In the nonprofit field, we always have our eyes set on the horizon. We’re always concerned with what the future holds. So it should come as no surprise that we’ve been planning for our 10th anniversary fundraising dinner and celebration for months.
But this year, things feel a little different. If you’re reading this article, you probably feel it, too. We’re at an important precipice this year, and we need funders to step up. To help us make a difference. To put their funds to good use.
Our fundraising dinner is a month away. Here are three reasons why sponsoring Good Dads this year is more critical than ever before.
1. Funding cuts make nonprofit work harder than ever — and more necessary than ever.
As you may have already heard, this summer MO Governor Mike Kehoe vetoed more than $2 billion in spending for fiscal year 2025–2026. These vetoes seemed to run the gamut of expenditures, from education to roadwork to storm relief. We’re sad to say that Good Dads wasn’t spared from the red pen.
Imagine our dismay when we learned that we were receiving only a quarter of what we had asked for. In other words, 75% of the money we knew we needed to keep serving fathers and father-figures in the Show-Me state…is not coming.
At the same time, a variety of circumstances have contributed to even more dads needing our services than we previously had the capacity to meet. Our funding may have shrunk, but our footprint certainly hasn’t. It’s a push-and-pull that I’ll admit feels dire. What’s there to do when we lost three-quarters of funding from the state, when we need that funding to serve the growing number of men in our communities who want to be better dads? I’m looking to you, the business leaders of my community, to help us bridge the gaps.
2. Fatherhood is having a cultural moment. We’ve been here since ground zero.
Even if you’re not plugged in at all to the responsible fatherhood movement, you’ve probably noticed that fatherhood is having a moment. Perhaps you remember the viral photos of a coal miner dad who showed up to a University of Kentucky basketball game in his dirty work clothes so he wouldn’t miss this special moment with his then-three-year-old son (Today.com called him Father of the Year). Or maybe you’ve seen the growing number of headlines that demand better paternity leave for working dads. At the very least, you’ve had a good chuckle at the collections of dad jokes on social media!
Even in family-services circles, we’ve been hearing more and more buzz about fathers. We hear it from business leaders in our community. We hear it in elementary schools, whose PTA groups are mostly spearheaded by moms. And we certainly heard it last summer at a national relationship education conference, where many argued that fathers play a crucial role in healthy relationships.
Many people, communities and organizations have a newfound appreciation (and urgency) for reaching fathers. It’s become clear to them that, when we encourage Dad to be his best, his children do better. The mother of his children do better. And the entire community does better. We smile and nod, but secretly, we want to shout: “That’s exactly what we’ve been trying to tell you all this time!”
I hesitate to say that fatherhood is “trending” – because trends tend to come and go without much meaningful change. Instead, we think fatherhood transcends trend. It has the capacity to stay at the front of our minds and at the top of our priority lists for a very long time. (We’re kind of like Taylor Swift in that regard!)
It seems that people care more about fatherhood than they did in the past. That’s a great thing—but we can’t let this opportunity pass us by. Let’s trike while the proverbial iron is hot and make a real difference for dads and their families!
As early adopters of responsible fatherhood efforts in the state of Missouri, we know that many more communities sorely need programs like ours. Our time is now!
3. Our ten-year milestone has inspired us to reach new heights.
After ten years of serving fathers from all walks of life, we’ve learned a lot. Leveraging our decade of relationships with many, many helpful people (like men’s shelters, recovery homes, Family Connects, employment resources, educators, mental health professionals and medical providers), it’s become clear to us that there is still so much more work to be done.
When we think about all that we have achieved in ten years, it only encourages us to keep moving forward. Here a few of the projects we want to sink our teeth into in the coming months and years, which we see as crucial to furthering the Good Dads mission.
- Offering more services for couples to raise happy, healthy children together, co-parent well, and reduce domestic violence
- Streamlining the enrollment process so dads in our program get even more out of their Individualized Development Plans
- Exploring new services for people with addiction history
- Finding new ways to reduce the likelihood of childhood trauma
- Introducing Good Dads programs to workplaces with majority male employees
- Producing new instructional videos for Good Dads facilitators and volunteers so they can do even better as they mentor dads in our programs
- Serving new communities beyond Missouri collaboratively with scalable Good Dads charter models for state governments
- Hosting more events for dads and their children
I could go on and on about all the new and exciting innovations my colleagues are bringing to the table every day, but these examples should be enough to communicate one thing: We are far from done.
Here’s the harsh reality: Without support from local, regional and national funders, many of these projects won’t see the light of day.
In writing this call for action, my goal was not to guilt you or make you feel pessimistic. But I’m not interested in sugar-coating things. I’m not here to pretend that everything is rainbows and sunshine. The reality is this: Good Dads needs father-focused funders to step up, to make a difference, and to shout it from the rooftops.
With your generous support of the Good Dads mission, you’re taking a stand for the next generation. You’re preventing social ills from ever even occurring downstream. When you support our goal to build better communities, you’re not just helping us serve dads. You’re contributing to an immeasurable ripple effect that impacts children, moms, schools, employers, entire communities … Indeed, fatherhood is a crucial piece of the puzzle that we can’t afford to ignore.
The deadline to sponsor Good Dads at its tenth anniversary fundraising dinner is fast approaching. Fill out and submit a Sponsor Form no later than Wednesday, Sept. 24 to be featured on the program and receive the full benefits of sponsoring for the 2026 calendar year.
And even if you can’t sponsor a table at the celebration this year, we still hope to see you there. Individual tickets are $50 and are selling fast. Register for the event and secure your seat by Oct 1.
