As promised, I have been very busy digging deeper into the connections between Adoption by Gentle Care and American Adoptions especially in regard to founder Scott Mars‘ adoption business ventures. This 1969 era adoptee is a very busy guy!

If you want the full picture, please read part one first: What Does Adoption by Gentle Care, American Adoptions and Adoption Circle Have in Common?

American Adoption Kingpin Scott Mars

American Adoptions was founded by Scott Mars in 1991.  According to his father, Ted Mars‘ own words: “when he was in college, he told me he felt he had to pay back adoption and help other children find a good life.”  You know, because Scott was adopted himself. How very sweet, right?

Not Making a Profit from Selling Babies?

Now, American Adoptions calls themselves a not for profit adoption agency, but American Adoptions does not have their 501c3 IRS not for profit status and really are NOT a nonprofit.  Much to my irritation, this also means that I cannot access their 1099’s IRS forms and see how much money they have in their coffers.  We’re going to just have to assume that the adoption business is a lucrative one for Mr. Mars as he has been a very busy guy over the last 20 plus years. We know there is lots of money to be made in adoption despite the nonprofit adoption agency myth.

No matter what American Adoption claims, the parties involved and working there have the ability to pull a nice salary.   Now the IRS does make one distinction between the two besides the fact that the 1099’s are not public. In some publications, the IRS explains that for them “not-for-profit” refers to an activity, for example, a hobby (like fishing). In contrast to “for profit”, “nonprofit” refers to an organization established for purposes other than profit-making.  Finding  a “good life” for children would be considered “not” for profit, I guess, since that is one of the cardinal rules of adoption; Thou shall NOT even hint that you might be selling babies.”

For example, a “nonprofit” organization can be an association of people who engage in the hobby of fishing – in other words, do it “not-for-profit.”  What I find VERY interesting is that one cannot deduct expenses incurred in pursuing a not-for-profit activity, but I would bet my bottom dollar that American Adoptions DOES deduct expenses like advertising, and legal and their rent for their buildings, travel, etc just like every other adoption agency financial I have looked into.

Anyway, in the end, what I deduct is that perhaps Scott did not go into adoption to make a profit, but for some reason hasn’t bothered to do what the greater majority of adoption agencies manage to do and get that 501c3 ranking. And this does, in fact, allow him to pretty much do whatever the heck he wants behind closed doors. No one to look at his 1099s and no pesky shareholders to need to answer. His cloak of secrecy is even darker as it looks like he only shares power  of the various corporate and organizational board of directors with close family and people he trusts.

Scot Mars- Expanding the Adoption Empire

So aside from the weird status and lack of 1099’s financials, whatever corporate identity Scott Mars figured out must have worked out well, because expand he did.

The following are locations for American Adoption enterprises listed as “Individual/ family services”

American Adoptions in Kansas City, MO

• Located at 1125 Grand Blvd Kansas City, MO 64106
• Laurie Walker  served as the Manager

American Adoptions in Rogers, AR

• Located at 103 S 3rd St Rogers, AR 72756
• Scott Mars listed as the “owner”
• It seems that American Adoptions is linked to the Kelley law firm rather tightly in Arkansas so I think it might be more of a referral agreement.

American Adoptions of Florida in Tavares, FL

• Located at 114 N Texas Ave Tavares, FL 32778
• Ted Mars Listed as the President
• Keith Rizzolisted as the “Branch Manager”

There is a license for American Adoptions to also work out of Arizona, but the corporate information for that seems to be hiding rather well.

These are locations for American Adoption enterprises listed as “non-profit”

American Adoptions Inc in Tampa, FL

• Located at 1211 NW Shore Blvd Tampa, FL 33607
• Listing Scott Mars as the manager

American Adoptions Inc in Shawnee Mission, KS

• Located at 9101 W 110th St Overland Park, KS 66210
• Listing Mary Wheatleyserves as the Executive Director
• Listing Scott Mars, his Buddy Wade Morris  and a Jon Ball as others involved.

Now the whole kit and caboodle started in Kansas, so this is where it gets a bit interesting.

Overland Park, KS American Adoption Headquarters

9101 W 110th St Overland Park, KS houses some very interesting bedfellows that happen to all be linked to Scott Mars.

This is the heart of the  adoption empire right here.  An agency does have to have an office, but it’s all the bells and whistles he has at his fingertips that I find amusing. He has his hand in many pots besides just running American Adoptions in five different states and whatever his oversight or lack of with Adoption by Gentle Care.

Nine Months Adoptions

First, I am not sure why he has held onto the old Nine Months Adoptions?  Nine Months Adoptions, Inc. filed as a Foreign Non Profit Corporation in the State of Florida on Wednesday, December 17, 1997 and is no longer active. Scott Mars served as the President. Ted Mars & a Jack Edstrom are both listed as directors with a  registered agent listed as Sean T. Lance, so it is without a question, some sort of venture?  I had thought that perhaps by looking at dates I could find an overlap where perhaps they did indeed switch out agency names. There are two American Adoptions “businesses” filed in the state of Florida (why I have no idea – sometimes they will have one a “non-profit” and the other a “for profit” and then the for profit “donates” money to the nonprofit  or whatever they do to skirt tax liabilities), and then this Nine Months Adoptions earlier, plus AGC was also in Florida with Adoption by Choice (ABC) and Scott Mar’s media venture, American Family Media LLC, is also registered in Florida. However, the dates overlap too much to conclude anything. I will assume that they just all took advantage of the laws offered by one of our favorite “adoption friendly” states. Why hang on to that name for close to 20 years if you are not doing anything with it?

Then there is the before mentioned “Home Study” or  1-800-HomeStudy – Adoption Home Study Resource. The purpose of this whole “business” I would guess is to  rank for the words “home study” and direct traffic to the agencies that are paying to be listed.   Surprise! Guess who is listed first in Ohio?

Now, I have to admit I really get a chuckle out of this; see, Scott Mars is playing kind of cheesy SEO marketing tricks with this kind of stuff. It’s just a totally old school “directory” method of getting both back links and traffic, but it makes some sense seeing that Scott Mar’s Adoption business # 4 is American Family Media LLC.

Now actually it almost makes sense that Scott also has registered in his name American Family Media LLC though not sure why it is filed as a Foreign Limited Liability in the State of Florida (as of  Monday, March 31, 2014). I will assume here that perhaps it has something to do with taxes or such other business decisions. Anyway, this American Family Media LLC gives Scott the credibility and/or cover to do what he does.

I particularly like this nice list of their “clients”. I look at that and it tells me either they are doing “work” for themselves or, perhaps even worse, they are hiding behind another name and doing “work” for their competition?

Scott Mars’ Adoption Marketing Ring

Oh, no. It’s even better really. See, what Scott Mars has done with this media company is control a slew of websites whether it is he, himself, or someone under his direction,  is creating them. ConsideringAdoption.com redirects to 1-800-adoption which seems to “appear” to be a more overall informational site right?  Notice whose ads just happen to be sitting there?

Why lookie there! It’s American Adoptions, Adoption by Gentle Care, 1-800-homestudy, and Attorney Mike Belfonte! Oh and if you look at Attorney Mike Belfonte‘s website, he, of course, is tied in to American Adoptions.. as in Scott Mars owns his URL, too. On EVERY page there are the same ads. There is not one other business listed that is not tied into Scott Mars.

The thing is; in online marketing this is really a common place tactic, more outdated as I said, but still nothing too horrifying. It can be called a version of “link farming” or a “link network”. What it does, though, is create a false sense of trust as all these “businesses” give credibility to each other because usually any one person is just looking at a small piece of the puzzle, not the whole enterprise laid out. They don’t know that all these businesses are so vitally connected in many ways  and essentially owed and operated by the same individuals. Make no mistake about it, Scott Mars and American Family Media are purposely making it out to look like every one of these  business is independent of each other and the endorsements are all legitimate.

For instance, this “considering adoption” website claims about themselves:

“Considering Adoption offers a comprehensive look at the entire adoption process from both the prospective adoptive family and birth parents’ perspectives. Just as the adoption industry grows and evolves, so too will Considering Adoption to provide our visitors with the most up-to-date adoption information on the Internet.”

Really?

Nope, Considering Adoption.com is really there to get folks over to more of Scott Mar’s and friends adoption enterprises. It’s not a client of American Family Media LLC. In fact, I am so confident it is one in the same that I have written this out before I checked; And of course, I was right….

American Family Media’s Piece of the Adoption Pie

• ConsideringAdoption.com is owned by American Family Media LLC.
• 1-800-adoption.com is owned by American Family Media LLC.
• MichaelBelfonte.com  is owned by American Family Media Corp.
• Adoption-for-my-baby.com is owned by American Family Media LLC.
• OptionsMagazine.com and.org are owned by American Family Media LLC.

Add that KelleyAdoptionLegalServices.com that was mentioned in the part one post and listed on 1-800-HomeStudy; it is also owned by American Family Media LLC.

Guess who else is owned by American Family Media?

AdoptionbyGentleCare.com and AdoptionbyGentleCare.org

But American Family Media is not the only “publishing ” enterprise of American Adoption’s Scott Mar’s. Notice in the Kansas building we also have “Options Magazine” which is Scott Mars’ Adoption business #5.

Now Options Magazine  doesn’t look to have a easily findable website ( and the links go to a placeholder), so perhaps it shouldn’t be of a concern except that it hints to perhaps a real print periodical that somehow pretend to “help” a pregnant woman decide on her “options”? However, like American Family Media, Options Magazine is connected to other pieces of Scott Mar’s empire:

• 1-800-homestudy.com is owned by Options Magazine. If you notice on the info listed we also have a @ninemonths.org and a @adoptionspecialist.com.
• AdoptionSpecialist.com is owned by Options Magazine with another @ninemonths.org connection.
• American Adoptions.org is owned by Options Magazine with even more @ninemonths.org connections.

And then American Adoptions is actually owned directly by American Adoptions and Scott Mars.

Also again, the third party, more neutral looking, AdoptionNews.com is owned by American Adoptions as is a few more of the “businesses” listed here on the American Adoptions ” resources” pages: Again- The Kelley Law Firm, Adoption by Gentle Care, Beck and Wilkinson, and Bryan McLachlanare owned and controlled by American Adoptions.

Whew!

False Credibility and Shady Connections = Lying to Public

Do you see how the trail of connections here is just so hidden behind corporate smoke and mirrors? And again, it’s not even what Scott Mars is doing that is so horrible in terms of marketing.  It’s like the corn syrup industry  creating a website and advertising camping that talks about how “sugar is sugar”; however they make up some new organizations name and post “facts” that benefit their point of view to give them additional credibility.  It’s a campaign totally created to confuse the consumer because it is so shady.  We see this in adoption again and again.  The Gladney Center for Adoption uses third party “BraveLove” to promote adoption while Bethany Christian Services  has the “Real Options” website. However, just because it’s common practice doesn’t mean that it is really OK or ethical. The lack of transparency is really a lie by omission.

Targeting those “Considering Adoption” with Search Rankings

All these bogus “corporations” and  URL purchases DO work to promote the real cash cow, American Adoptions, though the in-linking between websites. Pardon me while I get all sorts of SEO Geeky here:

Let’s look at the keywords, or search terms, “considering adoption”

Now, based on the fact that the words “considering adoption” are in the actual URL, the website itself would normally rank  number one if you happened to type them into your search bar. But since consideringadoption.com really redirects to 1-800-adoption, it doesn’t rank well at all which is actually rather smart. If ConsideringAdoption.com was more than just a redirected URL then, because the words on in the URL itself, THAT would be the website that is ranked highest by Google, but that’s not the website what Scott Mars wants to get the highest rankings and search traffic to.  Look, instead, who does rank number way at the top for the targeted term!

See what happens is that that “Considering Adoption” url passes on what basically amounts to “ranking credit” or what is commonly called “link juice” to the sites it links to.  That’s pretty much the purpose of it beside that false credibility trickery. And since it links to the American Adoption site the most (and directly to their page optimized for “considering adoption” ) the false site helps push up the American Adoption ranking on Google. It’s actually such a wonderful example of using search engine optimization and back linking that I think I will use this to help explain how Google works when I present my SEO workshop at the American Adoption Congress Conference in March.

Interestingly enough, there are even MORE sites that look to be created to make “Considering Adoption” more credible than it really is; notice “Adoption-for-my-baby.com“- which is also owned by American Family Media.

Do I have to go ahead and say it?  “adoption-for-my-baby.com” is also pretending to be a more neutral informational website and also targeting “considering adoption” keywords, have the 1-800-adoption number to call, list “Options Magazine” with a dead link and the “adoption agency” link goes to.. you guessed  it…American Adoptions! Oh, and some of that site is actually hosted on the American Adoptions URL  as “free info” as shown below.

Notice that Adoptionnews.com is also there to basically do the same thing, but the connection is even harder to follow and of course, their ownership is not disclosed to the public.  In addition, AdoptionNews is really trying their hand in social media with a Facebook page and Twitter account though their numbers are really low and sad. Neither of those, however, should be confused with Adoption News and Events on Facebook and Twitter.

Blaming American Adoptions For Camden’s Loss and Pain, too.

Now, due to this exercise in research, I have to say that my gut feeling is that we can’t just blame Adoption by Gentle Care for the lack of ethics and oversight in Camden’s case. Despite the removal of American Adoptions owners and BOD from the Adoption by Gentle Care board after the Grayson Vaughn fiasco, it’s looking more and more to me that American Adoptions and Scott Mars have a bigger controlling interest than they would like the public to believe.

For instance, just the fact that Scott Mars and American Family Media own the Adoption by Gentle Care URLs is a big deal. Ownership of a URL gives that party the ability to serious maim the business if they so choose. Like if he wanted to, Scott Mars could just redirect the URL of AGC right over to American Adoptions and completely cripple them online. It would not be hard to do as it seems that the AGC site is actually hosted, at least in part by the American Adoptions hosting account based on the URL structure:

This American Adoptions URL  http://www.yp.americanadoptions.com/about_us/privacy is actually branded as an Adoption by Gentle Care page and yes, that happens more than once, too.

On top of the ownership, the hosting, the advertisements, the referrals, American Adoptions also provides Adoption by Gentle Care “gift funding” to provide financial assistance for Adoptive Families.  So some AGC families get money to adopt from American Adoptions. Does that mean funding from American Adoptions ends up in Adoption by Gentle Care’s bank account? Is that not a way that AGC is being subsidized by another agency, but washing it through the hopeful adoptive parents so it looks to come from them? I’m really beginning to think that the Adoption Circle merge bit was just rumor, as it would be just so much easier for Adoptions by Gentle Care to just get swallowed up by the American Adoption parent company and start with that clean slate. I know for a fact that AGC totally consults with American Adoptions and has done so about what to do in Carri’s case, so there is way more influence and control than anyone really wants to let on.

So while I am still really no closer to understanding the WHY in Carri and Camden’s case, I’m going to cast that wider net.  It’s obvious that American Adoptions, under Scott Mars’ routine of smoke and mirrors, doesn’t take transparency and true accountability very seriously.  And while perhaps Scott Mars did start his American Adoptions empire with some nice misplaced foggy adoptee loyalty in the beginning, at this point and seeing all these internet marketing shenanigans, he is in so darn deep there is no way he is spared from the culpability and corruption.

I’m just going to start saying “American Adoptions by Gentle Care”