Adoptimist Review NOT recommended
So , we wanted to love Adoptimist . In fact , we did for quite a while , but not without a few hiccups. When they first started their program , we were in awe of their fantastic software . They had a platform wherein families could post their profiles for free , and have a better position by paying a small amount per month . At last glance , the free option longer appears to be available and adopting parents can opt for a $50 a month plan or a $150 a month plan .
Most people would say , wow , only $50 or $150 a month ! We can afford that ! The problem is , that as Google has changed their algorithm , the chances of Adoptimist coming up in an organic search are slim . Adopting parents are encouraged to do their own advertising and send potential expecting mothers to the Adoptimist site in order for them to look at their profile . Does it really make sense to send a potential birth mother that you have obtained through your own marketing and networking to a site where hundreds of other adopting parents are seeking to adopt ? Nothing like creating your own competition unnecessarily.
Since Adoptimist may now have a difficult time driving traffic to their site organically , they would have to pay for ads in order to drive prospective mothers that are searching for families to their site . The problem is, that if they spent $150 per family per month and had 200 families and spent every penny that was paid at $22500 a month , they would most likely only end up with a couple of matches a month, because Google Adwords is very expensive . We question the extent of their advertising, because when we do a search under the heading “adoption” or ” place my baby for adoption” or any other search terms that a potential mother make enter … Adoptimist doesn’t appear . In fact , we have never seen it appear under the search words that birth mothers would normally enter . What we have seen are family’s own personal links to the site that they are , we are sure , paying for . Hopefully after spending all of that money to drive traffic to their profile , the mothers don’t choose one of the other families , but we guess that they may never know…
Now , the reason that we used to love Adoptimist is because at one time it actually did bring results from adoption professionals seeking families to adopt situations that they were working with . When working with mothers that were seeking a particular type of family , we could go to Adoptimist and there was a likelihood that we could find that family . When we received a call from a young lady requesting a Jehovah’s Witness family to adopt her child, we found one on Adoptimist , and it all worked out beautifully . We have had many cases wherein we were able to locate adopting families that fit the criteria of the expectant mothers that we were working with. Their system is simple, we could send a direct message to the adopting family describing the situation and they could then respond if they had interest. That is the way it should be . They are paying to be put out there , and they should be able to be notified of any possible cases that were brought about by their monthly payment. The vast majority are working with adoption professionals that can be involved in advising the adopting parents in regards to any potential cases that come their way . Adoptimist is just a software platform and we believe that they are accepting liability when they become involved with advising adopting families about cases that they should or should not move forward with . Or by restricting contact of potential cases that are being offered.
This , however , is exactly why we can no longer refer this service to adopting parents . At one time , we had a conversation with the President and Cofounder of Adoptimist , Philip Acosta . He contacted us because we had reached out to several families on Adoptimist . He was upset that we had contacted his clients and stated that by letting families know about available cases in his words , ” This is not the way to build an ethical and trustworthy adoption service. ” “please cease this unethical behavior at once. ” I explained that we do not work directly with adopting parents and that we were only spreading the word about this particular case , and wasn’t that the whole purpose of his site ? My response ” We are not here to compete with you .. we offer completely different programs . We believe that everyone should do all possible in order to get their profile out there . . Our free service allows families to post their profiles with the hopes of adopting . if they are matched they have Adoptimist to thank..if our sources have reached them via your site . We also promote other services that post cases as well.. after all, isn’t it good for everyone when a family adopts ? ” We then connected by phone and after a lengthy discussion it was apparent that he no longer felt threatened and gave us permission to reach out to families on Adoptimist to let them know about cases that they might be interested in . After all , we had the name of his company placed on our website under services that we recommended .
It had been quite some time since we have had to look for families on Adoptimist , possibly close to two years , as our business has grown so much and we always have such a large pool and network of adopting families It is very rare that we would need to seek out alternative sources . However , we recently had a mother that placed her child through our service three years ago and she was expecting again and looking for a very specific family . We went to Adoptimist , emailed a few families and , out of courtesy , let them know that we had been given permission from the Director there to contact them . Strangely , we did not hear back from the families that we had contacted and within a very short time found that our IP address was permanently blocked from their website .
We did find families from other sources for the prospective birth mother , but the families that are paying to be on Adoptimist were never able to be presented . Adoptimist did not give them the opportunity . We believe that Adoptimist needs to be transparent and let the families know that if an adoption professional has a mother that is interested in choosing them as parents , Adoptimist will not allow the adopting parents know about the case . We believe that adopting parents are receiving a profile , and that they are encouraged to market their profile. It appears , however , that Adoptimist may be in charge of selecting what cases the adopting parents are presented or not . We believe that this action takes Adoptimist out of the category of advertising software and into the category of adoption facilitator which is illegal in many states and requires licensing in others. They do not appear to have the credentials or license to act as facilitators , as we were unable to locate their company name through California state licensing . Furthermore , if it was known to the adopting parents that they are missing out on opportunities without their knowledge , it appears that they may not be receiving the full benefits of what they bargained for .
In closing , we can not recommend Adoptimist as they do not align with our values of transparency . The families that we have spoken to that told us that they had paid to be on Adoptimist were disappointed to know that possible cases that would have been a good match for them were being vetted and that they may have lost out on potential cases . We reviewed Adoptimist and give them ZERO stars and we do not recommend that adopting families use this service . We feel that they are unethical and that they are not looking out for the good of their clients .
