 Well, welcome to everyone that has joined us today. This is a power week. So if you have not noticed, I want you to make sure that you pay attention. Today specifically, we are meeting with the foundation leader and champion, Rita Sorenen, which is president and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. And Rita will be joining us all week to really put some light and focus around adoption across our nation. So we are thrilled to have the Dave Thomas Foundation with us all week. We of course want to mention that we have great support from our sponsors and we are so grateful to have their continued investment and dedication to these conversations. We are very lucky to have thought leaders across the globe meet with us and share their inside expertise and valuable time with us. So thank you to our presenting sponsors that continue these conversations across the nation. We are so very grateful to have their investment, not only in the show, but truly in the sector at large. Julia is also very invested in the sector. And what she thought was going to be a two week nonprofit show has turned into now a two year nonprofit show. And so grateful that you had this vision, Julia. Julia serves as the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and I get to play alongside as her co-host each and every weekday. I'm Jarrett Ransom, also known as your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And I had mentioned previously, but today we have Rita Soranen. Rita, you've been on before, but this week we have you to ourself the entire week. So welcome back. Thank you. I'm so delighted and honored to be with both of you today. Well, it's going to be really an amazing thing because when we met you and had you on the show, we, it was pretty early on, we both separately were just transfixed by so many things that you said by the work that you were doing, by the story behind the foundation. And so we're just thrilled to have the opportunity to really get more time with you to learn from you about this amazing work that you're doing that has just really, I think changed our country. And I think there's so many lessons, no matter what type of nonprofit service you're in. So I'm just really, really excited and I can't wait to journey forward with you for this whole week. But before we get going, if you can like go back in the time machine and talk to us about Dave Thomas and the story and how you, Rita got engaged in this whole thing. You bet, and thank you. Thank you again. What a delight to be here. Look, I'm celebrating my 20th a year here with the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. And so it becomes particularly compelling to me to talk about Dave Thomas in particular who, hopefully everyone that's watching knows Dave Thomas and that link to the Wendy's company. But his story is so profound. It's a classic American story in so many ways. He was adopted at six weeks old. His mother passed away, his adoptive mother passed away when he was five. And his father was a bit of an itinerant worker moving from place to place, looking for work. And so Dave Thomas grew up under that constant movement and very often was living with his grandmother, grandma Minnie, when his dad was out looking for work. And so already has that story of movement, of loss, of identity. But it was when he moved to Knoxville, I think that he got his first job in a restaurant. And then later on at age 15 was in Fort Wayne, Indiana and got his job at Holly Hobby, but he also dropped out of school at age 15. But really found in his soul this notion of restaurants and gathering and something that he wanted to do the rest of his life. So went into the army, came back from the army, went back to Holly Hobby, that wonderful restaurant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. That's where he met his future wife, Lorraine. And they began to put in place this dream that he had for creating in his words, the best restaurant ever. And what he wanted to do was the best hamburger restaurant ever. After a few years, also connected with Colonel Sanders from Kentucky Fried Chicken, they developed an impressive relationship and a trusting one so much so that Colonel Sanders offered him for failing Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants that he learned the business of fast food restaurant, franchise business and made them successful. It was then that he went on to create Wendy's and Wendy's old fashioned hamburgers in 1969 opened that first restaurant, but never forgot his sense of identity, who he was. And as he began to build this incredible corporate brand, international franchise system kept those very core qualities of, quality behind everything that we do, give back to the community. Profit's not a dirty word, but use it well. All of those great sort of colloquialisms that made him a profoundly successful businessman. And then in 1992, well, in 1990, before the foundation was ever created because he was beginning to talk about adoption, benefits in the workplace, about how do we make this adoption process in the United States much more efficient and effective for children, then President Bush tagged him as an adoption ambassador for the White House in 1990. That's what led to his thinking, all right, maybe we need to go deeper and do more. It's one thing to be a spokesperson and absolutely work with policymakers to think about how can we make this process more efficient, but maybe we need to create an organization that can do that in my absence. I mean, he was thinking ahead, how do we create a legacy of work that will both continue to build that wonderful Wendy's brand, but create an organization that can advance this cause of foster care adoption. And so created the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in 1992 as a national nonprofit public charity to focus exclusively on North America's children who are in foster care and who are waiting to be adopted. But think about that chain from being adopted as a six-week-old, losing his family, moving frequently. His story is not unlike our children in foster care who suffer profound grief and loss, who may move frequently, who frequently live with extended family members. All of those issues that surrounded them, but thinking ahead and how can we make sure that our children can have the best possible future ahead of them? What a great origin story, you know? And to really have him as the spokesperson that has lived this personally is really, you know, and the way that he tackled this issue and opportunity in a very progressive manner. I, of course, have been following you on LinkedIn and the foundation on LinkedIn to see all of the great work that is being done. And I am learning so very much when it comes to the, you know, the sector specifically for adoption. And I'm curious, Rita, if you would be willing to share with us some facts of adoption and foster care. And I'm sure these facts continue to change, right? Because when the foundation started and originated, I think you said 92, there's a lot that's changed in this landscape. Well, you're so right. There's a lot that's changed, but there's a lot that stays the same when we're dealing with this issue of child welfare. And look, it's particularly important now, November is National Adoption Awareness Month. So that's, you know, one particular month when, of course, we're doing this every day, but when we really elevate this notion of what is it that children experience? Why are they in foster care? What is the child welfare system? What are the complexities of it? And so children are in foster care through no fault of their own. They've been abused or abandoned or neglected. And that has risen to such a level that then states and counties get involved. It's their legal responsibility to get involved and to assure the safety of children if an allegation of abuse has occurred. And so the result of that frequently is that the children are potentially temporarily placed with extended family members and the system works to make sure that the family is safe, the family of origin and the child can go back to the family. That's where every child belongs, first and foremost in their family of origin. It's only when it's deemed that that family is simply not safe enough for that child to be there that then they get placed into foster care, right? Foster care adoption. And today, as we're sitting here, there are about 440,000 children in America's foster care system. And those are children who have gone through this strategy of investigation, of court appearances, of social workers getting involved in the family's life. And then a determination is made that that child has to be placed. Now the job then is to get those children home. How do we give services to the family? How do we surround this family with it? It may be that it's simply an issue of we need additional resources that this child needs the safety of a permanent home that needs food, that needs a little bit of assistance so that family can move on. But sometimes it's allegations of physical or sexual abuse or other kinds of abuse that finally rise have risen to such a level that the courts have intervened and said this family can never be made safe enough. And we are gonna permanently sever this child from this family. And right now in this country, there are 122,000 children whose parental rights have been terminated. It's such a harsh phrase. In other words, they've been permanently separated from their family of origin. That family no longer has a legal claim to that child. And so we have 122,000 legal orphans in our country who need to be now adopted. That's our promise to those children. The day they're permanently separated from family, we will find you another family. The average age of a child waiting to be adopted in foster care right now is about eight. But what we know from research is by the time a child turns nine in foster care and they've been freed for adoption, their likelihood of being adopted decreases significantly because we have a default for understandable reasons to babies in this country. When we think adoption, we think infant adoption, right? And there are international adoption strategies. There are domestic infant adoption strategies. But that was the root of Dave Thomas' thinking is how do we elevate the awareness of these children as well? We're never trying to dissuade someone from an infant. If that's what that family wants and needs, we wanna provide every possible support and information so that family can go forward. But we want people to concurrently think about the children in foster care who are waiting for families as well when people are thinking about extending or creating a family through adoption. One statistic that keeps me up every night, that keeps this organization moving aggressively is of those children who are available for adoption every year, year over year, about 20,000 children turn 18 or 21 depending on the state and leave the foster care system without the family they were promised. They age out of foster care. Now, in and of itself, a lot of them are like Dave Thomas. They've got, you know, they're certainly strong and sturdy and they figure out this world without a family of support, but we shouldn't put children in that position because what we do know is that children who leave foster care without that safety net of family are at a much higher risk of negative outcomes, homelessness, unemployment, lack of education, early parenting, substance abuse, not because they're bad kids, but because they can't make a mistake. They can never make a mistake because they don't have that safety net of family to go home to and say, help me. So that's what we work on every day is that focused population of children who are in foster care, who are waiting to be adopted and who are most at risk of aging out of foster care without a family. Wow. You said 440,000 foster care, 122,000? Yes. And in our production system, and this is across the nation. And then how many, is it 20,000 term of age out? Yep, yep. They're in some strategy where they either age out or they're on that track for aging out by the time the day they turn 18 or there's extended foster care in some states, but there's lots of rules and regulations around that extended foster care. So it's a risky time from 18 to 21 even if they're in extended foster care. So this is a fascinating backstory. I mean, the information that you've given us, I would venture to say that most of our viewers, unless they are in this sector, will be shocked and mortified by these numbers. So how do you back us up and educate us and kind of tell the story? Because when I think adoption, I think baby. Yeah. I think that just like goes into my brain. I think it's, we have a lot of readjusting to do. And so how do you do that as an organization? We do, and we have these deeply embedded myths and misperceptions about the system, who these children are, who these families are that are involved in the system as well. So when you mix those deeply held beliefs about a system and a child, that combines to really put barriers up to either learning about jumping in or even figuring out a way to assist. So for example, we do every few years we do a national survey through the Harris poll to get Americans attitudes about foster care and foster care adoption. Because from that, we can then drive what messages do we need to do to either reinforce a belief or to dispel a misperception. And what we learned last time is almost a majority of Americans believe children are in foster care because they've done something wrong because they're juvenile delinquents. So we already have this perception of older youth in foster care, teenagers in foster care as being the cause. They're the cause for this placement. As opposed to they've been harmed in some way, they've been in care for years potentially, they may have negative acting out behaviors because of the trauma, because of the grief, because of the multiple moves that they've experienced not because they said, hey, I'm setting out to do all these horrible things and I hope I get into foster care, right? But we believe that about these children. Look, go to any party and people start talking about teenagers and what happens to people's faces, right? Just existing biological families, people roll their eyes, they've got horrible stories about their teenagers. We don't like teenagers in this country very much. And yet they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do, right? They're testing limits, they're exploring freedom, they're doing all those things they're supposed to do. Add to that layers of being in foster care, of the complexities of families. And so our job at the foundation is to begin to talk about there are older youth in foster care who need a family as much as an infant does, every child deserves a family. There are sibling groups in foster care that need families. There are children with special needs in foster care that need families. There are children who've been in care for so long, they've given up on the notion of family. And what a judge asks as they're required to do, do you wanna be adopted? They say, no, thank you. Well, let's unpack what's behind that. No, and so those are all the messages that we want to get out without getting too much of a deep dive into the complexities of what child welfare is. And look, it's a government system. And so people are a little bit hesitant to jump into a government system in order to get perhaps a child because there are background checks and there are home studies and there are some fees, not a lot for foster care, but some fees. And you're dealing with a government system that frequently is overwhelmed and understaffed. And so phone calls are not returned. So our job is to help the American public understand, here's what you might get into, but here's why it's the right thing to do, that these children deserve, have a birthright of family like every other child and they're right here in your backyard. You don't have to necessarily go across an ocean to get a family. If you want to, we'll give you all kinds of resources to do that, but just know that while you're thinking about that, concurrently think about these children and care. And then we're frequently telling success stories through a number of venues about, here's a family that looks just like you who adopted from foster care and here's their story and here's what they look like and it's okay. It's okay. Sorry, Rita, you were saying a little bit in the titty chat chat because we were talking about tax credits and financial, reimbursements and support. And if you would tell us kind of what the average socioeconomic income or demographic, maybe I should say, and I'm curious if it changes between foster parents and adoption parents and correct me if I'm saying that incorrectly, but what kind of has been that average demographic? Yeah, and it is a changing demographic. First, the socioeconomic has stayed about the same. So it tends to be a middle to lower income family that adopts from foster care. Sometimes it's extended frequently and we hope it's extended family members who may not have been positioned to adopt, right? They weren't thinking about the financial cost of bringing a 12 year old into their family, but they're gonna do it because it's the right thing to do. So that's the economic, but it was not so long ago that it was only a two parent heterosexual couple that owned their home that were considered a viable families for adoption. In foster care now, foster care adoption, it can be a single parent. It can be a same sex couple. You don't have to own your own home. You don't have to have those kind of things that you might think, well, I'm gonna self select out because I'm certainly not gonna be qualified to adopt. So that's what's changing, I think in this country is who qualifies as an adoptive parent? The door is wide open if you're safe and you're caring and you understand that this is a long-term commitment. It's not a test, it's a long-term commitment. And you're willing to learn as much as possible and particularly surround that child if it's safe with extended family members because we're all homing pigeons to heart. That's where the children identify, right? They identify with their family of origin. And even if that's not the safe family, there may be others in that family that should be around that child. So absolutely, it's a changing demographic. And there are supports that follow these children. Most of the children are qualified as special needs not because the typical special needs of mental or physical challenges, they're there, but by virtue of their age, by virtue of their length of time and care, federal law qualifies them as special needs. And so subsidies follow the vast majority of these children until they're 18 that help the family with costs. Many states have additional assistance for education. There are adoption tax credit, both federal and state adoption tax credits that people can qualify for. They'll have to check with their tax attorneys or check with the experts around them, but they can delve into that. And then many businesses offer adoption benefits in the workplace because they feel like it's the right thing to do. And that was one of the campaigns that Dave Thomas started just by calling his fellow CEOs and saying, hey, do you offer benefits to families that are formed for birth? We understand it's a medical issue, but if you do, don't you think you should offer benefits to families that are formed through adoption, whether it's paid leave or financial assistance? And so that's one of the signature programs of the foundation as well. So yes, demographics are changing, but supports do follow these children in a way that we hope to educate the public as well and let them know that those are available. Amazing. Now, we've been talking a lot about Mr. Thomas and the trajectory of his life, your life, moving through 20 years of amazing work, but I think it's really interesting to talk about the financial side because this is not a Wendy's, oh, her lights went out. We talked about this. This is not, I would say this is like a signature project for the Wendy's Corporation in many ways, but you have to go out there and beat the drums for money. Talk about that. We do, and Mr. Thomas again was so visionary. He could have created the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption as a corporate foundation, as a family foundation, as a community foundation, we're uniquely identified. We're in Columbus, Ohio, even though we're a national organization, but he created it as a national nonprofit public charity because we had to do two things. We had to get out and talk about this organization in order to advance the mission, but we also had to do it in order to fundraise, right? You've got to do both. And how smart of him to do that because it allowed us to really elevate that message. We are profound and we're so grateful for the partnership with Wendy's restaurants, Wendy's franchisees, the Wendy's Corporation, and they provide in-restaurant fundraising for us. They do events for us, but it's not the only piece of our budget. We do have to get out and make sure, like every other nonprofit, that we have the resources available to have the quality staff to make this work and to expand the projects and programs that we have across the United States as well. Do a lot of people think, oh, you don't need money. You've got Wendy's behind you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I first walked in the door, people assumed we had just this large endowment from Dave Thomas. We created an endowment just five years ago. Again, we have the right to use the Wendy's name. We have the right to use Dave Thomas. It's inestimable, that value is inestimable. And they allow us to use that freely and we leverage that unconditionally a lot. But yes, I think there were some misperceptions and continue to be misperceptions that you must be a corporate foundation because you're so closely aligned and you get a steady stream of profits from the company or you have a large endowment that exists. And it's just not the case. And we say that with some amount of joy because we like this work of having to get out, not only to fundraise, but to talk about this incredible mission that's so important to so many children. Yeah. I'm curious, Rita, for those of us that are watching, listening, going back to hear the entire power week that we have you with this week, what are some things that we can do if we are not in a position of being, opening our home to fostering or adoption? What are some things that we as individuals, as you can do, that we can do to help support the foundation? It's a great question because not everybody is ready or really wants to foster or adopt and not everybody should be in that position to feel guilty because they can't, right? But there are so many things that we can do. Just learning about this, talking about it, understanding the issues in your own community. What is the child welfare system? Who are the children that are in foster care in my community? Talking to your office, right? Do you offer adoption benefits? If not, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has a turnkey package to help you implement adoption benefits. In your place of faith worship, talking about maybe an orphan Sunday where the congregation simply learns about the issues of foster care and adoption. Mentoring a child or volunteering with a nonprofit agency, just to say, how can I help at a volunteer level and frequently, particularly around the holiday time? Most organizations are doing gifts for children in foster care or for families that have adopted that might need just a little extra boost or at school time, backpacks for children to help again with just a little extra boost. Or frankly, understanding what are the pieces of advocacy that if you're so inclined and you're talking to your congressmen or women at any regular pace, ask them what they're doing for children. What are the policies that they might be interested in and making sure that every child in this country has the opportunity for a safe, permanent and loving home. So everything from volunteering to simply elevating the awareness with colleagues, with family and with change makers is such an important step for folks. Absolutely. You know, Jared, I appreciate you asking that question because I think it helps, it helps me feel like it's something that I can engage in. Whether I open my home or not, that's only one piece of the pie. That it's really critical to be pulling together so many of these different inputs because it's a bigger conversation, and especially in our country. Wow, Rita, what a fascinating life that you've had and that you continue to have. And we are so excited to have you with us for a week because we're gonna really, really, you know, delve into some things. One of the things I'm really excited about is that we have your director of development on with you and we're gonna talk about how you work together. Fascinating because we always hear one side or the other but we don't always hear them together. So that's gonna be fun. We're gonna be talking about the power of collaboration and he was a national organization. How do you do this and how can we learn from that moving across our country? Really exciting. We're gonna be talking about policy and the changes of policy. And I'm so curious to know the trajectory of these decades. What do you think Mr. Thomas would have seen to where you are and where we are across this country? It will be really, really interesting. And then we'll wrap up our week with actually Rita in the hot seat with ask and answer questions. So if you have questions for Rita, let us know. You can write us, you can tweet us, you can email. I mean, pick up the phone. What a concept. I don't even think I know my own phone number. But anyway. I don't like this anymore either. No, people are really like, what is she doing? But yeah, we wanna know because this is a really incredible opportunity to get in front of one of the great nonprofit leaders in our nation. So really, really an exciting week, Rita, to have you here. Here again is Rita's information, president and CEO. And I would say visionary of this organization to be from the founding on through what an incredible lens that you have on so many levels. And so very exciting for us to be able to have you with us. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined by the nonprofit nerd herself. I like to call her my nonprofit nerd, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors. Without you, we would not be here having this amazing conversation for nonprofit power week because it's really going to be, I think life altering for a lot of individual viewers, Jared, who watch this. But I think organizations that might be thinking like how do they amplify their voice? Look at the foundation process. It's gonna be a magical week. It is. And there's a lot that we can do just briefly from today's conversation. And I'm looking forward to the remainder of the week and really diving deep. So if we're excited, we certainly hope that our audience is too. Rita, thank you. As always, you are such a phenomenal leader. You are always very inspiring and inspirational to speak with. So thank you for all that you do and your team. And again, I will be here tomorrow. Cannot wait. I look forward to it. Thank you. Hey, it's gonna be great as we start this week which is really a magical week for all of us. We want to remind everyone to stay well. So you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.