We grew up. Here's the whole story.

Four years ago, Alexandra and I weren't trying to start a nonprofit. We were trying to become parents.

After Alexandra's battle with breast cancer, surrogacy became our path to growing our family, and thanks to help from friends and family, we were able to walk it. We know how rare that kind of support is. What surprised us was how alone the road could still feel. The only real help we found along the way was a local group of people going through the same thing. Grateful as we were to make it through, we kept thinking about everyone who wouldn't.

Then our daughter arrived. And we knew we wanted to give back our money, our time, all of it. So we went looking for an organization funding surrogacy the way it actually needed to be funded: real grants, big enough to realistically get a family across the finish line. The number in our heads was $100,000. Nothing close to it existed.

So we built it.

The part that doesn't make the highlight reel

We built it on the side. Day jobs still running. We called our own family and asked for help, because we genuinely didn't know what we were doing. We broke most of the nonprofit playbook. Not to be contrarian, but because the playbook wasn't written for the thing we were trying to make.

By 2024 we'd funded that grant twice. Two families who got to the finish line because a check showed up that was actually big enough to matter. And we made a decision: this couldn't stay a side project.

Taking it national meant we needed help we couldn't give ourselves. My cousin and best friend, Elan Miller, runs a brand studio called Off Menu. He donated six figures of work to make the leap possible. We rebranded as The Surrogacy Foundation. I quit my job and went all in.

Two and a half years later, here's where we are: $1.3M+ raised. $500K+ sent directly to families through grants. $200K+ in donated services. 1,500+ volunteer hours.

I don't share those numbers to impress anyone. I share them because they're proof the model works, and because we made a promise to show our receipts, so here they are.

Why now

Let me be clear about what this refresh is and isn't. It isn't us finally getting a real brand, Elan and the Off Menu team gave us that back in 2024, and it's a big part of how we got here. Our mission hasn't changed either. The belief that surrogacy should be accessible, transparent, and celebrated is the same one we started with.

What changed is our reputation and our track record. We've earned something we didn't have four years ago: proof. Refreshing our values and our look is how we grow into that, how the brand catches up to who we've become.

But the deeper reason is timing. We're watching the conversation around surrogacy shift, and not always in the right direction. Lawmakers are proposing bans, reacting to a small fraction of cases that went wrong instead of the overwhelming number that go right. When you legislate off the exceptions, the people who pay the price are the families and surrogates doing everything right.

That's why now. More than ever, we want aspiring and current parents through surrogacy, and the professionals who support them, to know we exist, and to join us. Not just to protect what's working, but to build a field that's more transparent, more ethical, and more human. We experienced the magic of surrogacy firsthand, and we're not willing to let a handful of bad stories define it for everyone else.

Here's what actually changed.

A promise in plain language. Surrogacy shouldn't cost more than a house. That's the barrier, named. At $200K+, surrogacy is out of reach for roughly 99% of families, and pretending otherwise helps no one.

Five values we actually operate by. Prove It. Show & Tell. Hold It Open. Build What's Missing. Make It Magic. They aren't wall art, they're how we make decisions and how you can hold us accountable.

A model built for how surrogacy really works. A surrogacy journey takes 18 to 36 months. Support that shows up once doesn't match a road that long, so we built around monthly giving, a way to fund a family all the way from match day to birth day.

Yes, we spent real money on a website

I'll say the thing most nonprofits are trained to apologize for: we spent real money on this site instead of a clip-art PDF. I'm not apologizing for it, and I'm not bragging about it. I'm accounting for it.

Surrogacy is confusing, between the costs, the legal steps, the medical process, the timeline. Giving to a cause is usually just as murky. You send money into a void and hope it landed. Good design is how a confusing, intimidating process becomes something a stranger can understand in about a minute. And understanding is what gets families funded. For us, design isn't decoration. It's the strategy. What we put into craft, and something we account for in the open. The return is something you can check, not something you take on faith.

The honest part

Surrogacy isn't all gender reveals and happy tears. It's needles, waiting rooms, legal paperwork, and moments where you're genuinely not sure it's going to work out. We talk about all of it, because the families living it deserve honesty, not a highlight reel.

That's the same reason we build in public and share the pivots, the misfires, the lessons we learned the hard way. If we're asking you to trust where your money goes, the least we can do is show you the messy middle, not just the wins.

It takes a village

None of this, not the first grant, not the leap to national, not this relaunch happens because of one person. It happened because a village showed up. Families, surrogates, volunteers, donors, and friends who gave six figures of work on a handshake and a belief.

If any of this resonates, come be part of it. Monthly giving is how you join the village and follow a real family's story, milestone by milestone, all the way to the day a baby comes home. It's $25 a month, and it keeps the door open for the next family on the other side of it. (SPOILER ALERT: the line keeps getting longer.)

We built this foundation because we couldn't find the thing we needed. We're still building. Take a look at where we are, and tell us what you think.

— Zach French, Co-founder and Executive Director, The Surrogacy Foundation