An organisation that is licenced in the state or states where it transacts its business, which is to assist in placing children needing parents with adoptive parents that are looking for children. Agencies exist in a wide variety of organisational forms, including non-profit, not-for-profit, for-profit, and governmental agency. Although the legal impact of the organisational or business structure of an adoption agency may be different, the services that they are licenced to provide are generally very similar.