We were lucky to catch up with Candace Baier recently and have shared our conversation below.

Candace , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I came up with the idea for the nonprofit organization Harper’s Warrior Fund during my time as a CASA volunteer for Jackson County. I had a child on my case load that I was advocating for who was nonverbal and has autism.

His foster parents felt that he would greatly benefit from a specific type of occupational therapy called MNRI therapy.The foster parents shared this with me and the social worker and after looking into the therapy further, we discovered that it was not covered under Medicaid and required private pay. The social worker asked the judge and the judge made a court order but still no funding was available for this special type of therapy. So in the end, the foster parents elected to pay for it themselves because they felt so strongly that this child would greatly benefit.

I asked my supervisor at the time what can be done for certain services and resources that children in foster care needed but no funding was available. She told me that unfortunately that happens rather often; a child in care will need something but no funding source is ever found so the child just goes without.

I felt strongly that something needed to be done to prevent this from happening. About a year later, Harper’s Warrior Fund was started.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I personally started being involved in the foster care community in summer 2022. I’ve always wanted to foster a child but my career and challenging family dynamic prevented me from doing so. I applied to be a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA, for Clay county about 5 years ago but never received any call or communication regarding my application. I applied to Jackson County CASA in spring of 2022 and completed my training in the middle of that summer. I’m still a CASA for Jackson County and I’m still a CASA for the child that inspired me to begin my nonprofit organization. I thoroughly enjoy advocating for the children on my caseload inside the court room and now through my nonprofit I’m able to support and advocate even more children in our foster care community outside the courtroom.

Harper’s Warrior Fund supports Kansas City children in foster care by funding any service or resource that is needed that is not covered by Medicaid, a court order, or an IEP/504 plan through the child’s school.

As of right now, there are many organizations that support foster children in our community and they are all individually so wonderful. Harper’s Warrior Fund is different and is set apart from the others due to the amount of services and resources that we cover. The list of what we can provide to children in foster care is rather extensive and is still growing. We are still a new nonprofit so not very many people are aware of us and our mission but we hope to grow bigger and greater in the near future and continue to support our local children in foster care for many years to come.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media has been the number one way that I’ve been able to market and introduce our nonprofit. I’m not social media savvy but have the blessing of having a friend in marketing /PR who has held my hand and made this leap into nonprofit business a lot less challenging than I think it could have been had I not had her mentorship. I personally run our instagram and Facebook profiles and that has been a challenge in regards to not being 100% confident about what to say or what to post to engage our audience. We want to inform social workers and CASA employees as well as engage donors and sponsors. I want our social media to be fun, playful, and engaging while maintaining a high level of professionalism. I’ve seen so many social
media accounts for other organizations that just have sterile graphics and words and I really wanted to get away from that. I truly believe people want to see faces and smiles and laughter. People want to see real people and hear real stories so we try to have fun with social media presence. I think if you’re just starting to build a social media presence, reach out to friends and family and other businesses that you’re familiar with, who know you, and what you’re doing. Lean into your resources and rely on your contacts, they will help you! Ask for help. The worst that can happen is someone can say no. That’s ok. I’ve received 10 yeses for every 1 no.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Harper’s Warrior Fund just finished our first annual golf tournament. Leading up to the event, I was honestly frustrated and feeling defeated due to lack of players and lack of donations for our raffle and silent auction. My Board Members, my golf tournament committee, and myself had contacted countless businesses to donate and hundreds of people to play in our tournament. Two weeks prior to the event, we only had twenty players and just a few items from donations. We were thankful but our event wasn’t looking like the big event that we had anticipated, My team and I kept going and in the end we ended up with a huge amount of players, so many donations, and we raised thousands of dollars for our Kansas City youth in foster care. Our nonprofit is small and new but with perseverance and a resilient attitude, you truly can do anything you set your mind to and our first large fundraiser really solidified that in my mind.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.harpersfund.org/
• Instagram: @harperswarriorfund
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556686336466&mibextid=JRoKGi