Nicole Hanks is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Fostering the Connection, where she brings together lived experience, nonprofit leadership, creative strategy, and a deep commitment to strengthening the way communities support children and families.
Nicole and her husband have walked a long and personal road to grow their family, including infertility, IUI, foster care, adoption, and surrogacy. They adopted their oldest son through foster care when he was six years old, and today they are parents to three children. For the past 16 years, Nicole and her husband have experienced the foster care system firsthand as foster and adoptive parents, giving her a deeply personal understanding of the beauty, complexity, grief, resilience, and connection that can exist within these stories.
Professionally, Nicole has spent years leading nonprofit work focused on supporting children, youth, and families experiencing foster care. Her experience includes program development, volunteer engagement, community partnerships, fundraising, storytelling, event strategy, advocacy, and organizational leadership. She has earned credentials in trauma-informed care and is proud to train and equip foster parents, volunteers, churches, educators, and community leaders with practical tools to better understand trauma, respond with compassion, and create safer, more connected environments for children and families.
Through Fostering the Connection, Nicole uses both her personal story and professional experience to help others move beyond awareness and into meaningful action. Her work is rooted in the belief that when adults are educated, supported, and equipped, they can become a steady source of connection, healing, and hope in the lives of children and families.
nicole@fosteringtheconnection.com