Local and Regional Adoption Agencies

• Clients are able to meet face to face, which helps build trust and understanding.
• Local agencies also locate their birth mother’s face to face and do not rely on other professionals to evaluate their client in a direct setting.
• Staff and client list is small, which results in easier communication.
• Adoption fees can be less due to lower overhead (see advertising below).
• Families do not have to travel outside of their geographic area.
• Licensed and state monitored organization, which provides greater accountability than law firms, law centers or facilitators. 

• Because local organizations are limited geographically, their waiting times are inconsistent.
• Advertising costs are often separate from their fees, meaning they tell their clients where to place their ads. The problem is mediums available to individual clients are much less effective than mediums available to adoption agencies, which causes families to spend thousands more in ads. (Keep in mind the largest national agencies who buy advertisements at a discount, track carefully their marketing success, have qualified counselors talking to birth mothers, and have major networking contacts still average spending $8,000 to $10,000 in advertising for each successful adoption. Therefore you should expect to pay more in advertising through a smaller organization especially if the ad is placed on your own)
• Small organizations who do advertise often do not spend the same amount advertising for each client as national agencies and as a result, it negatively impacts the waiting times for their clients. Less marketing equals less birth parents.
• Usually local agency staff is comprised of one or two staff members leaving clients painfully susceptible to staff turnover.
• Low number of adoptions does not provide the same expertise as larger organizations in evaluating, educating and guiding their clients through the adoption process, which makes for an unpredictable and inconsistent experience.
• Some local agencies require their clients to handle initial calls from birth parents, which can cause many problems
• Many local agencies bill clients for work on evaluating all birth parents and this often results in paying much more fees than originally estimated. National Adoption Information Clearing House indicated that for every 1 birth parent who places the other 9 choose abortion or parenting. This means you could be billed for nine cases that their fees don’t estimate. What happens if the first nine cases don’t choose adoption? How much will you lose? Would you then be able to adopt?
• Local agencies are susceptible to changes in their state laws, which can put them out of business. Florida, for example, changed their laws in 2001 and as a result, adoptions plummeted 50 percent the following year.  The result caused many local agencies and adoption law firms to go out of business. National organizations simply focused their services in the other 49 states.
• Smaller agencies are also susceptible to negative statewide adoption stories, it could be foster home abuse such as was the case in Missouri. The negative newspaper articles made many pregnant women in Missouri choose to parent, which hurt local Missouri agencies. Read the news story here.
• Smaller agencies are also less financially secure and this makes some clients nervous.
• Small agencies are overworked and under staffed thus leading to burnout and not meeting their clients’ needs in a timely fashion.
• After hours and weekend availability is scarce, thus leading to fewer adoptions.
• Phones are often answered by answering machines leaving clients frustrated with accessibility of the staff. For example, imagine you are pregnant and scared. You are calling someone for the first time to talk about the adoption process and you talk to an answering machine. Would you call back? Less staff also leads to more accessibility problems, especially after hours.
• Typically living, medical and legal expenses are not estimated in their average total cost for the adoptions making their adoptions appear lower cost than other professionals available.

• Families who are not willing to travel to another state to adopt a baby.
• Families who are not as focused on waiting time.
• Families who have a tight overall budget, although they should be careful to evaluate the way in which the fees and costs are paid because clients can quickly burn through their savings.
• Families who value face to face contact from the same person who they work with.
• Families who are more financially risk tolerant.
• Families who are prepared for higher disruptions than national agencies.
• Families that want to visit the agency weekly.
• They have friends that run the smaller agency.

1. Are your agency fees fixed or charged on an hourly basis? Are any of your agency fees at risk if the birth mother changes her mind?
2. Do their quoted fees include living, medical and legal expenses? 
3. What percentage of your agency's practice is locating birth mothers?
4. How many birth mothers did your agency locate last year who placed their child through your agency?
5. Does your agency find all the birth mothers or do you have your clients advertise on their own?
6. Do your have clients advertise in other states in which you are not licensed? Do you then use other agencies/attorneys handle the process in that state? Do they charge an hourly rate? Is that hourly rate at risk if the birth mother changes her mind?
7. How many families do you have on your waiting list?
8. How many adoptions did you complete last year? How many where you located the birth mother? How many where your clients advertised to locate a birth mother?
9. How much of your adoption practice is comprised of home study services?
10. How much do you suggest spending a month on advertising? Is that at risk if an adoption doesn’t work out? (Keep in mind the largest national agencies who buy advertisements at a discount, track carefully their marketing success, have qualified counselors talking to birth mothers, and have major networking contacts still average spending $8,000 to $10,000 in advertising for each successful adoption. How then can a small agency or individual family expect to spend less?)
11. How many clients in the past year simply quit advertising because it didn’t work out?
12. How much money can I lose in living and medical expenses if a birth mother changes her mind?
13. What are typical amount of living expenses your birth mother’s need?
14. Is your agency licensed in more than one state?
15. How many adoptions (where you have located the birth mother) have you completed in the past five years? This will give you an idea if their placement numbers are inconsistent.
16. Annually how many of your adoptions are completed in other states?
17. Does the state you are licensed in come to your offices and review your files, personnel records and make sure your organization is complying with state law and regulations?  
18. How many full-time staff members do you have on staff that will work on our adoption?
19. Do you have a social service department on staff? How many are on staff? Can you provide me their credentials? Are they licensed by the state? 
20. If they only have one or two staff members, then ask, what happens if they retire, quit, become seriously ill, etc.
21. If you don’t have a Social Service Department then who evaluates your birth mothers? How are they qualified to do so?
22. How many adoptions (not home studies) has your social work department been involved in where they have evaluated and worked with the birth parents? 
23. What is the estimated cost to join your organization? Does that include only successful adoption cost estimates? 
24. Do you have any pending lawsuits?
25. Are there any cases where you fear a lawsuit is forthcoming?
26. Have you ever had a client lose more than $20,000 in failed adoption expenses? How about $15,000? How about $10,000? Will you put that in writing and send it to me?
27. Will I have to interact directly with the birth mother providing my contact information to her?
28. Do you have certain requirements for families joining your agency? (kids in the home, age, religious preference) if so then why? Can these factors affect my wait time with your local agency?
29. Can I work with multiple agencies?
30. What percentage of families adopt within your estimated wait time? 
31. Do you charge additional fees for special services such as ICPC or extra counseling?
32. Do you answer your phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week for potential birthmothers?
33. Pick up the phone and call them on Saturday or Sunday evening. This shows whether they are doing everything they can with your advertising dollar  
34. Do their upfront advertising fees expire?
35. Do they maintain and regulate pictures and letters correspondence with birth parents after the adoptive placement? 
36. Do they handle their entire process from A to Z?