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Hope’s Promise and Footprints Floors: A Partnership Making a Lasting Impact

Partnerships. Without them, Hope’s Promise could not function. We could not do what God has called us to do. At Hope’s Promise, we have Business Partners, Ministry Partners, Church Partners and individual partners. These organically cultivated partnerships are what help us do the life changing work of building strong families. Our partners sponsor events, volunteer, hold gift card drives for foster families, allow us to speak at their churches and so much more. Footprints Flooring is one such partner. We are so thankful for the continued support and passion for our mission.

Guest blog by Victoria Campisi, Staff Writer at 1851Franchsie.com

Footprints Floors, a leading flooring franchise with over 150 locations, is committed to more than just providing top-notch flooring services. Through their First Fruits Fund, the brand has taken a significant step in giving back to the community by partnering with faith-based organizations that offer holistic family care services. 

One such partnership is with Hope’s Promise, a Colorado-based nonprofit dedicated to adoption, orphan care and foster care services. Hope’s Promise began 34 years ago with a mission to create a better adoption experience for families. Founded by Paula Freeman in Castle Rock, Colorado, the organization has since expanded its focus to include domestic and international adoptions, as well as orphan care and foster care services.

“[Paula] just felt the Lord calling her to create an adoption agency that would work better for adoptive parents and what she had experienced, and so she started it at her kitchen table and earned her master’s while raising five kids,” said Colleen Briggs, director of orphan care at Hope’s Promise.

Initially focused on domestic adoptions, Hope’s Promise soon added international adoptions to their services. The early 2000s brought a new awareness within the organization. 

“The board and staff really became aware with international adoptions of how many kids were being left behind, and that those kids deserve families as well,” said Briggs. “And so our Orphan Care Program started at that time, and our focus with the Orphan Care Program has always been family-based care. Kids need and thrive in families.”

The Impact of the First Fruits Fund

The partnership between Hope’s Promise and Footprints Floors through the First Fruits Fund has been a remarkable blessing for both organizations. 

“Footprints reached out to us by email, wanting to know more about what we do. From our first meeting, it was clear that Footprints Floors shared our passion for helping children in need, both locally and internationally,” Briggs said. “[They’ve] been involved in all different capacities — sending volunteers to our events, inviting us to come to their events and supporting our programs.”

One of the most impactful aspects of this partnership is the support for Hope’s Promise’s Vietnam program through monthly donations. 

“There are 30 kids in Vietnam who are going to school because of First Fruits,” Briggs said. “Without Footprints Floors’ intervention, these children wouldn’t have access to stable families or education. It’s life-changing.”

Looking Ahead: The Future of the Partnership

The relationship between Hope’s Promise and Footprints Floors is built on more than just financial contributions — it’s about mutual support and shared values. 

“[It’s] a mutually beneficial relationship,” said Rachel Bates, director of foster care and adoptions at Hope’s Promise. “Footprints Floors isn’t just a donor; they’re a partner, and we’re so grateful for the friendship and support they’ve provided.”

Looking ahead, Hope’s Promise is excited about the future of this partnership.

“I hope to see even more relationships develop with Footprints Floors,” said Briggs. “I’d love for their team to visit Vietnam and meet the families they’re impacting firsthand.” 

As Footprints Floors continues to expand its philanthropic efforts through the First Fruits Fund, the partnership with Hope’s Promise serves as an inspiring model for how businesses can give back in a way that goes beyond writing a check. 

“There’s just great synergy in that, and great companionship and friendship,” said Briggs. “And I’m just so grateful. It feels like God just plopped them in our lap as a total gift.”

Why We Discontinued Child Sponsorship

by Colleen Briggs, Hope’s Promise, Director of Orphan Care

Child sponsorship is a well-known fundraising model in the realm of international childcare programs. We opened our oldest existing program in Kenya in 2006 through funding generated by child sponsorship.

On the plus side, donors connected to a child’s story and felt personally invested in the child’s wellbeing. Theoretically, the child would be encouraged and uplifted by having a “friend” on the other side of the world who prayed for and invested in their life. And the sponsor would be impacted by learning about the way of life in the child’s country.

But through the years, we stumbled experientially into unintended consequences of child sponsorship for the orphaned children we serve.

For these kids, who have lost the most important attachment in their lives when one or both parents died, their most important task for long term holistic wellbeing is to experience God’s love through attachment to a new caregiver and not to a stranger on the other side of the world.

We began to experience the complications of a funding model that conflicted with program goals when some of our Kenyan kids reached their early teens in Kenya and told their parents, “I don’t have to listen to you because I have a sponsor in the US. “

A particularly poignant experience brought the dissonance to the forefront in 2019 when a Connection Trip team from the US visited a Hope’s Promise family in Vietnam. We took backpacks for each child we planned to visit, filled with standardized items we’d collected from multiple sponsors. Following our direction, a child sponsor on the team presented a backpack to her sponsored child. When the little girl climbed on the sponsor’s lap to open the bag, the nonverbals of her parents needed no translation. Their expressions held a mixture of happiness for the child’s excitement, but also a wistfulness and sadness. We realized in that moment how strange it would, as a parent, if a stranger who had financial influence over my child brought gifts I could not afford.

That was the tipping point. We immediately switched tactics. For the rest of the trip, we gave the kids’ backpacks to the parents privately to distribute later, if and when they wanted. We shared photos of the backpacks and the families with our sponsors, but not photos of the children with the gifts.

Then, in 2020, with Phil Aspegren’s input, we took the plunge and switched funding models completely. A quote from him became our guiding principle: “sell your impact, not your kids.” We decided it was time to fully acknowledge and course correct the incongruence in our funding model and program goals.

We undertook a year-long process, contacting over one hundred child sponsors directly and personally through email and phone call. We described why we were changing models and invited their input. We amended how we described our new funding model several times based on their feedback. However, they expressed unanimous support for the heart of the changes.

We still collect reports on each child in our program, because it’s just good social work. But, instead of “child updates,” we now share “impact reports” with our donors, including stories we’ve selected that protect dignity and privacy and celebrate potential.

Here is how we describe our new model on our website:

                Child Sponsorship Reimagined

Traditionally, child sponsorship cultivates a relationship between a child in need and a benevolent stranger in another country. However, global orphan care research reveals that when a child loses one or both parents, what they need most is God’s love expressed through a new caregiver and family. Sometimes a relationship with someone far away, especially someone who is known to support them financially, can distract a child from learning to trust and attach to their family.

So, imagine with us a new kind of “child sponsorship,” designed specifically for the needs of an orphaned child’s heart. Imagine an investment that stays behind the scenes, invisible to the child but nonetheless essential to the family’s success. Imagine a new way of supporting a child by shining the spotlight on his or her family.

Although Hope’s Promise children may never know your name, when you become a family champion, you become a catalyst for transformation in their lives.

Learn More About Becoming a Family Champion.

We are so thankful we switched because we now believe our fundraising and program goals are congruent – doing what is best for orphaned children, supporting their attachment to their caregivers so they have the best chance of experiencing God’s love in those relationships.