One of the most popular ways families raise money to bring their children home is with an adoption t-shirt fundraiser. In addition to offsetting adoption expenses, shirts give your community an easy way to publicly show support for your family.

I get emotional every time I think of the Team Goodpaster day our friends and family organized. Led by my big-hearted friend Ashley, they secretly purchased basic t-shirts from a local print shop with the message “Team Goodpaster – Love Makes a Family.”

Then on the day of my adoption shower, they filled my social media accounts with dozens of t-shirt clad loved ones leaving personal messages of support. To top it off, this hush-hush endeavor culminated with the presentation of a $1,000 check to our family with profits from the fundraiser!

The good news for everyone reading this is you don’t have to rely on surprise campaigns to make money with adoption t-shirt fundraisers. Read on to find tips from adoptive families who successfully sold shirts to fund their own adoption, including my own experience selling shirts with Bonfire.

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Share Your Adoption Story with a T-Shirt

Taylor Shea Huss uses her t-shirt fundraiser to tell her family’s story. By sharing their story and shirt on their Facebook personal and adoption group pages, they allow their community to gain vision and have a tangible way to support bringing their little one home. The Huss family created an adoption hashtag so family and friends can tag themselves in photos with the shirt, something they will eventually show their child.

“It will make a great photo album for our family to look back on,” Taylor said. So far, they have made almost $1,700 from sales on their Bonfire page.

The Huss Family’s t-shirt design.

Laura C. did a giveaway where everyone who shared their Bonfire page link on Facebook or made a purchase was entered to win a free t-shirt. She said the giveaway helped a ton for publicity, spreading word of their story to people who may not have been reached otherwise.

Cassie P. made a video of their story and said people really connected with it, leading to more shirt sales. The shirt said, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” mirroring the message she shared about God being there through the loss of her mom to cancer. They knew he would be faithful through the adoption as well.

Cassie used their shirts to tell a story of God’s faithfulness.

They didn’t add their last name or anything too personal to the shirt, which she believed help with sales to people who didn’t really know the family. This leads me to my next adoption shirt sales tip…

Keep the Message on Your Adoption Shirt General

Gina F. recommends knowing the crowd you are selling to. She sold a lot of shirts to strangers online, so she kept the shirt message as general as possible. “We kept it pretty general. No last name, no country of adoption. If you do that you limit who will buy it,” Gina advised.

Though they put a Bible verse on the front of the t-shirt, it was still general enough that non-Christians could wear it. She laughed, “I kinda got a giggle about non-believers spreading the gospel for us!”

Gina used a Bible verse that appealed to the general population.

Laurel sold more than 100 shirts with a shirt that simply said, “Love One Another.” The very general message went beyond their family and adoption to appeal to the masses.

Laura C. had several t-shirt campaigns through Bonfire, with the most popular held around Mother’s Day. These shirts simply said, “Blessed Mama” with lots of style and color choices for a broad audience. Their other campaigns sold 5-15 shirts, but this one helped them profit $991!

Laura’s “Blessed Mama” shirt helped them raise $991 for their adoption.

Get a Great Design for Your Adoption Shirts

Adoption fundraiser t-shirts can be intimidating if you aren’t very creative or have no idea where to start. The good news is there are lots of ways to bring your idea to life.

One mama had a friend who did graphic design help her. “I’ve seen good ideas poorly executed that would sell much better if they were well designed,” she told me.

Most of us know someone with graphic experience (or could find them with a quick social media shout out!). I think this is a great option for getting an aesthetically pleasing shirt, especially if you are going to use a local screen printer and do orders yourself.

One adoptive mom told me that her best-selling t-shirt was created by Fund the Nations. The folks there will design your shirt until it’s exactly the way you want. Then you take orders, submit to Fund the Nations, and they print and ship. Shirts typically cost $6 to $9.50 each, so keep that in mind when pricing for optimal fundraising results.

This adoption t-shirt was designed by Fund the Nations.

Deena Tech’s sister is a graphic designer who does hand lettering and made a simple, but beautiful design for their family. She got tips from other experienced families to “create a flat lay (pictured at top of this article) with your shirts to give people an idea of how they can be worn.” I know this sells more on Poshmark, so it makes sense it would work for adoption t-shirt fundraisers, too! She also bought one of each and used them to advertise new campaigns.

Deena creatively uses the t-shirts to advertise their fundrasing campaigns.

My family chose Bonfire and I used their website to make a simple design there myself. I liked that I could play around with different shirt colors and styles to see what looked best.

My family designed this shirt on Bonfire using their user-friendly process.

Save Time with Bonfire for Adoption T-Shirt Fundraisers

As I mentioned, I used Bonfire for our adoption t-shirts. I wasn’t sure how many people would be interested in our shirts because we had so much success with other fundraisers from our core group. Bonfire was perfect for us because there were no costs involved and they took care of collecting orders, printing, and shipping.

With Bonfire, you can choose up to six products to sell per campaign. They have unisex t-shirts in multiple options, women’s cut shirts, tanks, youth, hoodies, and sweatshirts so you can find just the right option for your audience. You choose from a variety of colors and even set up to five colors for your customers to find their favorite.

You can upload a design or play around with text and graphics to make your own within the Bonfire platform. There are templates to use if you aren’t super creative, or you can pay the Bonfire design studio to make a custom look for you for a fee.

Then you choose a price point for each product and they estimate your profits based on what you think you’ll sell. You’ll obviously make more money the more you sell, but there isn’t any financial risk for you if it doesn’t do well. Sell fewer than five and everyone gets their money back and no shirt. But five or more means they are guaranteed to print and ship to your customers!

Nathan and I still wear our super-comfy Bonfire t-shirts. Here’s a photo of us rocking them at our adoption agency’s picnic last year.

Choose how long you want your campaign to last and then Bonfire makes a sales page just for your campaign. This is where you share your story and can even add a video. Then you get a special link to your fundraiser and you’re good to promote, promote, promote!

When your t-shirt fundraiser is over, Bonfire prints and ships for you. Then you get 100 percent of the profits without any major work. Mine was sent quickly via PayPal and everyone was pleased with the quality and softness of the shirts!

Bonfire is the most popular adoption t-shirt fundraiser for many reasons, plus you can do multiple campaigns if you choose. This is great if you want to do t-shirt sales multiple times while you wait for your adoption finalization.

Deena T said, “We are using Bonfire, and everyone LOVES their shirts! They’re super soft and comfy. And we don’t have to do anything but promote it on social media. They take care of the rest.”

They have raised more than $1,500 so far and activated the Bonfire feature that automatically restarts an inactive campaign if someone purchases a new shirt. This allows for an ongoing adoption t-shirt fundraiser throughout the course of their journey without any additional work.

The Tech Family’s Bonfire campaign is set to automatically restart every time a new order is made. They have made more than $1,500 so far.

Stacey C. reminded me of another great benefit of Bonfire. They have an “add a donation” feature that allows customers to give an additional donation to your adoption. She said quite a few people used it to give them even more money on t-shirt sales.

Stacey’s family received additional money for their fundraiser with Bonfire’s “add a donation” feature.

And if you use my Bonfire referral link for your sales, you get an extra dollar profit for each shirt you sell (max $100)! Click here to start your Bonfire adoption fundraiser.

Set Realistic Expectations for Your Adoption T-Shirt Fundraiser Sales

Families can make thousands of dollars with adoption t-shirt fundraisers, but not everyone has the audience and circumstances to turn those profits. This is why it is important to have a mix of fundraisers and a savings plan to fund your adoption. (Check out how we raised more than $35,000 for our adoption without debt here.) You need to spread these out over time so that you don’t exhaust your supporters…or yourself!

We used Bonfire and made $204.69 from 18 shirts. Honestly, I was a little disappointed with the low sales at first. But right before our t-shirt sales launched, our friends and family contributed nearly $9,000 in conjunction with our $4,000 Lifesong for Orphans matching grant. We also had a successful superhero cape adoption fundraiser after our home study was complete.

I was extremely thankful that we weren’t out any money for the shirts. I can’t imagine how stressed I would have been if we had bought the t-shirts up front and tried to sell them ourselves. And I didn’t have to worry about storage, keeping track of orders, or shipping. These are definitely things to keep in mind if you don’t go with someone like Bonfire.

You also need to consider how you will promote the shirts. Do you have a large social media following? Does your spouse? My husband doesn’t have Facebook, Instagram, and only uses Twitter to keep up with sports, so I was the only one with a network to advertise our fundraisers. This meant the same people were asked multiple times.

Do you have a group of people like a church, club, business, or large assembly of friends where you can sell in person? Does your network wear t-shirts regularly? Are there friends or family members who will help you with sales? Are you designing a shirt people actually want to wear? Have you bombarded your followers with other fundraisers?

All these variables can affect your t-shirt sales, so it helps to set realistic expectations before your fundraiser begins.

To give you an idea of what other families have made on adoption t-shirt fundraisers, here are some more results from previous sales.

Casey C. used Bonfire to sell 69 shirts for a profit of $588.

Casey sold 69 t-shirts with their Bonfire campaign to bring Gus home.

The Custer Family made around $800 with Bonfire. Their best-selling colors were a dark slate blue and navy.

Ashley H. made $880 on their adoption t-shirt fundraiser.

Laura C. sold 111 shirts profiting $991 through several Bonfire campaigns.

Laura’s “Blessed Mama” shirts were available on Bonfire in a variety of styles and colors.

Megan S. used a local company who gave them a great deal and made around $1,000. They earned $9.50 per shirt which they sold at $15 each.

Stacey C. made $1,189 on a gender neutral, positive design that wasn’t adoption specific. She recommends giving only one color option to increase the profit margin in Bonfire.

Stacey used one color option in Bonfire to increase their profit margin.

Deena T. has made $1,527 on 150 shirts in an ongoing Bonfire campaign. She said blues, teals, and purples have been the most popular colors, but they have sold some of each option. They try to wear their shirts all the time, especially in photos they post online.

Dawn R. made about $1,700 on two separate campaigns. Both were done with a local print shop but she did all the shipping for out-of-town orders, which she charged an extra $5 for.

And legend has it in the adoption fundraiser world that one family made $17,000 on t-shirt sales, though I have not been able to verify this account. But it shows that there are tons of possibilities with adoption t-shirt fundraisers! 

Click here to learn how you can earn an extra $1 per shirt with Bonfire.

Do you currently have an adoption t-shirt fundraiser going? Feel free to post a link to it in the comments. I’d also love to hear success stories from families who have completed their sales. Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to get 101 Adoption Fundraising Tips emailed to you today!

Special thanks to Deena Tech for the main photo on this blog post! You can buy one of her adopt shirts here.

You may also like:

8 Ways We Raised $35,123.51 for Our Adoption Without Debt

How to Run a Successful Superhero Adoption Cape Fundraiser

6 Expert Tips for a Successful Adoption Fundraiser Yard Sale

Be sure to check out our China Adoption Journey page