Why this exists
No child should lose their dad
because he ran out of money.
DadsFight is the first verified mutual-aid platform built for fathers in active family-court litigation. We exist because nothing else does.
The gap
Every existing support group bans asking for money.
Search any father’s rights forum, any custody Facebook group, any divorce subreddit. Read the rules. The first or second item, every time:
“No fundraising. No solicitations. No GoFundMe links. Posts asking for money will be removed and the user banned.”
These rules exist for understandable reasons — spam, scams, the optics of begging. But they make the most consequential question in a custody case unspeakable: How am I going to pay for this?
The reality
Family court is decided by who can afford to be in it.
A contested custody case typically requires a $5,000 to $15,000 retainer. Filing fees, evaluator fees, GAL fees, and transcript costs can add another $2,000 to $8,000. Many fathers are also paying child support, garnished wages, and double household expenses while the case is pending.
Most of the fathers we work with have already drained savings, borrowed from family, and refinanced or sold what they can. They are not asking because they want to. They are asking because the alternative is letting the case go undefended.
When that happens, the consequences are not financial. They are about whether a child sees their father at all.
What we do
A platform where the question is allowed to be asked — and verified.
Every request on DadsFight passes through three checks before it goes live:
Identity verified
Stripe Identity confirms a government ID and a live selfie. Same standard banks use.
Case verified
An automated court-records check confirms the case number and court are real and active. We do not take screenshots; we read the docket.
Documents reviewed
A trained admin reviewer reads every uploaded document and itemized budget before the request is published. Redactions are applied to protect minors and other parties.
Funds flow directly from contributor to father through Stripe Connect. We never hold the money. The platform charges 5% to cover hosting, verification APIs, and operational cost — everything else goes to the case.
What we don’t do
We are not a charity, an advocacy group, or a legal service.
We don’t pick which fathers deserve help. We don’t write checks from a pooled fund. We don’t lobby, organize, or fight cases. We don’t take a side in any case.
We are infrastructure: a verified surface where a father in active litigation can ask, and where someone who wants to help can give directly to a case they can read. That is all. The rest is up to him, his attorney, and the court.
The pledge
No refunds. No reallocation. Funds raised are funds disbursed.
When you contribute on DadsFight, your gift goes to that father. If the request closes under its goal, the father receives what was raised. We do not return funds, hold them in a trust, or move them between cases.
This is mutual aid, not crowdfunding. The funds are not contingent on a target. The father gets what the community gave.