The Forgotten Initiative

The Forgotten Initiative is a blog and website that are close to my heart.  This non-profit seeks to educate and encourage people who work in foster care.  The blog often deals with common concerns and situations that many foster parents face.  Many of the topics covered cross over and apply to parents of all adopted children both domestic and international.

Our family is one that has been partially created through adoption and one that hopes to open our home to more children in the future.  This blog has been a source of encouragement and education.  I often read their blogs to learn personal stories of other families walking the same road that we walk.  The posts provide strength for me during hard days and a place of understanding for the joyous celebration of adoption milestones and successes.  In that way, I feel like their blog has created a community.

While the non-profit’s main focus is encouraging and helping kids and social workers in the foster care system, the Forgotten Initiative's blog seeks to target their main demographic of supporters: foster parents.  It is an interesting tactic and one that I haven’t seen too often.

The Forgotten Initiative has done well in creating a network of support (or advocates) and uses social media to encourage and reach more volunteers who will “buy in” to their mission.

Their site is well designed and they post to their blog frequently.  Their website is up to date and always has fresh content.  They use Facebook and other social media outlets as well as a podcasts to reach their audience on many different platforms.  When they post to social media, they not only post links to blogs but also create well designed memes and link other articles that promote the main thrust of their ministry.