Ways to help · Guide

Bring 5 to 50 people — and a plan for month thirteen.

For the pastor, small-group leader, or office team lead who can rally a room. Georgia's church-based foster support network is unusually strong, and it runs on groups exactly your size. Pick a tier honestly — the effort labels below are real.

Last verified Jul 2, 2026 · Sources: promise686.org (fetched directly), org sites via our fact-check log

Three tiers of group commitment

Same ladder ethos as our individual ways-to-help page, scaled to a congregation. Every tier is genuinely useful — as long as you're honest with yourselves about which one you're choosing.

Tier 1 · One weekend

A service project — call it practice.

No training, no background checks, immediate usefulness: run a duffel-bag or diaper drive, pack welcome boxes for new placements, or spend a Saturday sorting donations. Think of it less as the mission and more as a rehearsal — your group learns to organize together before anyone asks for a year.

Before the drive ends, name the person who will lead tier 2. That single decision is what separates a ministry from a memory — see the fizzle problem below.

Tier 2 · One family, one year

Start a Care Community.

The best-known model for this in Georgia comes from Promise686, a Peachtree Corners nonprofit whose mission is "to mobilize church communities to care for vulnerable children." Verified Jul 2, 2026 · promise686.org

"A Care Community is a team of equipped volunteers from a church that offers spiritual, practical, and emotional support to foster, adoptive, biological, and kinship families." — promise686.org

In practice: a handful of people commit to one foster family, on a schedule — the kind of help Promise686 describes as babysitting, meals, family activities, and prayer. Each person gives a few hours a month; the family gets a community that shows up predictably instead of once. Verified Jul 2, 2026 · promise686.org

How a church starts one — Promise686's own three steps: Discover ("connect with a coach to discover the needs in your church and community"), Learn (their online courses, including a Care Community Clinic for the team implementing the model), then Launch with their coaching, software, and resources behind you. Verified Jul 2, 2026 · promise686.org/activate

Tier 3 · Ongoing

A ministry that lasts.

This tier needs a named leader and a line in the church budget — it's a program, not a project.

Family Advocacy Ministry (FAM). Promise686's core framework: a volunteer-led ministry inside your church, built so that "any church, in any community, can effectively intervene" for vulnerable children — with structure designed to prevent volunteer burnout. Promise686 supplies the technology, content, and coaching; your congregation supplies the people. A FAM can run multiple Care Communities, awareness work, and support for families already fostering in your pews. Verified Jul 2, 2026 · promise686.org

CarePortal. The platform behind the "answer real-time needs through your church" rung on our ways-to-help ladder. In Georgia it is implemented by Promise686, so church onboarding runs through them. Verified Jul 2, 2026

CarePortal details: confirm directly

careportal.org blocks our automated verification, so we can't quote its current onboarding steps or Georgia statistics here. Ask Promise686 (770-274-6560 · info@promise686.org) how a church gets connected before you announce it from the pulpit.

A working example: Hope 1312 Collective (Brunswick). A coastal-Georgia ministry that shows what "lasting" looks like — monthly respite nights for foster and kinship families, a summer camp for ages 6–12, TBRI caregiver training, and CarePortal response. Reach them at (833) 446-7310. If you're near the coast, join theirs; anywhere else, it's a model worth copying. Verified Jul 2, 2026 · hope1312co.org

Regional options for teams

Two more homes for a ready-made group, depending on where you are.

Atlanta Angels — Love Box

A team "adopts" one foster family with monthly wrap-around support. Serves nine metro counties: Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, and Henry. Their Dare to Dream program also matches mentors 1:1 with youth ages 11–22. Verified Jul 2, 2026 · atlantaangels.org

Start a Love Box team

Wellroot Family Services — Tucker

A United Methodist–affiliated agency running foster care, transitional and independent living for older youth, and family housing. Call (404) 327-5820 and ask how a group can plug into what they already run. Verified Jul 2, 2026 · wellroot.org

Wellroot programs and contact

The fizzle problem, honestly

Why we labeled the tiers — and why tier 1 alone can leave things worse than you found them.

One-weekend energy raises expectations. Have a plan for what happens when it fades.

Here's the pattern every foster care nonprofit in Georgia has watched: a church shows up big — a drive, a packed Saturday, photos — and the foster families and caseworkers on the receiving end start to hope this is the beginning of something. Then the group moves on to the next cause, and those families quietly re-learn not to count on volunteers. We don't have a statistic for that cost, and we won't invent one. But it's the reason Promise686 builds burnout-prevention into its ministry model, and the reason the tier-2 question — who leads month two through thirteen? — belongs in the same meeting where you plan the drive. Run the weekend project. Just decide, before it happens, whether it's a one-off gift (fine — say so out loud) or the first rung of a ladder your group intends to climb.

Ready to talk it through with a coach?

Promise686 walks churches from first conversation to launch — or start the form on their Activate page. Not church-affiliated? The state inquiry line is 1-877-210-KIDS.

Promise686 · Peachtree Corners770-274-6560