You don't list your location, so I can't help with specifics. BUT......

Be aware, most states have laws in effect regarding native wildlife, including releasing or keeping it. In some states certain wildlife cannot even be disturbed, so if (in Fl) someone brought you a gopher tortoise, just by possessing it you'd be up for a rather large fine, even if you were just handed it by some anonymous person. Also, studies show that some animals that are released will not live, because they will instinctively attempt to go back to whereever their home territory is, and some species CANNOT be released by law, once they've been in captivity. So you'd want to contact your Fish and Game type office and talk to them about what sorts of animals you need to be aware of, and what the procedure is for dealing with you finding one in a box on your steps.

(hint: if you 'find it in a box on your steps', you don't "know" the person who had it, and thus can't reccomend who possessed the illegal animal, ahem...)

Regarding non-native wildlife, you'll want to make certain of any laws regarding prohibited species, if any. Once you are legally up to date on what you are allowed to possess and what the procedure is for anything you are not allowed to possess, you can be certain to not get into trouble with the law.

With legal wildlife, make sure you have SPACE, TIME, and MONEY to care for XX number of animals. Sit down and decide what species you want to keep and what species you're not equipted to keep. Do you have space for 50 iguanas? Can you feed that many on a regular basis? How about 50 ball pythons? Where can you keep them? Do you have a food source you can afford? Can you feed a bottomless pit like a Nile monitor? Can you house and handle it safely? Once you KNOW what you can house and feed, you'll have a firm idea of your limits.

Do you have a quarentine area and a established quarentine procedure? You shouldn't accept a "perfectly healthy" looking snake or lizard and put it right into the main group. Also, it shouldn't be adopted out until it's passed quarentine and been checked out for all the issues that a neglected or WC animal can have. You don't want to adopt it out to someone, only to have their collection catch mites or RI or god forbid, IBD.

Do you have a vet on call for exotics? What about paying? Will he give a discount? Will he help you to network among the area exotic owners? How about fostering animals ready for adoption? Could you see about any area pet stores, pet shelters, groomers, vets, feed stores, etc that might be willing to house one or two animals in appropriate enclosures to be up for adoption?

If you have been adopting out animals to area people, be aware, you WILL fill up all the local spots at some point. When you adopt an animal out, what is your procedure on making certain it's a good home, and what is the procedure if they can't keep it, or turn around and put it up for sale?

Do you have more people than just you to care for all the animals? There will be a point that you CANNOT care for them, whether it's an emergency where you have to go out of town, or when you get sick, or you might even want to take a vacation. You need an emergency person who can come in and PROPERLY care for all the animals there. This includes animals that can be considered dangerous, if you take in giants or monitors for instance. You do NOT want someone to get hurt because they wanted to help you out, so pre-plan that as well.

How about the local community? Not the herp owners, but the non-herp owners? Can you have open house things to help educate them? Run tours? Just give talks at local events like festivals? Bringing a couple smaller snakes or tame geckos to a local festival and running a educational table regarding exotic pets and what makes a good or bad pet for a family can REALLY gain you a lot of support and exposure if it's done right.

That's all I can think of this time of morning on my day off, but I hope it helped.