Why I built GreatTogether
There is a moment I hope every donor-conceived child gets to have. It is the moment they look up and ask where they came from, and every adult in the room gives them the same warm, unhesitating answer.
I am a known donor and the father of three children across two families. With one of them, that moment is already taken care of. They know my name, my face, my voice, and the story of how they came to be, told the same way by all of us. Watching that has been one of the great joys of my life, and it taught me something I did not expect: the security those children feel was built long before they arrived, in a handful of careful conversations the adults were brave enough to have.
I want that same certainty waiting for every child. It is the reason I get up in the morning, and it is the whole of what GreatTogether is for.
Both of my arrangements began with love and the best of intentions. What was different was the paperwork.
The first time, we used a generic donor agreement, the kind you download, fill in and sign. It looked complete. It covered what every family has in common and left space where our own specifics should have been: what I would be called, how much contact we each pictured, what the child would be told and when, what we would do as life carried us forward. Those questions come to every family eventually. The families who flourish are simply the ones who met them early, together, with all the time in the world to answer kindly.
The second time, we sat down with family lawyers and built something that described us question by question. It has held beautifully ever since. It also cost thousands, which is a great deal for a document, and more than many hopeful parents and donors are able to set aside.
That is the gap I wanted to close. A child’s clarity about their own story should be within reach of every family who wants it, whatever their budget.
GreatTogether takes you through the conversations a good lawyer would guide you through, including the specific ones a template can never think to ask: roles, names, contact, origins, boundaries, money, and how you will look after each other as life changes. It turns your answers into one clear agreement that everyone has genuinely read and genuinely meant, for a price that keeps the choice in your hands. For some families a lawyer is still the right next step, and we will tell you so. For every family, the questions are free.
One day, a child will ask. Every family deserves to have that answer ready, in their own words, agreed while there was all the time in the world.
MathewFounder of GreatTogether
See how GreatTogether works