What If YOU Want To Start a Registry? A Re-Enactment Sitting on the couch after she has finished talking to her birthmother for the sixth time in two weeks, Zee is feeling very complete and happy. She has decided that she really wants to assist adoptees and birthparents to get together, gets up and goes to her trusty computer and starts writing messages that she is thinking about starting an online adoption registry. "After all," she thinks, "just how hard can it be and I already know everything there is to know about searching so I would be perfect." So You Want to be a Registry Owner Well first of all, STOP. Let's take a look at your likes and dislikes, abilities and things you would need to learn first before we make a major life-changing decision. What are your special talents. Do you like to talk to people? What is your patience level? Do you like to write letters? Are you politically motivated? Do you know how to organize your time? Are you good at filing, typing, writing HTML? Are you a good listener? Are you knowledgeable in a certain area of the adoption issues that no one else is? Let's Think About This These are just a few of the things I would start thinking about. With over 200 registries on the Internet, is there really a need for another one? There are many ways to assist members of the adoption triad without running an adoption registry. If you are on a mailing list, you could share the techniques you learned throughout the searching process to help others find their lost loved one. You could assist an organization like VSN which helps people in their searching. You could write letters to government officials and become politically active on adoption issues. You could join organizations like CUB, ALMA or even Bastard Nation. With all you have learned you could probably write a book or teach others on the issues surrounding adoption. If you have decided that you still want to run an online adoption registry, there are more important questions to ask yourself. Do I know enough about a unique area or place of adoption that is not covered by the registries that are online? If the answer is that "there is already a registry online that covers that area", I would suggest writing to the registry owner and seeing how they would suggest that I be able to assist. If the answer is that "there is no other registry like I would like to start and it is not covered in any other registry", then I would suggest that you test your skills and see if this is an area that you would like to participate in. Another question to ask yourself is, "How much time do I have to spend on running an online adoption registry?" Running an online adoption registry is a responsibility. A suggestion that I have would be to sit down and determine how much time you will need time for your job, your family, programming your registry pages, organizing, filing, answering email messages about adoption and searching, writing letters just to name a few of the daily commitments you make. I would say that you would need a minimum of at least 10 hours a week for a small registry and when the registry grows, I would double or triple that amount of time. Skills You Will Need One of the most important skills that an adoption registry owner needs is to be a good listener and reader. You will need to know how to at least know how to use a program that will make webpages. One of the more important parts of HTML that you will probably need to know is how to make tables and forms. Another skill that is a necessity is setting up a filing system so that you can locate the registrations after they start coming in. It is a good idea to have a basic searching page for registrants to look over so that they can get ideas on how to assist you such as getting their non-identifying information and things like that. I would also suggest that you talk with current registry owners to see if they have any suggestions or warnings that you would need to know before proceeding any further into your venture. I would definitely suggest that you find out how to run an ethical registry that is safe for people who will join your adoption registry. A good source of information on running a good registry can be found at SOAR - Safe Online Adoption Registries. Back to the SOAR Handbook Index