Why I’m excited to join Binti as an Advisor

A letter from former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey

October 28, 2021

There may be no system in America more heartbreaking than foster care.

During my time serving as Nebraska’s Governor and serving the State as one of their U.S. Senators, I have been witness to both the tragedy as well as stories of incredible social workers and families stepping up. And I have witnessed child welfare workers laboring with data systems that forced them to keep track of foster care children with paper and spreadsheets.

Today, there are over 400,000 children in child welfare in the United States. Half of them will be homeless at some point in their lives. Half will have experience with the criminal justice system by the time they are 17. The majority of sex trafficked youth are current or former foster youth.

There is an extreme shortage of foster/adoptive parents nationwide. Children grow up in group homes due to the shortage of families. Children age out on their own without a permanent family.

Hundreds of millions of public dollars have been spent trying to make the system more efficient. Almost without exception these efforts have failed to improve outcomes for children and have not solved this critical shortage of foster and adoptive families.

Binti’s CEO, Felicia Curcuru, was motivated by the challenge faced by her sister who adopted two children.

Binti is beginning to get the results that many said was impossible. In four years, Binti has helped child welfare professionals approve 41,700 families. 185 customers in 27 States will testify that finally they have a solution that actually works. This is why 21% of children in the U.S. child welfare system are being helped by Binti.

On average, agencies approve 80% more families per year compared to the year before they launched with Binti.

On average, Binti helps agencies approve families 16% faster.

And Binti does not require public agencies to spend tremendous amounts of money. Net of costs, Binti actually saves state and local agencies money by achieving higher federal reimbursements and reducing costs.

Binti is as good an example of a powerful public-private partnership as I have ever seen. Binti is helping fix the shortage of foster/adoptive families in this country so that more children can have a loving family and have a better chance at a bright future.

I was introduced to Binti about 2 years ago and began learning about this company’s impressive progress in addressing the gaps between foster children and adoptive families. Over this time, I continue to be impressed at their outcomes and results. In addition to achieving results for children, Binti is helping social workers do their job and save time on administrative work.  I have had the opportunity to meet with social workers directly in New York City and they attested to how Binti helped their program from the ground up.

I know that Binti is just getting started and has bold plans to continue to build child welfare tools for other teams that drive prevention, reunification and other outcomes for children and families.  I am excited by the progress they have made in state and local child welfare agencies and know this will continue.

Bob Kerrey

Governor of Nebraska – 1983-1987
United States Senator from Nebraska – 1989-2001