About Adopt America Network (AAN)

• AAN believes

• AAN is unique

• Services

• Able and experienced

• Cost effectiveness

• Recent Accomplishments

• History

• Board Members and Officers

• Publications

  • Newsletters

  • Annual Reports

  • IRS 990

  • Privacy Policy

AAN believes
Adopt America Network believes:

• Every child deserves a safe, loving, permanent family and home of their own.
   

• Home and family are essential to the well being and mental health of every child.
   

• There is simply no substitute for the unconditional support, experiences, lessons and love that families can provide.
   

• There is a special family and home for every special child.
   

• No child should have to wait in foster care while there are families willing to adopt and care for them (the average wait is almost four years).

AAN is Unique

• We have a volunteer network of 72 Adoption Specialists spread across the nation willing to help other families learn how to adopt a child and eager to help them find the right family for each child. These trained volunteers are all parents of adopted children with various special needs.
   

• We work to erase geographical and bureaucratic barriers on a national basis, thus helping children from any state be matched with families anywhere in the United States.
   

• At no time do we charge any fees to parents willing and able to adopt a child waiting in the U.S. foster care system.

AAN specializes in placing the most difficult to place children – those with multiple special needs. These may include:

• Victims of extreme neglect,
   

• Victims of abuse – sexual, physical, emotional,
   

• Mentally or medically fragile children (from minor problems to terminally ill),
   

• Part of a sibling group of two or more (the greater the number, the harder it is to find a permanent home),
   

• Of minority, bi-racial heritage, and/or
   

• Older with the associated problems of long-term care in the foster system.

ANN copyrighted its family-child software/database that specifically matches family capabilities to handle over 60 different challenges (medical, mental, emotional) with the wide variety of special needs of the children. This results in more precise initial matches (other agencies target significantly fewer challenges), which may account for our low disruption rate of 5-7% - well below the national average of 15-20%.

EZMatch© is available on the Internet to AAN’s volunteer adoption specialists, selected state agency workers and partner agencies like the 112 national Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Recruiters for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

Services
AAN partners with hundreds of public and private across the country matching waiting children with eager families. The services AAN provides to agencies and adoptive families include, but are not limited to:

• Family/child registrationmatching services

• Parent training classes

• Internet family registration services

• Pre- and post-adoption services

• Family recruitment events

• Family support groups

• Family pre-adoption training

• Referrals to community services

• Home study services

• Respite care referral

• Family grants for home studies

• Adoption awareness activities/events

Able & Experienced
When children’s lives are literally hanging in the balance, you need to know that the nonprofit you support has the ability and experience to effectively carry out its good intentions.

Adopt America Network effectively and efficiently finds families, matches and places children with the right family, and provides the pre- and post-adoption support needed for the children and family to form lasting bonds.

• Since 1983, AAN has successfully placed over 3,259 children in loving homes,
   

• AAN’s rate of successful, permanent placements is a very high 93-94% (the national average is 80-85%),

As of 2007, AAN staff has a total of 61 years experience and the adoption specialists have a total of 325+ years of experience in the adoption field.

Cost Effectiveness
Using a national network of volunteer adoption specialists, skilled and experienced team leaders and technology, Adopt America Network uses every dollar that you give as wisely and as efficiently as possible:

In 2006, 87.9% or roughly 88¢ of every dollar spent went directly to programs helping the children (See 2006 Annual Report).

For 2006, regarding income, 84.3% is from grants and contributions by individuals, foundations, corporations and 15.7% comes from contracted revenue with various public agencies.
 

AAN constantly looks at ways to cut costs without affecting productivity – for example, comparing 2007 to 2005 shows that monthly telephone costs decreased 54% and utilities decreased 17%.

While not charging families any fees, AAN can provide the full-range of pre- and post-adoption services for an average of $4,000 per child matched – this is substantially below other agencies’ costs.

You can take pride in being a part of one of the leading nonprofits that is effectively and efficiently changing children’s lives.

Recent Accomplishments

• In 2006, connecting children and families in 30 states – children came from 25 states and moved to be with new, permanent families in 23 states.
   

• In 2006, AAN’s staff and specialists recorded 6,734 referrals of children to families and families to children and 8,951 children for whom we have complete information are entered in our matching database.
   

• By fall 2007, AAN has placed since its founding over 3,259 children from the foster care system with loving, permanent families.

History
Adopt America Network was founded in 1983 by Richard K. Ransom who also founded Hickory Farms. Mr. Ransom has dedicated his life to helping children and since he established AAN, over 3,270 special children have found homes and families through AAN. Adopt America Network is now placing over 200 special need children from U. S. foster care with loving, permanent parents each year.

Board Members and Officers
For a listing of 2007 board members and officers, click here.

Publications
Requires Acrobat Reader PDF file. (The following files contain out of date information concerning Adopt America Network's address and contact information.  Please see the footer of this page for the most recent information.)
Click here to download free version.

Newsletters

• Winter 2007

• September 2007

• Fall 2006

• Spring 2006

• Fall 2005

Annual Reports

• 2006 Annual Report

• 2005 Annual Report

IRS Form 990
AAN is accountable and proud of its financial efficiency. We make every effort to wisely use every dollar. Of funds spent, an outstanding 87.9% is spent on programs. Form 990 is the return that tax-exempt nonprofits file each year with the IRS.

• 2006 - 990

Privacy Policy
AAN does not rent or sell names of its donors, families, or visitors to this site