What would become the Southwest Indiana Foster Care Team (SWIFT) began in June 2021. Welborn Baptist Foundation awarded funds from four area non-profits focused on foster care — Indiana Kids Belong, The Isaiah 1:17 Project, Borrowed Hearts, and Foster Care in the U.S. — and to form a coalition and work towards a common goal.
“Our organizations wanted to work together to find a common goal,” says Billye Beckham, executive director of Borrowed Hearts. “Collaboration helped us identify ways we could work together and make a greater collective impact on issues that our foster care region is facing.”
Initially called the Foster Adoptive Coalition Evansville (FACE), the organizations applied for their first grant as a collective at the end of 2021. With the grant funding, they developed an ad campaign produced by Hall Communications. Its goal? Illustrate the many ways communities can help youth in foster care and support fostering families not just through housing but by volunteering or donating.
“All of the personalities of the different groups really came together,” Patti Hall, founder of Hall Communications, says of the final product. “I really enjoyed working with them.”
In March 2023, filming began for a 90-second YouTube video, broken down into 15- to 30-second ad spots for social media and television. The ads ran that autumn. Hall Communications also helped rebrand the collective as SWIFT and designed its logo and landing page hosted by For Evansville.
“We’re just doing our job. I love work- ing on projects that help better our community,” Hall says.
“We hope to inspire and motivate people to look at foster care and get involved,” Beckham says.
