What We’re Proud of from 2024

While it has been a whirlwind start to 2025, Foster Advocates remains committed to turning Fosters’ visions for systems change into reality. 2024 was a challenging year for Foster Advocates, as we moved through both expected and unexpected staff transitions and experienced financial constraints that led to some difficult impacts to programs. Our team worked incredibly hard through these challenges, grounded by the knowledge that our advocacy work has and will continue to make a difference for Minnesota Fosters. We are deeply grateful for our Foster network and the larger community who showed up for Foster Advocates over the past year. 

As we reflect back on 2024, there is also much to celebrate. We wanted to take a moment to share a few highlights from our sixth year as an organization!

Securing FIG Funding

At the legislature, our community showed up and we were able to secure funding to cover the Fostering Independence Grants (FIG) funding gap for the 2024-2025 school year! The 2024 FIG report came out in January, showing this grant is doing what the state promised–making it possible for Fosters to get to college. The work is not done, and this session, Foster Advocates will be working to create a special revenue fund for FIG to ensure its ongoing sustainability. 

Getting Money Into the Hands of Fosters

Since our first leadership programs in 2020, we held true to the value of paying Fosters for their expertise. Last year, we were also able to create a stabilization fund for Fosters working with our Support Program team. We are proud to have distributed over $37,000 directly to Fosters in 2024 - more than we ever have before!

Sharing Foster Expertise Nationally

With an invitation to present  our LGBTQ2S+ Foster Know Your Rights Guide at Louisiana’s annual child welfare conference in November, Foster Advocates traveled to our first out-of-state conference. Shawna represented our 2022 LGBTQ2S+ Leaders and shared key recommendations for providing affirming care to all Fosters.

Investing in Community Healing

Transformational systems change work is hard, and we are committed to doing things differently when it comes to supporting Foster leaders. In 2024 we piloted a partnership with Creative Kuponya to bring healing resources to our staff, Board, and Foster leaders. This journey will continue in 2025, expanding intentional community care and healing support within our team and across more of our programs.

Building the Foster Movement

To truly fulfill Minnesota's promise to Fosters, it will take a movement. We have already started this through Minnesota Promise, and Fosters have been involved at every step of this campaign. Since 2022, our MN Promise committee has been meeting biweekly. They’ve supported recruitment and follow up for our listening and design sessions, planned for participant feedback in the fall, reviewed draft pieces of the report, and brainstormed amazing ideas for our 2025 report publication and public launch. In 2024, we released our first video series highlighting Foster leaders - check out what they have to say about MN Promise!

These celebrations would not be possible without our community behind us. You all have shown up in big and small ways. We’re excited to share that we’ve expanded our individual donor network raising over $60,000 in 2024. That’s more than double what we’ve raised from individuals in Foster Advocates’ history! We received critical in-kind support as we moved through the challenges of the past year, which allowed us to reinvest in our staff and programs. We are grateful for our institutional funders and their ongoing support of Foster Advocates. Your belief in our approach and trust in the vision from our Foster leaders allows us to continue our advocacy work statewide.

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

 In the coming months, you’ll hear more about our goals for 2025 (and have the opportunity to visit us in our new office at Equaspace!). Our vision for the next year is built on the work and dedication of our team, Foster leaders, and network of partners in 2024. Foster Advocates would not be the organization we are today without this collective support and collaboration. Thank you for being a part of the Foster Advocates community. Together, we are creating the systems change that Fosters envision and deserve. Together, we are building a Foster Movement.