Gladney Center for Adoption
Creating Bright Futures Through Adoption
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The Gladney Center for Adoption exists to bring life-changing opportunities to every expectant mother making an adoption plan for her baby, every adoptive family, and every child waiting in foster care or in an international orphanage. Adoption is who we are. Every step we take is towards placing children with families where they can thrive. We’ve had the same mission for over 130 years, and it will be the same tomorrow. And we work to let every person—expectant mothers, parents, teachers, medical professionals, social workers, judges, high school students, counselors, and more—know that adoption is always an option.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Domestic Infant Adoption
Many families choose to adopt an infant or toddler in the United States. That’s how Gladney got started in 1887, and our mission to find loving homes for all children continues today.
Each adoption, like each family, is unique. Our goal is create bright futures for adoptive families, children and birth parents through adoption. The domestic infant program allows birth parents to find the family they feel is best for the children they are placing for adoption, and changes the lives of everyone involved.
International Adoption
International adoption gives families a unique opportunity to open their homes to a child from China, Taiwan or Colombia. The China Adoption Program, overseen by the China Centre for Children’s Welfare and Adoption in Beijing, focuses on finding families for children with a diagnosed medical need and children who are physically healthy and over the age of 6. Gladney works with two government-licensed child welfare foundations in Taiwan. Gladney's Taiwan program is able to offer adoption opportunities to families desiring to adopt a toddler or school-aged child. Birth parents are typically involved in this adoption matching process. In Colombia, Gladney works closely with the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF). The ICBF, located in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, processes international adoptions and oversees the licensing of private orphanages. Gladney also works with private orphanages (IAPA): Casa de la Madre y El Nino.
New Beginnings - Adoptions from Foster Care
The Gladney Center for Adoption extended its commitment to children and families in 2000 by creating the New Beginnings Program. This program connects families with children in the foster care system that are immediately available for adoption. We believe that all children deserve loving, permanent homes.
Gladney assists the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services by recruiting loving adoptive homes for children currently waiting in the Texas state foster care system. Most of these children are over the age of seven and have been removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect.
Neither Gladney nor the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services charges any fees to adopt a child in the custody of Child Protective Services. The State of Texas also offers ongoing financial assistance for eligible children, including healthcare benefits, a monthly stipend and a college tuition waiver to public universities in Texas.
AdoptED
AdoptED was born through a collaborative effort of both community leaders and Gladney staff who believe that education is empowerment for students to be able to navigate their futures, goals, and dreams.
AdoptED is designed to address the issues of teen pregnancy and school dropout rates, while offering factual information about adoption as one option to an unplanned pregnancy. This ground-breaking program works with educators to provide interactive presentations in the classroom setting. AdoptED gives students parameters for goals setting, decision-making, and healthy life choices. Gladney’s goal is to introduce solutions to the problems that students are facing today and to empower them with information that can inspire them to make positive life choices.
Through 572 outreach connections, 25 Gladney University trainings, and participation by 404 high schools in the AdoptED in person and virtual classrooms, Gladney reached more than 8,500 students, professionals, and parents.
Gladney University
The purpose of Gladney University is to equip clients and professionals with the knowledge they need to help provide positive and healthy outcomes for the children we serve. Gladney University provides adoptive parents with education and support before, during and after their adoption. This education and support helps Gladney provide the finest adoption experience possible and it’s part of Gladney’s promise of family for life.
Additionally, Gladney University provides medical professionals, counselors, social service advocates and community members with cutting edge continuing education programs by offering relevant and engaging, web-based and in person educational adoption and child welfare resources.
Gladney is uniquely positioned to provide outstanding training to parents and professionals because of our 130 year history of serving families and children. Our staff is highly qualified, experienced and compassionate. This combination creates dynamic and very successful training programs.
Gladney Home
Our Gladney Home program provides foster care and adoption advocacy for pre-teen and teen girls in a residential home on the campus of our headquarters. Our objectives are to provide security, nurture, and normalcy for the girls, with an ultimate goal of finding an adoptive family for each of them or helping them transition to adulthood. We meet the girls’ daily food, education, social, medical, and psychological needs; facilitate nurture groups; provide life skills education; assess their history; evaluate current needs; and advocate to find adoptive families for them. By having the girls in our care, we know them and have more information about them, which will lead to better outcomes while in the Gladney Home and a better transition to placement within an adoptive family. The girls are active participants in the process – we want them to be empowered to use their voices and make choices about what they want and need. Our goal is for the Gladney Home to be their last stop.
Where we work
Awards
Angel in Adoption 2015
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute
Best Nonprofit 2016
Fort Worth Texas Magazine
Best Companies to Work for in Fort Worth 2020
Fort Worth Inc.
Affiliations & memberships
National Council For Adoption 1980
External reviews
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of foster care children placed with a family that were formally adopted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Foster and adoptive parents, Foster and adoptive children
Related Program
New Beginnings - Adoptions from Foster Care
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of expectant mothers who inquired about adoption services
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women, Adults, Pregnant people
Related Program
Domestic Infant Adoption
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of children available for adoption in Taiwan advocated for through our Superkids Program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
International Adoption
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of children adopted from international orphanages and foster homes
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Foster and adoptive children, Foster and adoptive parents
Related Program
International Adoption
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of teen girls in state foster care served in the Gladney Home program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Preteen girls, Adolescent girls, Foster and adoptive children
Related Program
Gladney Home
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of children in state foster care placed with foster-to-adopt families
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Foster and adoptive parents, Foster and adoptive children
Related Program
New Beginnings - Adoptions from Foster Care
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of children with special needs in an orphanage in Ethiopia provided with nurturing caregivers, medical care, and nutrition
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, People with disabilities
Related Program
International Adoption
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of children adopted through private adoptions (older children and medically fragile infants)
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Foster and adoptive children, Foster and adoptive parents, People with disabilities, People with diseases and illnesses
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of children adopted through our Domestic Infant Adoption Program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Infants and toddlers, Foster and adoptive parents, Foster and adoptive children
Related Program
Domestic Infant Adoption
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of child and teen adoptees who made connections through our Camp Forge Program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Foster and adoptive children
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of expectant mothers who chose to be admitted to Gladney's Adoption Program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Pregnant people, Women
Related Program
Domestic Infant Adoption
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of birth mothers who placed their children for adoption
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women, Pregnant people
Related Program
Domestic Infant Adoption
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Total number of counseling sessions performed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Children and youth, Foster and adoptive children, Foster and adoptive parents
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of clients who participated in counseling sessions
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Children and youth, Foster and adoptive children, Foster and adoptive parents
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of post adoption connections with adult adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Children and youth, Foster and adoptive children, Foster and adoptive parents
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of adult adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents who contact Gladney for post adoption guidance and resources
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Children and youth, Foster and adoptive parents, Foster and adoptive children
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of teenagers, parents, teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, and other professionals across the U.S. who were provided with adoption education
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Adolescents, Students, Teachers, Parents
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The Gladney Center's mission is creating bright futures through adoption. So, for the sake of the children and those who love them, Gladney will provide the finest adoption experience while forging new paths in the mission of adoption. Gladney provides the loving option of adoption for expectant mothers experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and assists and prepares prospective parents in welcoming an adopted child into their family last year. For waiting children in state foster care and international orphanages, Gladney works to find permanent, loving, and caring families for them, along with improving the lives of vulnerable children who cannot be adopted.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Through Gladney's community education efforts and adoption services, we work to let everyone -- expectant mothers, parents, teachers, medical professionals, social workers, judges, high school students, counselors, and more -- know that adoption is always an option. It can be a proactive prevention to children entering foster care and can be a healing solution for waiting children in foster care who need permanent, loving, and caring families. An adoption plan can be made during pregnancy, at the time of delivery, or months or years down the road in the parenting journey.
Gladney is building strong families and communities by empowering through education. We offer training opportunities for adoptive parents; high school students, teachers, and counselors; nonprofit community partners; medical professionals; and social workers. Our goal is to provide proactive adoption information and resources so that families and the community are aware of their options and can make proactive decisions – supporting families to parent children from hard places and thereby reducing the risk of adoption disruptions/disillusions, teaching high school students about adoption and decision-making skills and thereby reducing the chance of students dropping out of school due to unplanned pregnancies and increasing the probability of them considering adoption as an option, and educating the community about adoption always being an option and thereby decreasing the possibility of children entering the foster care system.
Through one of Gladney’s newest initiatives, the Waiting Child Task Force, Gladney board members, staff, and parents who have adopted from foster care, along with input from outside experts in relevant fields, are working to develop better strategies for finding forever families for waiting children. The task force will assess what would be the highest and best use of Gladney’s strengths and what Gladney’s primary role should be in meeting the needs of these waiting children. They will approach the issues from three directions: impacting external systems to serve children and families; constructing the best internal systems to create scalability; and ensuring long-term sustainability. The task force will work to create strategies for success, set objectives with clear measurable goals, and provide input and evaluate Gladney’s progress against the strategies’ short, intermediate, and long-term goals and desired outcomes.
Gladney is committed to helping find loving, caring families for as many of these children as possible.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Gladney has been creating bright futures through adoption for 136 years. Since 1887, we have placed over 32,000 infants, children from state foster care, and children from international orphanages with loving forever families and have cared for birth mothers who have loved their children so much they knew adoption was the best choice for their futures.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Gladney’s origins in Fort Worth can be traced to 1887, when it was called the Texas Children’s Home & Aid Society. Our founder, Reverend I.Z.T. Morris, worked to rescue abandoned children in Fort Worth and identified families willing and able to adopt them. Starting in 1927, Edna Gladney served as superintendent of the Texas Children’s Home & Aid Society. The agency was renamed the Edna Gladney Home in her honor upon her retirement in 1960. Several years later, Ruby Lee Piester stepped into Gladney’s leadership role and continued to stamp Gladney’s name and mission into thousands of families across the country.
Beginning in 1988 and for the next twenty years, Mike McMahon helped Gladney expand the course of the newly-named Gladney Center for Adoption, serving as President and CEO. He aggressively pursued opportunities to work with foreign countries in placing their orphans for adoption in the United States, among other key initiatives. From 2008 to 2017, President and CEO Frank Garrott brought his own brand of strategy-driven, optimistic leadership to a changing adoption landscape. He established innovative and far-reaching outreach efforts and grew efforts to place waiting children from foster care with adoptive families.
In 2018, Mark Melson, formerly COO, was appointed as Gladney’s new President and CEO. Mark implemented a 32-month plan, which includes evaluating and developing growth strategies through two new board-led Task Forces, in order to expand Gladney’s national presence. Through the Waiting Child Task Force (adoptions from foster care), Gladney will partner with national organizations and leaders in child advocacy, adoptive family recruitment, and parental readiness programs; and through the Family for Life Task Force (ongoing education and support for adoptive families), Gladney will evolve to meet clients’ ever-changing, long-term needs, especially for families adopting children who have experienced trauma and for birth parents who need ongoing support and connection to community resources.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Gladney Center for Adoption
Board of directorsas of 06/28/2023
Ms. Laura Wheat
Corporate Securities Lawyer
John Covington
President of Oil Company
Mary Beth Dudley
Human Resources, Leadership Development
Carolyn Hood
Director of Sales
Adrian B. Liddiard
Co-founder of Communications Company
Mark Melson
President, Gladney Center for Adoption
Roger L. Metz
Wealth Management
Stephanie Perdue
Pediatrician
Anne Reysa
Psychologist
James H. Unger
Financial Advisor
Laura L. Wheat
Corporate Securities Lawyer
Robin Kochel
Associate Professor, Pediatrics, Psychology; Associate Director for Research, Autism Center
Mark L. McLeland
Wealth Management
Fernando Beltran
Engagement Manager
Matthew Bungo
Wealth Management
Eliza Gaines
Newspaper Editor
Duke Greenhill
Marketing & Business Consultant, Executive Coach, Corporate & Leadership Trainer
Stacy Johnson
Education Content Designer & Elementary/Middle School
John Thrailkill
Executive Vice President of Information Technology
Jeremy Tilly
Residential Architect
James Tyler
Chief Financial Officer
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Not applicable -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data