Revenues of large adoption agencies and the decline in inter-county adoption

This week the U.S. State Department presented the figures of intercountry adoption for FY 2009, and for the fifth year in a row the numbers have dropped.

Here are the total number of inter-county adoptions for the last 6 years:

22,990

22,734

20,680

19,609

17,475

12,753

Seeing these numbers, and having learned the Joint Council on International Childrens Services is facing bankruptcy, the question may arise if the revenues of the large adoption agencies were influenced by the decline in inter-country adoption. Apparently the effect is not all that big. There is a decline for FY 2008, and the growth these organizations had in earlier years has certainly stopped, but overall there is not a huge drop in revenues for these organizations.

Here follows a table of program service revenue of some of the largest adoption agencies, based upon IRS Form 990 statements.

The following chart shows the sum of the program revenues of the agencies in above table.

For several of these organizations, programs are not their only source of revenue, as can be learned from the following table, presenting the total revenue of these organizations:

The following chart shows the sum of the total revenues of the agencies in above table.

The ranking of agencies changes somewhat when looking at total revenues. Especially the Gladney Center for Adoption and The Cradle, receive a disproportionate amount of their total revenues through donations.

Apparently the decline in inter-country adoption hasn't hurt the big adoption agencies all that much, so the loss in revenue as a result of that decline, most likely hit the smaller agencies more than the large ones.

Given the large drop of inter-country adoptions in 2009, it is interesting to see if the large agencies will maintain to do relatively well, or if this plunge starts to affect the entire industry.