any money out. Let's just but that does put the onus. We have to raise our money. Okay?
Carli 27:10
So you look at it like almost a mission field, like you're a missionary in this space, and you raise your own but,
JT Olson 27:15
But in so since then, we've we've we've raised our funds. Every year, instead of doing a big concert or banquet. We do our own both hands project. A month ago we had, and it's gotten a little bit big, probably a little out of hand now, but we had 300 people show up at the parking lot at Christ community on a Saturday about a month ago, and we had served 20 widows in Franklin, and we raised about $350,000
Carli 27:41
Can we get an invitation to the next
JT Olson 27:45
Oh yeah, it's everyone is smiling. It's amazing. And we also have monthly donors. A lot of them just love what we do. And friends, they just say, I love what you're doing. Just keep doing it. We'll support you. We'll make sure the things are paid. You know, a lot of them are families who did a project 510, years ago, and now they're in a different financial situation, so they they want to pay it forward and and then we have a lot of generous friends at Christmas time, but that's how we do it. And we've never missed a payroll Yet God's blessed it. And it's just, it just feels like the safest place is out on a limb.
Carli 28:17
We need to stitch that on a pillow. There was a season where we were really researching adoption to I won't go into today, but I was told I might not be able to have kids. And so very early in our marriage, we were researching, what would this look like to start our family through adoption? Are we really praying? Are we called to that? And then the Lord blessed us with three, with four. I almost forgot the little one, four biological children of our own. But man, adoption has always been on our heart, and people we love so much have adopted, and it's so precious. But I remember looking at the financial impact that would make on our family, and how it's travel expenses. It's so much red tape. So can you speak a little bit to that, as as you've started to how much it's grown? I mean, what is the average financial cost for a family that wants to take this leap?
Jared DeLong 29:11
Yeah, we, I mean, we've seen anywhere from 35 to 50, 60,000 we've even seen more north of that. Honestly, if we're seeing it, options that family is saying is going to cost them 70 or 80,000 we typically suggest that they do some further research and maybe look elsewhere. But there's, there's a lot of different factors that go into it. If it's a domestic adoption, obviously you're paying for the agency. There's, the initial home study work just to be legally approved to adopt a child. Then there's the birth mother fees throughout the process, there's administrative fees for the adoption agency and all the work they do, sometimes there may be some additional marketing that they have for towards. Finding a birth mother, and then there's the legal paperwork once they're matched with their child. And but travel fees are kind of just dependent on if it's international, obviously travel fees are going to be a lot more. And also, if it's international, then you're dealing with the additional legal process, you know, to have the child become a US citizen. So it can vary by agency. It can vary by which state you're adopting from, or if it's international. But we, typically, the agencies will recommend it's between 35 to 50,000.
Carli 30:38
And you have vendors, I hate to use the word vendors, but agencies that you probably see all the time, that you have a good relationship with and recommend, are you seeing a lot of fraud in the market? Because you said, if somebody's asking for 70 look again. What is that common?
Jared DeLong 30:53
Yeah, that we have some really great partners that also kind of work in the adoption funding space, and so we'll check in with them periodically, just to kind of see what are they seeing or hearing, or their agencies that they're noticing, or just, you know, some things may be a little bit odd, but we do have the agencies must, must be licensed if they need to be Hague accredited, if they're doing international adoptions, and there's a few that that we have chosen not to work with, or we've asked our families to look elsewhere. But I know that there's some bills currently going through legislation we're hoping that they get passed around, tightening up some of the guidelines and putting more regulations in place to put agencies in check, to definitely combat that fraud. Then there's in Tennessee as well. I know that there's been a lot of great work that an organization called adoption project. Jeremy Harrell is the founder of that nonprofit, but they've been doing some great work to really put more legislation in place to combat that.
Spencer 32:05
So my business here picks up again here and just says, when you think about a 35 to $80,000 price tag, what is the largest price tag of that run? So is there something Yeah, is there something that's like 70% of the cost or 50% of percent of the cost?
JT Olson 32:24
Well, I know for the Moldova one, the very first one, that was 2007 a lot of that was flights. Remember, you're gonna go over there with two, you're coming back with six. And Moldova, there's four legs to get I mean, there's a lot of flights to get there. So that was a big chunk. That was a chunk of that, I don't know how much, but I'm guessing that was a lot of it. I don't know the rest of it. I just but that's part of it. Is travel, yeah,
Jared DeLong 32:46
I think just the your agency and your caseworkers, the amount of time they're going to be investing in you, going through that home study process and representing you and and that communication with the birth mother, just all of that overhead that the agency is going to be taking on, that that is a substantial piece of it. And then the birth mother, her expenses that are being covered, that can be a good chunk as well, because
Carli 33:14
The traditional adoption would cover all of her medical bills and things of that nature.
Jared DeLong 33:20
Yeah, it can. It can vary by state and by agency. Some agencies offer more than others for their birth mother, but yeah, pretty much we work with a lot of heroes.
JT Olson 33:32
You do. I mean, we go to these conferences. You just these, some of the people we work with in the foster care stories we hear, you know a couple that they've got a 33 year old, a 20 year old or 25 year old and a 29 year old, and they decide, no, we want to make an impact. They're not seeking ease. They're seeking impact. And they take on a 12 year old, 14 and a 15 year old sibling group, and say, we're going to raise these kids. I mean, that's the kind of people that we get to work with in this world. And they're just people who just, they're, you know, they want to make a difference, and it's just fun, you know.
Carli 34:06
So how could people like us? We're hearing about you for the first time. Clearly, this story is amazing. What are your pain points like? Where do you wish you had partners? Or are there opportunities that you wish people would walk alongside you? Maybe we don't know somebody who is doing a project, but we love you guys. Obviously you have your overhead projects, but what are your pain points?
Jared DeLong 34:31
I would say, I think on the adoption side, first off is the number one reason why families don't adopt is when they find out the cost, really, that's the number one barrier. And so I think awareness for us and for other organizations. I mean, there's none like both hands, but there's other adoption grant organizations out there, loans, things like that. I think more awareness for families to know that there are. Organizations out there that can help them cover the costs. There's also the adoption tax credit. Oftentimes, employers may offer some type of adoption matching grant of some kind for their employees, really just they stay the eyes glaze over as soon as they see the price tag. And we never want money to be a reason that a child doesn't have a home. So that would be one is just awareness.
JT Olson 35:28
That we exist, that there's a possibility our average family raises 22,000 I mean, that's, that's, that's a lot of money.
Jared DeLong 35:40
Take 22,000 plus adoption tax credit, which is 16,000 maybe it's gonna be 17 soon. You add that up. Maybe get another grant from somewhere. I mean, you've covered your adoption right there. Wow.
Spencer 35:53
I mean, it's doable. How many projects in a given year do you average we
Jared DeLong 36:00
were doing. And 2018 we did 100 and about 120 18 to 2019 we did about 120 on average. And then when covid hit, numbers dropped in half. So we're doing about. Our lowest point was 56 one year. And then last year, we did 112 So our goal was to get up over 130 this year.
Spencer 36:22
So about 10 a month, if you round that out, when you think about your capacity. So when you talk about awareness, let's say that somebody listening to this, this really connects with their heart, and they say, I really want to help spread your name across Tennessee regional. Are you mostly focused in Tennessee, 45 states? Okay, all right, so not at all. So from a broader marketing perspective, if this comes on somebody's heart and they want to help both hands brand grow, what type of capacity Do you have? How scalable is this? Could you handle 20 a month? Say, if we had it, we could do it right now, I believe.
Jared DeLong 37:02
So, yeah, okay, yeah, we so JT and the team, they've developed a great toolkit that walks every family through, doing a project where, now, when a family is approved, they have access to on our website. It's just a big old checklist, series of videos, and then our team walks them through. So we're very high touch every step, because our goal is ultimately that they would follow every step and raise the most that they can. Our goal is always we tell a family, send out 600 letters, 100 you should send out, and then 500 should be sent out by other people on your team.
JT Olson 37:41
So that's yeah, and I coach all the families. I personally coached every project that's happened. I My background is in sales and sales management, and really it's just it blows me away, because when i The accident happened when I was 12, I started both hands when I was 52 there's 40 years in there. That's was, it's like, I feel like God was saying, everything up to now has been practice. This is getting you ready, because now this is what this has all been about, the skills, the people you've met, the sermons you've heard, the books you've read. I mean, this is put it all together. Just tee it up and have fun, because this is going to be a blast, you know? Yeah.
Carli 38:21
I mean, Moses was repaired, prepared for 40 years before he got to go in, so that makes sense to me,
JT Olson 38:27
Well, and, and so, but part of that training, it's just amazing how it was just so easy. When we started, I trained the families. Here's how you recruit a team. I did that for 20 years, you know? Here's how you recruit a team. And, and I we have the whole manual. It's 81 step toolkit. Are you talking about? Then we coach them on. Here's how you have a meeting to bring your everyone into your fam, your home, for an hour long meeting. Tell them about both hands. Get them fired up. Get them fired up about sending 600 letters, you know. And get them fired up about asking people for money. And we answer all those objections. I teach them how to do that, you know. And then, and then I talked to them right before their project, to the week before the project, make sure they're, they're set to go. So, I mean, it's, it's a high touch. And we're doing now we're doing last year, almost year and a half now, we've been doing zoom calls. I used to do each one of them on the phone individually, but now, like, I'll do three families at once on a zoom so can we scale? Yeah, we can do them.
Carli 39:20
So you need to video some of that. We gotta, we gotta get you some evergreen content for that. Yeah,
JT Olson 39:27
well, we do have me down videoing all parts of the training in case I get hit by a bus. You know, we gotta make sure we got that so.
Jared DeLong 39:33
And his, his dream has been, when I first started, he had said, Imagine if we had a prod, one project happening in every state, every weekend out of the year, which thou meets cool 2500 2500 projects. So in terms of capacity, we probably need a little extra help.
JT Olson 39:51
We'd have to buy a new computer, I think.
Carli 39:55
But what's the capacity? Or, I guess, even the need so you have your organizational. Capacity. But how many? I mean, could you wrap a number around? How many kids are looking for homes that you have this heart to serve, even just domestically?
Jared DeLong 40:12
Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I don't I think one with the Department of the state for international adoptions, we actually have data on how many adoptions are happening that they report on. One thing is domestically, and there's legislation currently. National Council for adoption is really pushing this in Congress right now is around more just collective data on adoptions happening domestically each year, because the different states reported in different ways, so there's no consistency. So it's, it's a hard question to answer. We I definitely know there's more families we could be helping. What realistically, percentage of market share per se would that be? Yeah, it's it's hard to know.
Carli 41:03
Yeah, there's so much in the world, and we're not touching on it today about women and pregnancy and what to do. But for the adoptive minded mother, I wonder if there's barriers to entry for her, or how she feels about trying to find families in connection with you guys. Or how many women would be encouraged if they knew that there are so many families that want to be part of that?
JT Olson 41:33
Well, things like this help get the word out, you know? Yeah, I, you know, I just think we got it. We just gotta. When people do a search of, how am I gonna afford an adoption, I just, but I think a lot of times they just hear about it. They just, they don't even think there's a possibility. Just the more exposure we get, the more and plus, it's a fun thing, a widow gets served. And here the cool thing is, when these people do projects and let's and the average is 22,000 that means some people do more and some people do less. And if they do less, it's usually, it's, it's usually a couple things that may be in a lower socioeconomic area than maybe the averages. You know, that's possible. They're the just their circle of friends and things like that. But a lot of times it's because they didn't sound it. They didn't really do what I suggested they do, you know, and send out 600 letters, or get 1520 people on the team and stuff like that. But whenever I talk to them after the project, if I see they didn't raise much, like maybe four or 5000 which is not a that's not a lot in what we're doing, they get on the phone. I said, Well, how you doing? Oh, JD, this. It was obvious from the beginning. This is not about us. Let me tell you about this widow, and let me tell you what we did. And even if they don't raise a lot, that means there's no losers. There's they still experience joy. That's why it's just it's everybody wins. Everybody wins, even when they don't raise as much. So it's kind of neat.
Spencer 43:00
I have two questions for you, JT, and you can take these in either order that you want. One's a potentially dumb question, but this is the time to ask them. So help me. The first question is related to foster care, and trying to understand where foster care plays in the role of adoption. And knowing some families that are foster families, help me understand in the hate to call it machinery of the process, but help me understand that and educate me a little bit there. And then two specifically to you. JT, one of almost every person's greatest fear is asking for money. People hate to ask for money. And you mentioned a second ago that one of the teachings that you do is teaching people a little bit of how to ask for money. So I know you've got a lot of curriculum, but if you would give us 60 seconds just for someone that's hearing this and is like, I'm not asking for money. That's gonna make me feel terrible, speak for just a moment educationally about that. So those are the two things in either order that you want.
JT Olson 44:12
I would say the first thing I think people need to understand is and I try to teach them. It says, When you send them a letter and said, I'm working on this. Will house? Would you sponsor me for the day? Here's what we're doing, and here's where the money's gonna go for, you know, and has little boxes they can check, you know, and, and or other. It has a box there, you know. I think what you're doing is you're giving people a chance to do what God commands us to do. It's not just a suggestion. He's not saying, like, Hey, if you got some time I got this group of people. They're widows and orphans. Would you just take care of them? For me, it's a little bit more of a mandate than that, if you really think about it and really read it. And so what you're doing is you're giving people an opportunity, right out there, in the open, very easy, to do what they've been commanded to do. Because, I mean, how many times people think, I mean, we hear a lot. People, sometimes they they donate to us. And I said, How'd you hear about us? I just did a I did a web search on widows and orphans, and you guys popped up, and I read about your organization, I thought, Oh my gosh. And that's how they some, you know, they they donate. Okay, keep up to organizations. So that's one of the things I tried to help. You're giving people an opportunity. And sometimes I tell people, when they send a letter out, there's only two things are going to happen with that letter. Number one, your friend is going to open it, read it and say, Wow, what a great idea. They're going to be glad you sent it to them. They're probably going to need an email reminder to send a check in, but they're actually glad you reminded them, because they think it's a pretty cool gig. The other thing that's going to happen is they're going to read the letter, throw it away, and then, you know what they're going to do, get back to what they were doing. They're not going to sit and think about you. The reason people have this fear, I think, is because they magnify what people think about they think people think about them more than people do. People got more in their mind than think. I'm sorry people don't think about you that much. It's a great message, yeah. And I just try to help them understand it's not that big a deal. And even if someone is thinking about you after they throw that letter away, you just told them you're working on a widow's house to help an orphan, they're probably not thinking bad things about you.
Spencer 46:23
See, that's why you got 30 years of sales training. That was, that was excellent, nominal.
Carli 46:27
We need to go to business school. I think that that is like sales, yeah.
JT Olson 46:32
I mean, it's just, I just think you're giving them, that's how I've always felt about it. And, you know, just.
Spencer 46:38
That's great. So now my dumb question on foster care help me understand how that functions in this framework?
Jared DeLong 46:46
Sure. Well, so there's when you're adopting a child through the foster care system. Most of the costs are covered by the state. So for us, we haven't had any families approach us needing to do a project, so we typically are working with just families doing domestic, private adoptions or international adoptions. However, one thing we have started to do is we're calling them just group projects, but essentially the idea is our model, but it's not for an adoptive family. It's for it could be a company does a project with us. Small group from a church does a project with us, a group of college students, sorority, fraternity. The idea is, they serve a widow. They send out letters, they fundraise. All the funds that come in goes towards it could be another ministry that's serving like a foster care ministry and any ministry that's serving orphaned and vulnerable children is the goal. Like one example, last year, we had a group of fathers and sons from Grace Christian Academy, and they approached us to do a project, and Scott is the dad that led the project. They found a widow in Spring Hill to serve. They all sent out letters, and they raised about 12, 8000 8000 they raised about 8000 for the foster care closet at church of the city. So that's one thing we're really trying to push, because that's a way that anyone can get involved, not not just if you're adopting so that that to answer your question, that that's that's one way that we're trying to kind of add a new product line, you could say,
JT Olson 48:24
I mean, what a great idea. Think about all the little towns in America that have a private little school. You know, 500 kids go to this liberal arts school in a town of 10,000 I mean, there's got to be two or three widows in that town that could use some help. And I know there's a fraternity or sorority in that college. They could do a product and raise money for, you know, anything. And I just the potential is just amazing to me. And a widow's gonna get served, and no one's gonna lose.
Carli 48:52
So your spirit around this, both of you, is so contagious, and I see why you work well together like this. Ying yang, you've got the data and very even keel with this passionate I dig it, I get it. I dig it. As I leave here today, though, and I'm thinking about you guys, and I'm sure there will be 75 questions I wish I had asked that will also come up to my brain. But the one thing I want to ask is, how can we pray for you guys specifically as we go from here? Because there's a lot of things we could do, but I think our hearts are aligned that we know that that's the most powerful thing that anybody could do for you. So if somebody listening to this, us individually wanted to pray for you, how could we do that?
Jared DeLong 49:37
You want me to go Yeah, go ahead.
Carli 49:39
You can both answer, yeah, not either. Only one answer, yeah, we are lending prayer. So if one of you can make sure, that'd be great.
Jared DeLong 49:49
I mean, gosh, the I think the one thing that comes to mind immediately is all of our waiting families right now, who have already done their project and now. Are waiting, especially internationally, countries like Ukraine, China, they're waiting to bring their child home, especially if they've already been matched. And they they have a photo, they have a picture, they have a name of who their child is.
JT Olson 50:14
And they're watching, just imagine that, watching that child grow up.
Jared DeLong 50:19
So I just just praying for strength for them. Pray for our government leaders. Pray for those leaders in the foreign countries, just that those those kids could come home and praying for our families in the middle of their projects right now. I mean, share what you you tell the warfare that, you know, families, yeah,
JT Olson 50:43
I, you know, I think there's a lot of when you start adopting, there's a lot of warfare, because you're hitting widows and orphans, yeah, and you're getting close, you're over the target, and when you're over the target, you're going to get some fire, you know, and, and I just always tell people, in the midst of This, you're going to have a lot of things happen. And you'll be praying, and you'll have things remind you of here's why we're doing here's what I'm doing. I always say there's one more thing to remember. Remember, somebody's watching you. Somebody's watching. And I know because I was watching. I was watching when our pastor of fellowship in 2001 adopted. I was watching and and when we adopted Gracie in 2003 from China, I had a couple years later, I had some guys come up to me and say, Yeah, we were, I mean, we said, If JT and Sarah can do it, we can do it. And that's what people think it's like. There's this holy chain, and every adoption is attached to another one, so someone's watching, and it's an inspiration. And it's, it's cool, that's, I pray for our families. I pray for the the the families and the people that work at both hands, because we're here and, you know, it's we, for us to be protected, you know, just, you know, I just, I just, I got a letter that when I first started, about two years into both hands, from a friend of mine. And he kind of quoted from somebody else, but he said, JT, if I was Satan, let me tell you what I'd do. And he started listing all these things. I try and get you squabbling amongst you. I try and bring shame to you. I probably break, you know, if I couldn't get that, I'd try and kill you, I thought. And it's for me. If the the picture of this fires me up, I just, I just picture this battle. I'm picture Satan getting up in the morning with his little minions, and he's going through the list when he gets to my name, I don't want to check in the box that says, not a threat. I don't want him thinking crap. He's up again, you know, and just while I'm here, just got to make a difference. Wow. Seek impact, not ease. That's what I just it's more fulfilling.
Spencer 52:58
Thanks for that message. That's really that's really great. It echoes to what you said earlier, that you're often most safe when you're out on a limb. I really like that. I think there's a there's a deep truth to to that in so many respects of of life. So yeah, thank you all for sharing the story. There's one story left to tell, though, and it's a long standing tradition that we have with signature required is that you all have to bring in something that reveals a little bit of your personality. So JT, I normally would start with you as the elder statesman. However, I'm starting with Jared, because for those listening, Jared has about a one inch high pink wooden plunger that is on the shelf.
Jared DeLong 53:43
Would you like the honor of holding it absolutely?
Carli 53:45
How can one? Yeah, there you go.
Jared DeLong 53:47
Hold my plunger. So when JT reached back before any of us, it was just him, when they reached the first million dollar milestone, he decided, what, what did you What did you climb your roof?
JT Olson 54:03
Climbed a roof. I shouted it from the rooftops. Shouted from the rooftops, my little daughter, Gracie, who we adopted that had she was 2002 she was 2011 she was probably 810, years old. She filmed me on my phone and me climbing up on the roof and yelling Praise God from whom all blessings. Because every million we do something, yeah, we do something. Sometimes it's crazy. Sometimes it's, you know, it's fun,
Jared DeLong 54:26
Yeah? So every million since then, it's progressed, and it's gotten more and more crazy. And so for we were going to an adoption conference in St Louis last I guess that was last summer, right? And we were trying to think, Okay, what could what could be the narrative? What could be the funny story? What's JC going to climb? And so we decided, okay, he's going to climb the arch. And so you can look up the video, it's on our YouTube, and we have him going into mission, Impossible style. He goes into Lowe's, picks up some plunger. His duct tape, and then we get him trying to climb the arch with plungers.
JT Olson 55:05
I'm thinking Tom Cruise, right? You know, climbing the building, as one would to me, it would make sense. Why would that not be a good idea?
Carli 55:13
Wait, did you play the theme song? Did you have
JT Olson 55:16
Jared? Does he's great. It's a great video.
Jared DeLong 55:19
So a couple weeks later, in the mail, I get this from one of our the caseworkers at an adoption agency we partner with, and she loves us and follows us. And so she sent this to me and a little note just saying how much she loved the video. And so I've had it on my desk ever since, just because.
Spencer 55:34
Is this video publicly available.
JT Olson 55:35
Oh yeah
Spencer 55:36
We're gonna link to this video in the comments. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna put that in, in the podcast show to our children.
JT Olson 55:44
Yeah, they're all good to show to children. I mean, they're funny. And we've dumped out an airplane, and we've done, I mean, we had a lot of fun with this every million dollars.
Jared DeLong 55:51
Yeah, you went skydiving. It was a big one. Wow. All right.
JT Olson 55:55
I have a tendency to kind of do it a little bit, and for, I guess this,
Spencer 56:03
Hold it up for the camera here, so they can see it.
JT Olson 56:05
This is, this would be my T shirt. This is an example of my doodles. And is this? This is an example. It's, yeah, you got the right thing. There's that face there. And it really does take a long time to do it, because it's like, usually I would do it when I was in a in a personal one on one with an employee, and I'd have a chart there, but I'd be listening to him, and I just, you know, wasn't just me, but I kind of do it a little bit while I'm listening to him, and I listen, and it helps me when I doodle, and I don't think it's maybe it's irreverent. I don't, I don't mean to be, but, and then one time, I've always thought, well, let's get this printed. My kids always say, Dad, you've got any doodles. You got anything left, because they like so one year, I took one of the doodles, I've got about four or five sheets like that, and I made a t shirt so cool. And my kids, they wish it was on a white t shirt. They don't like the yellow for some reason. So that's just mine, and you know, I like that.
Spencer 57:05
Reveals a little your personality.
JT Olson 57:07
Don't look at the doodles too closely. Yeah, I don't even know that
Spencer 57:13
That's interesting, that that helps you focus how poorly I draw. That would just distract everybody in the room. They'd be like, if you're drawing that poorly, whatever your opinion is, is just not as valuable based upon the work product you have incredibly there, so that actually, for those that are just listening, it's a fantastic set of doodles there.
Carli 57:31
It's really impressive. Yes, I couldn't do that.
Spencer 57:35
Well that’s a wrap, both of you. Thank you for serving this community, serving our nation, serving the kingdom. It is no surprise to me that when you start with a heart mission of serving widows and orphans, that you come all these years later and find tremendous blessing. You find that the Lord has met you financially and then some that you continue to have opportunities to grow and stretch the organization that let you keep trusting and sowing into a story that you can literally JT trace the Lord's hand from 12 years Old and seeing the skills that you've been blessed with, how your heart has been burdened for this cause uniquely and for you to be able to be providing that testimony here, many, many years later, it's really a true privilege for us to have you here. Thank you. JT, thank you, Jared, thank you. You all are doing amazing, amazing work. Thank you. You.
