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No More Homeless Pets Forum
January 13, 2003 What One Person Can Do |
What can one person do? Aimee St. Arnaud of Best Friends Animal Society talks about how you can get involved helping animals in your community.
Introduction from Aimee St. Arnaud:
Can one person really make a difference with such a large problem as homeless animals?You could actually argue that real change is almost always initiated by one person. And you don't have to have tons of money, resources, large state-of-the-art facilities, or unlimited volunteers to succeed either. What you do need is a commitment to helping animals and the willingness to take the first step.
It doesn't have to be a big step. It can be as simple as taking digital pictures of adoptable animals at your local shelter to put up on the website, or starting a volunteer brigade to paint the animal control building, or trapping and sterilizing a colony of feral cats in your neighborhood.
These efforts may sound small and insignificant when you consider the number of homeless animals, but good ideas are contagious, and like a ripple in a pond, one person can have an amazing impact.
Whether you are just looking for information on what you could do to get more involved, or you want to help inspire volunteers to become more active in your organization, we'll share ideas and success stories this week on the forum.
If you know of an individual or a volunteer program that has been especially helpful, OR if you have a question about how you could get involved or get others in your community more involved, please drop me a note at aimee@bestfriends.org
Questions
Sample programs
Motivating volunteers
Fewer adoptions with new shelter director
PACT: Putting on feral cat workshops and speaking at home associations
Speaking at a town home association meeting
Working with vet tech schools
Helping ferals in trailer parks
More ideas on how to get the community involved
How to obtain more financial support from our community
Do you have any hints on how to boost adoptions?
Contributions limited by conflicts within the group
Starting a lost and found service for pets
Volunteer Brigades
Promoting spay/neuter wherever you go
Using your job to help animals
I am just one person, unaffiliated with any group. How I can help?
Sample Programs
Starting a list-serve for the public to showcase adoptable animals and discuss progress towards reaching a no-kill millennium in a community Austin, TX: With four members in November 1997, Austin Pets Alive! started to end the killing of adoptable animals at the local Animal Center. As of May 1998, the membership numbers over 450.
Because no volunteer program existed at the Animal Center, Austin Pets Alive! began a program to help the staff move animals through the Center faster and get them adopted and into suitable homes more quickly.
They also started a weekly e-newsletter called "the no-kill handbill" which provides information on adoptable animals, lost and found situations, upcoming events, and other pertinent information. This is a great way that organizations can communicate with each other and the public.
Austin Pets Alive! also launched its Business Partners Program, where businesses commit to make ongoing contributions to the No-Kill Millennium campaign. Participating businesses are doing such things as paying for their employees to have their pets spayed and neutered, donating services, such as printing, and making periodic financial contributions to organizations participating in the campaign.
Putting on a spay/neuter week: Meagan, in Columbus, OH, wanted to do something to help animals. She decided to put on a Big Fix week where she would get animals from low-income persons spay/neutered. She approached local spay/neuter clinics to participate and offer a certain number of surgeries that week. She sent out emails to different animal lists asking for donations. Over 100 animals were sterilized in one week, with an additional 100 animals sterilized with leftover funds. She also got the Mayor of Columbus to declare that week Spay/Neuter Week and encourage citizens to get their animals fixed. She is now planning on making this a yearly event. She has put together a handout on steps she took to do this and is willing to share it with anyone who would like it. Email aimee@bestfriends.org if you are interested.
Motivating volunteers
Question from Member:
How can I motivate my volunteers? Our shelter's volunteer group is trying to grow and organize. I am the employee who directs them (coordinator). However, they look to me for everything. I want the group to have their own leaders, ideas, hopes, etc., while I keep them inline with assisting the shelter. They all seem to want to be Indians, and we don't have enough who want to be Chief's. No one wants to be responsible for a project. They all want me to lead everything, which is impossible with my other job duties. Any ideas?Response from Aimee St. Arnaud:
The best way is to empower them to feel like an important part of your organization. Start by asking for their input. You could do this on your volunteer application with a list of projects you want to do or skills you need. Find out what their interests and they would like to work on. Ask about their skills and connections. You may be amazed at untapped connections within your own volunteer force who just didn't know that you needed a printer or web site designer. Then try to match those up with what you want to accomplish.It is very important to make sure that you are getting the right fit. Some people are seeking a challenge and an opportunity to take on a major project. Others are looking for an easy, stress-free volunteer experience. Take the time to find out what the volunteer is looking for and to find the right job for the individual. If the volunteer does not enjoy being in charge of a project and is placed there anyway, they may become frustrated and leave.
If they do come up with good ideas, make sure to implement some of them so they see that their input is valuable. Volunteers are there because they care, but they want to know that they are making a difference and are appreciated.
Delegate specific tasks. It helps to have specific tasks with a reachable goal so they can experience success. Give it in a checklist format so they know what is expected of them. It can be overwhelming for volunteers when they are given a long list with projects to do or a large special event to oversee.
Train your volunteers. Make sure that they know what to do and how to do it. You are an employee who is familiar with all of the tasks that need to be done. Volunteers may not be as familiar with policies and procedures of your organization. Provide information on your organization's polices and provide training in other skills necessary to the job - be it animal care, use of equipment, or office skills.
Explain and demonstrate a task, then watch while the volunteer does it. It's worthwhile to take the time to observe volunteers who have had prior experience; you may learn something new, or you may head off a problem before it starts.
Allow plenty of time for the volunteer to ask questions.
Pair up a new volunteer with a veteran. Because groups are so overworked themselves sometimes, they are unable to spend the time training new volunteers and explaining how and why things are done. But it is crucial that you take the time, because you never know how much that one volunteer may bring to your efforts.
Share successes with them. Volunteers want to feel as if they are part of the organization. Thank them, respect them, and try to ensure they have a positive experience. I am involved with operating a spay/neuter clinic in my town and we had a woman volunteer at our clinic. She was so happy to be able to participate and see the immediate impact we were having that she wanted to make a $1,000 donation. This may not happen every time, but you never know who your volunteers are or whom they know!
Comment from Member:
Without each individual person, no volunteer and/or non-profit organization can form or function. We need to look at the small baby step each one of us can make every day. My current goal is to enable a new foster dog to be on the same level of my townhouse with my two goldens, with a barrier gate separating them and with no growling going on. I feel that's pretty good for one week.Comment from Member:
I've always said: Trying to make the world a better place...does.Comment from Member:
You might want to include the Starfish story, which is about a man who is on a beach where hundreds of starfish have washed ashore. The man is picking up one starfish after another and tossing each one gently into the ocean. Another man sees him and asks him what he is doing since he cannot possibly save all of the hundreds of starfish and his efforts won't make any difference at all. The first man listens to him, then bends down to pick up another starfish and toss it back into the sea, saying, "It made a difference to that one."Comment from Member:
I just wanted to share what myself and some of our volunteers do to help homeless pets.A local girl-scout troop does a fundraiser for non-profit groups and they asked us to participate. We provide our brochures to distribute and a list of the items we need for animals in our foster homes. This is a wonderful opportunity for the troop to get involved and helps us be more visible in the community.
We have volunteers that we see just a few times a year - but what a help that is. With very one's busy schedules, these kind souls give a few hours to help with things like: Santa pictures at local pet stores; conducting home checks for us; distributing our brochures to local vets; helping at pet adoption days, unloading supplies or sitting with the cats and walking the dogs.
I just want to thank all the volunteers for the help they provide, even if it's just a couple of hours to their local organizations. It is greatly appreciated!
Response from Aimee St. Arnaud:
They all make a good point -- it is so important to make sure to thank your volunteers, and make sure they know they are appreciated, even if they only show up a few times a year.When I was in charge of putting on a Walk for the Animals at my local humane society, we hosted a "bow wow breakfast" where we held a breakfast for past walkers and their animals. We had food for animals and people and took the opportunity to thank them for participating in our walk. We did not ask them for money, or pledges at that point. We wanted them to know this was in appreciation of their help.
As a result, we ended up raising our Walk funding from $28,000 to $50,000, and many who attended that breakfast increased their donation from the previous year. Two of the people at the breakfast were our two highest donors, bringing in over $1,000 each, which had never been done before.
Take the time to thank your volunteers by holding an event in their honor, sending them thank you cards, getting them T-shirts with your organization logo on it, or some other creative way.
Joan mentions that some volunteers only volunteer a little each year. That is ok - don't start out by asking volunteers to work 40 hours a week. Ask them for one project to get acclimated and allow them to get more involved gradually. They may become your best volunteers. When I worked at the humane society, we sent out a volunteer request for help designing a brochure. We got someone who works at a graphic design place and he ended up designing all our walk materials for free, serving on a special events committee, and getting his boss involved.
Fewer adoptions with new shelter director
Question from Member:
My husband and I rescue dogs from our local shelter. In a little less then a year, we were able to save over 800 dogs and some cats. The shelter has a new director who is making it very difficult to save the animals. My husband and I work full time. We used to be able to come in before the shelter opened and on Sunday to pull dogs and rescue them as well as take pictures twice a week to put on Petfinder.It seems as if now healthy dogs are being killed. No one seems to know why this change occurred. I feel it may be about a perception that they lose money for each dog we take. Plus, this area is low on spay/neuter. Many dogs are marked as "stray" and the owners don't reclaim them. We don't want to "quit" because the only losers would be the dogs. Do you have a fresh idea on how we can continue rescuing dogs without it becoming impossible because of the hours?
Response from Aimee St. Arnaud:
You and your husband are definitely a testament to what one person can do by helping a shelter place animals. Not knowing the full details of your situation, I will do my best to give some suggestions.I would begin by setting up a meeting to talk with the new director. Make sure to schedule an appointment rather than just trying to talk to him/her while at the shelter, when there may be many other things going on. Sit down and talk to him/her about what you have been doing and explain how the program works and why you come during the hours you do. I would use the words "partnering with the shelter to place animals" versus "rescuing from" the shelter. Ask for his/her input on how the program could continue. Find out why the policy has changed that allowed you to come in before the shelter opened. Perhaps he/she does not fully understand what you are doing or has heard some misinformation. A face-to-face meeting can help you clear this up and avoid you hearing things from others secondhand that may not be the complete story.
If the situation is about the perception that the shelter is losing money by transferring animals to rescue and not recouping an adoption fee, draw up a chart that shows how much money you are spending on the animal before adoption to highlight the savings to the shelter in terms of how much cage space, food, and care they are saving by not housing the animal. Highlight that the shelter can now focus on saving additional animals with the extra cage space.
Listen to what he/she says and see if you can offer solutions to make this program work for both of you. If the perception is that you are taking all of the "good" dogs, and leaving behind the less adoptable ones, find a way to direct people to the shelter directly to complete the adoption or to promote that the animals are being adopted through you, but FOR the shelter so they get recognized as a place that has highly adoptable, desirable animals. Do you have support of other staff that could approach the director and tell him/her how valuable your efforts are?
If you are still not able to make inroads, you may have to find some other volunteers to help you take pictures during open hours at the shelter. You can still be involved posting the pictures on Petfinder or making calls to coordinate placement of animals. You can request the Best Friends Network to post a message to members in your area who may be willing to help with taking pictures and transporting animals.
Perhaps you can also direct your efforts to helping with some of the other areas of great need that you mention, such as spay/neuter and identification of animals. These efforts may be more flexible in fitting with your work schedules, while allowing you to work towards the goal of saving as many animal lives as possible.
PACT: Putting on feral cat workshops and speaking at home associations (Chicago, IL)
PACT is a local volunteer group that holds feral cat TNR training workshops for caretakers, individuals, and humane organizations. PACT works with local humane societies and animal welfare organizations to develop and present their own TNR Workshops by using PACT's workshops as a "template" that can be modified to suit their own needs. They also offer to conduct TNR Workshops for the volunteers/staff of local humane societies in a "train the trainer" forum. From simply posting flyers announcing their workshop at pet stores, one recent meeting had 12 caretakers in attendance representing over 60 feral cats.
At these workshops attendees:
- see an informational video by Alley Cat Allies, the national feral cat resource
- hear a brief introduction to PACT Humane Society
- witness a trapping demonstration and receive tips for safely trapping cats
- walk away with lists of resources for low-cost spay/neuter veterinary services for feral cats, where to get a trap, our - "TNR Checklist" a step-by-step guide through the TNR process
- have an opportunity to meet others who are also caring for feral cats
A few volunteers can set up a TNR training workshop by getting handouts/resources from Best Friends or Alley Cat Allies, finding a library or pet store to hold the training, and making up a flyer to promote the event.
Speaking at a town home association meeting
Two PACT volunteers attended a board meeting at a town home association. A resident had been served a hearing notice for violating the association's by-laws against feeding animals outdoors. For feeding the 10 cats she had trap-neuter-returned, she was facing a possible lien against her property.
The board was initially skeptical and even defensive. All but one member wanted the cats "gone" but not killed. The lone standout mocked that he would rather shoot the cats.
The volunteers explained what a feral cat is -- leading into the overpopulation problem. They talked about the ineffectiveness of the trap and kill approach and the community benefits of TNR. They cited examples of where TNR has been successful, including in their association: 38 had been successfully relocated or adopted as kittens, and 14 females had been sterilized in one day at a local clinic, meaning less kittens next spring! Three residents alone had accounted for 24 ferals being sterilized. At the end of the meeting, the board:
- dismissed the proposed penalties against the resident
- motioned to allow the resident to continue with TNR
- requested PACT provide literature about TNR to the property managers, for dissemination to their 200 homeowners
- accepted PACT's offer to hold TNR Workshops for their residents
- indicated an interest in the association providing funds for TNR for their residents, pending residents' approval
The idea that in ONE HOUR, a property association could go from having a regulation against feeding cats to indicating interest in authorizing association money to TNR shows what one or two persons can do.
If you want to approach your own condo/town house/ or homeowners association to help feral cats, arm yourself with the facts. Get information on caring for feral cats in our Resources section and visit Alley Cat Allies at www.alleycat.org. ACA has a great 9 minute video called "the humane solution" to show to public officials and owners associations.
Working with vet tech schools
Not everyone has a vet tech school near you, but for those who do, this can be a wonderful opportunity. Our local vet tech school needs to have animals each week to spay/neuter during their surgery quarter. Veterinarians perform the surgeries, but the students learn how to assist with the surgeries and prep the animals. The school was having difficulty in getting enough animals on a consistent basis so I asked them if I could help coordinate it. They were happy to have the help and not have to worry about the scheduling and transportation. This allowed me to work with local shelters to offer spay/neuter for shelter animals as well as the public calling the shelters for spay/neuter who could not otherwise afford it.
I arrange for 10 animals a week and work with local volunteers and rescue groups to transport the animals to and from the vet tech school. Over 100 animals will benefit from this program each surgery quarter, and it establishes a good working relationship with the vet tech school and the shelters for future partnerships. You can find a listing of vet tech schools to see if any are near you at www.avma.org. If you have a veterinary school near you, talk to them about partnerships.
Helping ferals in trailer parks
In Ohio, there are no state laws addressing who is responsible for stray cats. As a result, there tends to be an overwhelming number of free-roaming cats. Kathy and Karen with Planned Pethood noticed that they were getting an exceptionally large number of calls for help from trailer parks. The two went through the phone book compiling a list of trailer parks in the area and developed a letter to trailer park managements explaining TNR and the benefits, and offering their services. They showed copies of Alley Cat Allies "humane solution" to the management.
10 trailer parks responded positively, asking for help. With help from a grant, the two have been doing TNR in these trailer parks and finding great support from local residents.
Here is what they have found: "Managers of trailer parks usually end up very frustrated with the cat population and complaints from residents. But they are also guilty of not enforcing their own rules of keeping cats indoors. So working with them has provided me with an opportunity to remind them of their responsibility and to encourage managers and park owners to include in their regulations that residents spay/neuter their pets and provide verification from their vet. Many of the trailer parks have community rooms providing a meeting place to educate, explain TNR and answer questions. If no community room is available, managers have been very happy to distribute educational information within the park. TNR efforts in trailer park communities offer a controlled area with a concentration of cats making TNR, tracking and care taking very effective, as well as proving to be great locations to draw out the media to raise awareness of feral cats."
Additional trailer parks, which were not supportive before, have started asking for help after finding trap and kill failed. From June until September, they did TNR on 109 cats and provided 63 spay/neuter subsidies.
More ideas on how to get the community involved
Think about partnerships that will benefit both your organization and the business. Many businesses want publicity. Ask them to sponsor a "Pet of the Week" ad, with their logo prominently featured, in a local paper.
Have you ever seen the MDA shamrocks displayed at area businesses for a $1.00 donation? Why not ask a grocery store chain to hold a "Beggin' for Bones" promotion, in which customers can purchase a paper bone, fire hydrants, or paper cat to write their name on and display in the store? Our local humane society did this promotion with 20 vet offices and raised $1,000 in one month!
Some businesses have the ability to make cash donations or gift certificate donations to sponsor your events. Some stores like Target and Wal-Mart can often give up to $500 at their local stores without having to go through their corporate offices. Do any of your volunteers work there or have connections? Don't forget about the value of in-kind donations. Why not ask if they can set up a bin for customers to buy dog/cat food and treats to donate to your organization? The stores can also donate broken bags of food.
A simple yet effective fundraiser is tabling. This is how Best Friends started many years ago. Set up a table outside of a store or at a festival. Show positive, upbeat pictures of your animals for adoption and literature about your organization. Make sure to have a donation canister prominently featured and to have a sign up sheet to add people's names to your mailing list.
Get your schools involved! Many schools now have community service requirements for their students. Send letters to teachers offering a list of ideas for schools to participate in. One junior high school raised $1,500 for our humane society's walk! They had students hold a raffle, sell green items such as cupcakes and plants during St. Patrick's Day week, host their own walk around their school track, and recycle cans. It made a big difference sending a volunteer and shelter animal to talk to the kids before they started raising funds. The volunteer told the kids where the money would go and talked to them about programs the humane society does. Not only was it a great educational opportunity, it helped the kids identify with the animal and want to raise funds for a good cause.
Every one of these ideas can be started by an individual or small group, but can have a large impact.
Homeless pets are a community problem and we need to involve the community in the solution. We can't expect them to understand the problem and want to be involved if we don't show them what we do, why we are doing it, and the good we are doing. Giving them ways to be involved and make a difference means that we are one step closer to no more homeless pets in our communities.
How to obtain more financial support in your community
Question from Member:
I would be interested in getting ideas on how to obtain more financial support from our community.Response from Aimee St. Arnaud:
My best advice here is to look at everyone as a potential donor.Start with the ones you already have involved with your organization. Volunteers can be connections to new people. Why not start an email list service or newsletter to inform them of your success stories, thank them when they volunteer, and give them results of events at which they volunteered? People want to know how much money the walk raised, or how many animals were adopted. That is part of why they volunteer: to tell their friends, family, and co-workers about it. They will share their experiences with others. Provide them with a list of items you are always looking for - printers, graphic designers, legal contacts. They are just a few of the resources your volunteers may have or know.
Adopters can be potential future donors. Consider giving them a birth announcement card to show off their newly adopted four-legged family member to their friends. Periodically check in with them to see how things are going. Add them to your mailing database.
Where do your volunteers, staff's family, or adopters work? See if their workplace will consider doing a fundraiser for you. Businesses are often looking for a way to get more involved in a good cause in the community. Why not send businesses a letter about your organization and offer partnership opportunities. When I worked at our local humane society, a shipping company wanted to increase their community profile by holding a company bowling event and donating the proceeds to charity. They chose the humane society. We made $600 and all we had to do was get brochures to the bowling alley.
Harley Davidson stores and groups are usually very charitable in their local communities. One local dealership has raised over $10,000 for our local humane society by holding poker runs, "Hogs and Dogs" bike rides, and other fundraisers. The Humane Society didn't have to do any of the planning.
Check for new businesses looking to break into the local market and "connect" to the community. A new cell phone company was unveiling a marketing campaign that involved taking a green couch around town to take free pictures of people sitting on the couch. The company bought vendor space at our annual Walk for Animals, because they knew that animal people were a good market for them.
Do any of your volunteers, adopters, or supporters belong to unions? Many unions have a charitable fund that will give donations to charities that members request. Again, our local humane society was able to get over $2,000 from two local unions because two of our volunteers were members. This helped us develop a relationship with these unions.
How to boost adoptions
Question from Member:
Do you have any hints on how to boost adoptions? The rescue I work hands-on with posts photographs and biographies of the animals on the net and attends all pet adoption days possible. We may even have a weekly television spot to showcase our animals in the near future. Is there anything else we could be doing?Response from Aimee St. Arnaud:
There are a lot of different ways to answer this. I am going to answer it in terms of involving volunteers since we are talking this week about participating as individuals. For great adoption tips, check out our Best Friends Forum archives when Mike Arms was our guest speaker. You can also visit our Resource section. Look in the Adoptions section for an article featuring Mike Arms, how to hold an adoption event, and a fact sheet on Furburbia, a mall adoption center.My suggestions for getting your volunteers more involved in helping you place animals are the following:
Media. Getting a weekly television spot is like gold. When I worked at a humane society, we showcased adoptable animals 3 times a week with our local weatherman. This also gave us a great opportunity to plug any fundraisers, events, special messages we wanted to get across at no cost. We had a 95% adoption rate on every animal that appeared on TV. People would be calling before we got back from the station. The weather people at a station are great to approach about doing a spot with you. Well-trained volunteers can help with transporting the animals, holding them, and even doing the spot if you have coached them in advance with your organization's message.
We also brought animals to local radio stations. Even though the audience cannot see the animal, the DJs always did a great job of describing and promoting them. The stations were also willing to put up animal pictures on their website and link to ours. Again, volunteers can help bringing animals to the stations.
Special Adoption Events. No More Homeless Pets in Utah is constantly brainstorming new ways to promote their adoptable animals with existing celebrations. Some of my personal favorites include St. Catrick's Day instead of St. Patrick's Day, and Labrador Day on Labor Day. These specials are lots of fun and draw people in. To make things even more fun, volunteers name pairs of animals with matching names such as Hansel and Gretel, and Joanie and Chachi: this helps adopts the animals as a pair.
Off-site adoptions. Take the animals to where the people are. When I worked at a humane society, our adoptions increased 30% when we opened a mall storefront and showed animals at a local pet store. Volunteers are key to the success of these events because you need help dealing with the public, walking the animals, loading and unloading.
Think outside the box on where to promote your animals. Volunteers can help make calls to research ideas. Does a local restaurant have paper placemats that could be used to feature adoptable animals? How about paper grocery bags with a message promoting adoptions from your organization? Why not have volunteers walk your dogs in a local park with the dogs wearing "Adopt Me" coats? Be creative and have fun!
Conflicts within the group
Question from Member:
I have volunteered for many groups over the years. So often I think my contributions were limited by conflicts within the group. Often, many volunteers leave at once because of such conflicts.To try to sum up, I think mainly these conflicts were along the lines of the following:
Leaders within the group fighting with each other;
A divisive person or persons allowed to create a gossipy atmosphere that felt unwelcoming to many of us;
A "my way or the highway" attitude among the leadership where policies are not really explained or discussed and asking questions is discouraged.
How can these kinds of things be resolved to allow us to continue our work? In such situations, many people will continue to volunteer because they want to help animals or if the group is "the only show in town." But they are likely to keep their heads low and not suggest a lot of ideas or take any kind of leadership role.
Response from Aimee St. Arnaud:
Don't give up! Just as it seems it takes just a few bad apples to ruin something, it can take just a few positive people to make something work. It is important to try and work cooperatively with everyone, but don't get bogged down trying to get extremely uncooperative people on board. Accept that some people may never cooperate, let it go, and do what you can with the people who do want to work together. When the naysayers see you succeeding, they'll probably join in.Find a person in a leadership role who you can work with and ask them to help you set up subcommittees with specific, tangible tasks to work toward and complete. Find like-minded people to work on these committees. Sometimes it is easier to have small working groups to develop cohesion on projects.
You may even want to have once a month "idea exchanges" where volunteers can openly share ideas and feedback. I have seen meetings where the leader declares a "no bad-mouthing" policy and hands out Milkbones at meetings representing "bones of contention" and has everyone put them away in a box.
Better than finding a leader to work with, take a leadership role yourself. The only way to make change is to participate in change.
Work to set up a volunteer coordinator position. Even if you are an all-volunteer group, it is important to have one person who is good at dealing with people and is organized to oversee this. Because many people will base their experience with your organization on their first experience, you want someone who is going to be able to make good use of people's skills and time. This person should be a sounding board for volunteer ideas and concerns.
Get policies and procedures in writing! If it is important enough to have a policy about, it is important enough to put it in writing so everyone can see it and not leave it open to interpretation. This can be one of the first tasks a sub-committee works on.
Keep the naysayers busy! When they start to complain about something, ask them to help develop a way to make it better. If they start complaining that too much is being spent on medical care, or adoptions are low, ask for their help to cut costs or to develop some special adoption promotions.
Starting a lost and found service for pets
Lassie Come Home-NC originally came out of the Hurricane Floyd tragedy on our east coast in North Carolina. Many animals were displaced from their owners. It was a horrific site to behold.
Lisa, one of the co-founders, knew that there had to be a faster, more efficient way way to match up the lost animals with owners other than waiting for the newspaper to come out (sometimes three days later) with their lost ad.
So Lisa and Jill started a non-profit lost-and-found pets website that serves 11 counties in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina. The site gives tips on what to do if you lose or find a pet; how to find lost pets; how to keep your pet safe; a lost and found directory to search; and the ability to post lost/found pets in a database. The network has reunited 113 lost pets with their owner through the web site. Jill now runs the site out of her house while working full-time.
We are sure those 113 pets appreciate the impact one person can have!
Volunteer Brigades
One way for individuals to make a difference at the local shelter and establish rapport and trust is by forming a volunteer brigade.
Almost all shelters have a list of items they need and projects they need completed. Money is tight and is usually earmarked for vet bills and food, rather than painting walls or hiring cleaners. They often don't have the resources or staff time to do them.
That was how and why the Best Friends Brigade got started – teams of animal-loving volunteers in the Los Angeles area offering their services to local rescue programs and shelters for whatever might be needed, and knowing up front that it's not all fun and games.
The first Brigade project was in the fall of 1997. An old and respected dog boarding and rescue operation was facing the El Niño winter with roofing badly in need of repair. So, Brigade members lent a hand to keeping the elements out during the wettest winter on record.
On an outing to Little Angels Pug Rescue, the team learned that the pugs had only a rock and bramble-covered patch of ground where they could go for a walk. So they returned for a six-hour stint clearing and turning the ground in preparation to lay down a lawn. Once the project was completed, the team planned to be on hand for the grand opening of "Pug Park."
Ask the shelter to make a list of items they need done and talk to them about your ideas on how to complete the tasks. You can even offer ideas of your own such as:
Painting. Why is it that many shelters are painted in the most depressing colors? Brighten the place up with some color! Stencil some paw prints on the walls. The more we get the public to see that shelters are not depressing dungeon type places, the more they will come back.
Planting flowers/plants outside. Make the shelter look appealing and inviting. You may wonder why we would spend time on making visual improvements that don't help the animals, but they help draw in the people who will adopt your animals.
Building exercise yards/pens for dogs.
Walking all the dogs. You can make sure that every dog has some fresh air and gets some exercise outside. If the shelter doesn't have a way to keep track of when and if the dogs were walked, create a clipboard and sheet to hang outside the kennels and make notes when each animal was last out.
Grooming/bathing dogs/cats.
Distributing flyers/donation canisters around town promoting specific programs. Shelters need publicity promoting their efforts. Why not take out some flyers asking for foster homes, or put out Walk pledge forms, or put up pictures of adoptable animals at area stores? You can make a list of businesses that are willing to put up flyers or have a donation canister. Volunteers at the shelter I worked at manned 50 donation canisters that raise $8,000 a year for the humane society. The shelter could not do it without the volunteer manpower.
You don't have to have start out with dozens of volunteers. Get a couple of friends and ask the shelter about the possibility of your coming in once or twice a month to take on some tasks that tend to get shelved in favor of more pressing needs. The brigade can and will grow. The Best Friends Brigade now involves about 200 volunteers, but it started quite small.
Ask the shelter to post flyers at the facility letting others know about the opportunities. Have them send email notices to other volunteers about opportunities. Many times local businesses and service groups will join in. If you have a Junior League in your area they have a "done in a day" program that will provide 25 volunteers for a project.
Promoting spay/neuter wherever you go
Some of you may remember the profile Best Friends did on the Neuteress of the Night back in May, 2000.
Wherever Kat goes, she promotes spay/neuter with humor. She educates hundreds of people every day using everything from candy, soap, finger cots, her car, plastic Easter eggs & Band-Aids.
Here are just a few things Kat does:
- Handing out Smarties and Dum Dum suckers with the slogan "Smarties Neuter, Dummies Don't"
- Decorating her car with spay/neuter slogans and license plate holders (one says "Prevent a litter, neuter your critter")
- Making candy necklaces that spell out "spay" or "neuter"
- Putting Band-Aids everywhere in her workspace to show that it is a "Sterile" area, which she says is a great conversation starter!
- Putting bumper stickers everywhere she can (with permission of course), on mail boxes, garbage pails, fences and fence posts, trees, windows, doors, places like laundry mats.
Kat believes that people want to smile; they don't want to be lectured. She also thinks that it is important to remember it's not just about what you tell people, and what they hear, but, most importantly, what they remember and share with others.
Kat has gotten spay neuter articles in Cat Fancy ("2001 Unsung Heroes"), PAWS 4 Rescue, The Fort Worth STAR Telegram, numerous small local papers, and a future article to be featured in PETroglyphs.
On her website (http://www.ahimsatx.org), Kat features many spay neuter slogans, educational flyers, and ideas.
Using your job to help animals
A county treasurer in Florida found a unique way to use his position to help animals. He wanted to increase the number of dog licenses sold each year in his county, to promote the safety of dogs and increase the chances of them getting returned if lost.
So, he sent out a flier in the tax bills. He managed to increase the number of dog licenses sold from 44,000 to 100,000 in one year, more than doubling the licensing rate.
But he didn't stop there. He mailed collar ID brochures with his number to call if your dog was lost. He also put his number on the back of every dog license sold. Because the licensing info is computerized, he is able to give a listing of licensees to shelters, municipal police departments, kennels, and pet related organizations so that they can locate the owners instantly if a pet is lost.
He has been soliciting corporate donations to fund a spay/neuter voucher program. (Not a bad idea to approach your own treasurers/auditors to see if they can do the same and use the surplus funds coming in for spay/neuter programs!)
It doesn't matter what your "day" job is - you can use your skills to help animals.
Lynne Morris is a blue grass singer. You would think this profession might not have much to do with animals, but she found a way to record songs with a spay/neuter message on her CDs and even created a special CD spay/neuter public service announcement for organizations to use.
If you are a lawyer, offer your legal services to help a group with legal needs such as setting up their 501c3 status, look over liability forms, or developing by-laws.
If you sell houses, see about giving gift certificates from the local shelter to your customers to "make their new house a home by adopting a four legged friend"
If you are a teacher, contact the humane society about bringing in someone to speak to your students. Consider doing a fundraiser for a local shelter/ rescue.
If you are an administrative assistant, offer your data entry skills for creating or maintaining membership and volunteer databases.
If you work at a retail store like Wal-Mart, see about getting the broken bags of dog/cat food donated to local shelters/rescues. See about getting gift certificates donated to them as well for fundraisers and auctions.
Comments from Aimee St. Arnaud:
Many of you are already signed up for our Best Friends Network, but here's some information for those of you who are not familiar with it.The Best Friends Network is thousands of animal lovers and organizations across the country, working to help animals in their own communities and to bring about a time when there will be No More Homeless Pets.
If you are an organization that has a need, we can notify local Network members about any specific volunteer help your group needs, from hands-on animal care, to organizational skills, to professional expertise. We can help spread the word about events that non-profit animal organizations and animal control facilities may be hosting. In addition, we send organizations the same notices that individual network members receive about local animal situations and local happenings. It's all about spreading the word and joining forces to help the animals!
If you are an individual not associated with any group but want to get more involved, you can respond to the requests for help that you can help with.
Network members volunteer to help animals locally in a wide variety of ways. Some members provide hands-on care to animals, such as feeding feral cats, transporting animals to the vet, or walking dogs at the local shelter. Others help out at events or with special projects, such as fundraising benefits, adoption fairs, spay/neuter clinics or other projects. Still other members contribute their professional expertise, such as accounting services, legal advice or desktop publishing skills, for the benefit of the animals. To sign up, email bfnetwork@bestfriends.org.
I'm just one person
Question from Member:
Prior to attending the NMHP conference in Chicago last year, I had no idea that so many rescue groups existed to help animals. I have since gotten involved by helping transport dogs to rescues/new homes. However, I don't feel like this is enough.I took an idea you presented and offered to a local shelter to take pictures of their animals and write descriptions of them for the Petfinder website (after I visited the site and saw their names but nothing else about them). I was told they already have someone to do that. I'm limited in helping shelters in other ways due to their hours and my work hours.
Some things I'd *really* like to do are try to start a spay/neuter program in this area and publicize that to people; also, start a foster network in the area to get some of these animals out of the shelter. I have written letters to the editor on animal issues to raise awareness, and have sent email to friends and family asking them to foster short-term. Unfortunately, I'm not able to foster in my current housing situation. I am just one person, unaffiliated with any group. What are some other suggestions on how I can help?
Response from Aimee St. Arnaud:
It sounds like whichever groups you end up working with will be very lucky to have you!If the local shelter already has someone who is taking pictures and writing descriptions for the website, but you still don't see descriptions on the site, you may want to offer to "assist" the person. You will need to be careful not to step on toes here, but when I worked in a shelter we had one volunteer who brought the animals into a room to take good close up shots and held the animals and the other person took the pictures and wrote descriptions. Perhaps this person would welcome someone else helping and you can make sure the descriptions are on the website.
If you can't help during shelter hours, see if the shelter offers other opportunities. Many times they have special events, and off-site adoptions on weekends or after shelter hours.
Starting a foster network is a great idea. Consult with the shelter first to brainstorm ideas. Check out our Adoptions section (under Resources) for a great ten-page guide from Nathan Winograd on how he developed a foster community. He shares some great ideas and is sure to share more as an upcoming speaker on this forum.
A few basic tips I can offer are to develop flyers promoting the program and getting them up in the community. We had great success getting vet office staff involved, which is great with their knowledge! You can also place classified ads in the local paper.
Most important is offering different levels of fostering. Some people may be able to do long term whereas as some may only be able to foster for two-three weeks. Offer options for neo-natal, just cats, just dogs, special needs, etc.
Before starting a spay/neuter program find if any exist in your area? If they do, find out if they are operating at full capacity. If they are not, can you find ways to promote those clinics so you don't have to re-invent the wheel? If there are no spay/neuter programs in town, consider putting on a spay/neuter week.
Check out the posts on starting volunteer brigades and join our Best Friends network.
This is the last message for this week's forum. I had a great time sharing with you all and hope it was helpful to not only individuals looking to get involved for animals, but for groups looking to reach out to individuals and get the community to participate in our cause.
I'd like to end with a quote by Norman Cousins:
"Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life."
Each and every one of us has the power to make a difference for animals with our actions.
