Want To Help Homeschoolers? Check This Out.

Homeschoolers Anonymous was founded last March as a platform for homeschool grads to share and talk about their  experiences in the Christian homeschooling world. I have been one of Homeschoolers Anonymous’ blog partners since the very beginning, and I am pleased to announce that Homeschoolers Anonymous is now moving things to the next step.

The Next Step

Homeschoolers Anonymous is expanding to become a non-profit organization called HARO — Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out.

To this end, our goal is to raise $100,000 over the next 60 days. We will be utilizing the crowd-funding platform Indiegogo to move HARO into official 501c(3) status and put into motion several concrete action plans.

What does this mean?

Crowd-funding means that we need you, the members of this community, to help us achieve our fundraising goals.

We need you to donate — once, twice, or however many times you can in the next two months. But whether you donate or not, we need you to share this call for help with your friends and family. We need you to talk it up on Facebook and Twitter and your favorite social media sites.

Creating a 501c(3) means that HARO will be a real, live non-profit. We will have tax exempt status, and (when the IRS approves it), donations to HARO will be tax-deductible. (Note: HARO is not currently a non-profit and donations to this campaign are unfortunately not tax deductible.)

Upcoming Projects

We are proud to unveil some highlights from our future projects:

Homeschoolers Anonymous website

The Homeschoolers Anonymous website will get a professional makeover, greatly improving its internal structure and usability. We also plan to set up a forum with dedicated moderators.

Annual HARO Convention

This wouldn’t be a homeschool-related organization if we didn’t plan a convention, would it? In all seriousness, the internet is a wonderful tool for disseminating information, but in-person community and engagement is important as well. To this end, we will develop an annual HARO convention to begin in 2014.

The Mary Project:

Named in honor of the pseudonymous author of our most popular series, the Mary Project will undertake a public awareness campaign to fight child abuse in homeschooling communities — the campaign that we asked HSLDA to undertake and that HSLDA ignored.

Broken Arrows Initiative: 

The Broken Arrows Initiative will create a tangible and concrete support system for homeschool graduates in need, as well as lifelines for current homeschool students in unhealthy situations. Physical, legal, and financial assistance are all included in this initiative.

R.A.H.A.B.: Research Alliance for Homeschooling Attitudes and Beliefs

Concrete data is important when you’re working with any demographic, and homeschoolers are no exception.  Data helps us determine where we can do the most good and evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts.  R.A.H.A.B. will be the arm of HARO that researches and documents data pertaining to the homeschooling movement.

For more detailed information regarding each of these projects, click here.

In order to accomplish these plans, Homeschoolers Anonymous has started a fundraising campaign. If you have the ability and the interest, they need your help. Please share this and promote it in whatever way you can.