By Adam Winder, CEO of SeedTrust
I had the privilege of speaking at the Society for Ethics in Egg Donation and Surrogacy (SEEDS) 2025 Annual Conference, surrounded by some of the most passionate professionals in the assisted reproduction field. Twice a year, this community comes together to share ideas, confront challenges, and chart the course for the future. It is always humbling to stand among people who dedicate their lives to helping others build families. What greater purpose could there be to start each day.
I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts here for everyone to see, reflect on, and continue the conversation. I have the honor of serving as the current Chair of the SEEDS Board, but on this panel I was speaking from my own perspective, sharing my personal opinions shaped by both experience and conviction.
The Privilege and the Responsibility
Our industry is extraordinary, but it is also fragile. Each step we take is purpose driven, yet every step carries weight. The work we do changes lives, and that is both a privilege and a responsibility.
One of the things I have always admired about our field is that we care deeply. We are passionate, compassionate, and constantly evolving. But caring alone is not enough. Without standards, self regulation, and accountability, we risk undoing the very trust we have built. If that happens, the damage will be self inflicted.
When Escrow Becomes the Headline
I have spent my entire career trying to make escrow interesting. Unfortunately, when escrow makes the headlines, it is rarely for a good reason. Fraud has become a painful topic in assisted reproduction, and it has happened far too often.
Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal published a front page article that painted our industry in a troubling light. It focused on five cases of fraud and the families devastated by them. The article was negative, but it was not inaccurate. What it did not do was tell the whole story. It did not explain that thousands of families build their dreams each year safely and successfully. But even one case of fraud is too many, and the doubt such stories create can ripple through every part of our profession.
Over the past twenty years, there have been nine publicly known escrow fraud cases in our field, resulting in more than twenty million dollars in stolen funds. Nine may sound small, but the consequences have been enormous. Families lost their savings, their trust, and in many cases, their hope. These events do not just harm victims; they threaten the foundation of our entire industry. We cannot afford another headline like that.
The Good News: Change is Working
There is a silver lining. The perpetrators are being held accountable. Seven individuals who stole escrow funds have already been sentenced to nearly twenty years in prison collectively, and others will follow. Justice is being served.
More importantly, this kind of fraud is preventable. Of the nine known cases, not one would have qualified under the SEEDS Escrow Standard adopted this year. Six of the nine involved agency held escrow, a practice now prohibited in the standard and in several states because of its conflicts of interest and lack of oversight. The remaining cases involved unqualified providers with no bonding, governance, or audits.
When we look closely at the facts, the pattern is clear. Those who resist standards do so because they fear accountability. Standards reveal what some would rather hide. It is no different from the drunk drivers who complain about sobriety checkpoints. The checkpoints may cause some inconvenience, but they exist to save lives. The tragedy is that you rarely read about the drunk driver. It is the innocent family that gets T boned at the intersection, the ones who did everything right and simply trusted the road to be safe. Our industry is no different. When standards are ignored, it is the families who pay the price.The SEEDS Standard changes that.
The Evolution of Escrow
To understand how far we have come, think back to the early days of communication. Some of us remember the rotary phone with the long cord stretched from the kitchen down the hall. Then came the flip phone, the Blackberry, and eventually the smartphone. At each stage, people resisted change, but progress was inevitable.
Escrow in assisted reproduction has followed a similar path. In its early days, agencies, law firms, and title companies handled funds manually, often without controls or oversight. Most did so with good intentions, but few were equipped to manage the financial and fiduciary complexities that came as the industry grew.
When SeedTrust entered the market, we saw the need for a more secure, transparent, and accountable model. Over the past decade, escrow has evolved into a specialized fiduciary service guided by financial best practices. The introduction of bonding, audits, and independent fund management has created a new level of safety for families and professionals alike.
Overcoming Resistance
Change is never easy. When we introduced technology that provided real time payment tracking, some said it would create too much transparency. When we introduced daily payments instead of monthly ledgers, some said it was too complicated. When we called for audits and bonding, some said it was unfair to smaller operators.
But progress requires resistance. As I often say, if you want to get stronger, you cannot complain that the bar is heavy. It is the act of raising the bar that builds strength.
SeedTrust faced skepticism in its early days, but it was healthy skepticism. It forced us to prove that higher standards work, and they do.
Why Standards Matter
We all trust professionals who are held to high standards. We want our pilots to be licensed, our doctors to be certified, and our banks to be regulated. Why should escrow be any different? Families entrust us with both their money and their dreams. The right thing and the hard thing are often the same thing, and in this case, the right thing is clear.
SeedTrust has donated more than a million dollars in services to support families who were victims of fraud. I have spoken personally with many of them. Their stories are heartbreaking. They simply wanted to build a family but found themselves betrayed. None of them knew that their escrow provider was unqualified or that their funds were unsafe. They had no idea they were stepping onto a plane with an unlicensed pilot.
That is why standards matter. They protect families before harm occurs.
The SEEDS Escrow Standard
Out of the challenges of the past came something positive: the SEEDS Escrow Standard. This standard, overwhelmingly supported by SEEDS members, establishes a minimum threshold of safety, transparency, and oversight.
It defines five critical pillars:
- Qualifications
- Governance
- Oversight
- Safeguards
- Transparency
It sets a clear line between those who can be trusted to hold funds and those who cannot. For reputable providers, meeting these standards is achievable and expected. For those unwilling or unable to comply, the reasons are simple. They lack the capability, the commitment, or the integrity required to manage other people’s money.
Education and Accountability
One of the greatest benefits of having a standard is that it empowers education. Families and professionals can now ask the right questions and identify qualified providers. With education comes accountability.
As an industry, we must commit to working only with providers who meet or exceed the SEEDS standard. This is not a call to choose SeedTrust. It is a call to choose safety. Several companies helped draft and refine this standard, and I applaud each of them for stepping up. The risk of working with unqualified providers is simply too high.
Beyond Escrow: A Model for the Future
The formula that works for escrow applies across assisted reproduction.
Standards + Education + Compliance + Accountability = Safety and Trust.
Fraud may have exposed our vulnerabilities, but it also gave us the opportunity to fix them. Together, we are doing just that.
At the end of the day, we all entered this field for the same reason: to help create families. That is a privilege that demands our highest level of integrity. The SEEDS standards are more than rules; they are a reflection of our shared values and our collective promise to protect the people who trust us.
We cannot change the past, but we can define the future. If we continue to raise the bar, to act decisively, and to hold one another accountable, we will not only restore trust; we will strengthen the very foundation of our industry for generations to come.
Any questions, please reach out to us at [email protected]