Chew On This!

Why fundraising for animals can't be an afterthought

The only thing worse than asking your supporters for money all the time is not asking them often enough.

No one wants to get hit over the head with fundraising pleas all the time, no matter how much they support a cause. But almost never asking your supporters for donations can backfire, too.

There's a reason most successful charities raise funds year-round, and keep up a regular schedule of mailings and social media posts reminding their followers to give and keeping them up to date on what they're doing with their donations.

It's because most people need multiple reminders to do something before they do it. That's true of trying a new dish washing liquid, Christmas shopping, adopting a pet or donating to a cause.

Additionally, organizations that have a good infrastructure for donations -- clear information on their website with an easy process and multiple ways to give, such as recurring donations or donations directed toward a specific program or fund, or memorial and gift donations -- will always be more successful. Those things take time to develop, and take real-world use to optimize.

One more point: People who've already given to your organization are more likely to give to it again. But that means you need to maintain a relationship with them, to let them know what you did with their money, and to be transparent about your financial operations. Doing that requires some planning and follow-up, not just a desperate late-night post on Facebook begging for money to treat a pet's broken leg.

Yes, you run the risk of seeming like all you care about is money. Groups have to be careful not to abuse the trust their supporters have placed in them by annoying them. But they also shouldn't abuse that trust by not doing the best possible job you can do to create a sustainable effort to help animals.

Also of interest:

Fundraising 2.0: From the grassroots to a multi-million dollar animal organization

How to get companion animal legislation passed

Passing well-crafted legislation can be a key way to change the world for companion animals. 

At the recent American Pets Alive! No-Kill Conference in Austin, Texas, attorney and advocate Ryan Clinton dug into municipal and state-focused legislative topics including:

• Rescue-access laws
• City no-kill mandates
• Banning gas chambers
• Regulating puppy mills
• And more

View his presentation here.

Do you really know what 'capacity for care' means?

An animal sheltering buzzword that's been used more and more in the last couple of years is "capacity for care." Do you know what it means?

"Capacity for care" simply means the number of animals a shelter can care for while still providing what they need to be healthy and happy during their stay. It's not simply a function of cage or kennel numbers, but of staff hours, access to veterinary care, square footage, and basics like food and water as well as, of course, money.

A shelter with 10,000 kennels and cages but no staff, no volunteers, and no money doesn't have a capacity for 10,000 animals; it has capacity for zero animals.

Another shelter that may have only 10 kennels but has an expansive foster care network of 700 homes, a dedicated staff, a great volunteer program, good funding and community support doesn't have capacity for only 10 animals, but for 710 or more.

Most importantly, capacity for care determines how many pets you can handle at a given time without causing harm to them by overcrowding, stress, untreated illness and injuries, exposure to disease, or inadequate food, water, enrichment and exercise. Exceeding your capacity for care also means the need, particularly of cats, for quiet time and a sense of security will likely not be met.

How can you expand your capacity for care? For many shelters, that means expanding their current facilities or building new ones. This won't automatically increase capacity for care, however, if veterinary, financial, staff and other resources don't increase as well. All that takes time and costs a lot of money, too.

Fortunately, you can expand your organization's capacity by developing, maintaining and growing a great volunteer and foster care network.

Learn more about capacity for care in this Maddie's Institute learning track.

How to schedule posts in advance on Twitter without third-party software

Would you like to be able to schedule pet adoption and fundraising Tweets in advance, without having to pay to use third party software? Well, you can!

Twitter can be a good way to get the word out about available pets and is great for raising money. However, many animal organizations find the time constraints of effective Tweeting make it impractical.

While Twitter is much friendlier to frequent Tweets than Facebook is to frequent posts, followers usually don't like getting several Tweets in a row from the same account.

Since shelters and rescue groups usually don't have a volunteer or staff member who can sit on Twitter all day long Tweeting every hour or so, the fix for that problem has usually been to post less-than-optimally or use third party schedulers like Hootsuite.

But Twitter, like Facebook, has native scheduling functionality. You can program Tweets to go out when you want them to -- if, that is, you know how.

Twitter has hidden its scheduler in the area where ads are created, and although scheduling Tweets is free, it does require you to create an ad account.

Right now, Twitter ads aren't very cost-effective for rescue groups and shelters, but because that could change in the future, setting up an advertising account isn't necessarily pointless even if the scheduler wasn't buried there.

How do you do it?

1. Log into your organization's Twitter account and then go to ads.twitter.com to create an advertising account. You'll need a credit card, even though you won't be charged unless you opt to advertise.

2. Click on the "Creatives" menu, and select "Tweets."

3. Click on "Compose Tweet" in the upper right hand corner.

4. Compose your Tweet, then choose the "Scheduling" tab just below it.

5. Click "Finish." A link will pop up showing you where you can edit or delete scheduled Tweets.

For more information, visit the Twitter Help Center.

 

 

How shelters can get community members to help save more kittens

When people come into animal shelters with orphaned kittens, particularly during the summer months, the shelters can be hard-pressed to save them all. But what if the very person who cared enough to bring in the kittens could be persuaded to foster them until they were old enough to get adopted?

That was the premise of a recent survey conducted by Maddie's Institute, seeking to understand how frequently shelters encountered this scenario, how likely they were to ask for help, and how frequently requests for help were successful. Additionally, we wanted to understand what types of support shelters offered to those community members who agreed to care for the kittens.

Some key takeaways:

1. Asking for help was correlated with getting more help.

2. Asking Good Samaritans to sign up for a formal foster program deterred them from helping as compared to those who were allowed to help informally.

3. Offering support in the form of veterinary care or supplies was correlated with more positive responses to requests for help.

Although this stage of the research did not aim to provide clear protocols to enhance community care initiatives, it did identify areas for future research.

Additionally, it suggested the following steps for those who want to improve community lifesaving for kittens immediately:

1. Develop stronger and more enthusiastic approaches when asking community members to care for stray kittens brought to the organization.

2. Find ways to offer veterinary care and supplies to community members caring for kittens.

3. Offer training, but do not require formal program enrollment for community members who are willing to care for a litter of kittens they bring to the organization.

You can read the complete report, as well as a summary, here.

Decreasing shelter length of stay means animals live, not die

Are you confused about what "reducing length of stay" means for your animal shelter or rescue group?

Few things can save more animals than reducing length of stay. It not only means more animals get adopted, but increases the number of animals the organization can care for in any given year.

There's a lot of confusion, however, in the shelter and rescue world about what "length of stay" really means, and the implications of reducing it.

In the literal sense, "length of stay" is exactly what it sounds like: How long pets are in the shelter's care on average. Keeping the math at its simplest:

• If you have 10 pets and they all stay 1 month each, then your length of stay is 1 month.
• If you have 10 pets and five stay two weeks and five stay four weeks, your average length of stay is 3 weeks.

Often, however, when discussions of reducing length of stay come up, animal advocates oppose it because they interpret it to mean "after some amount of time passes, the pet's out of time and will be killed." This represents a complete misunderstanding of what managing length of stay is.

As Dr. Kate Hurley writes on the Million Cat Challenge website:

Euthanasia should never be substituted for a live outcome as a means of reducing length of stay. Rather, systematic efforts should be made to minimize length of stay to an appropriate outcome for every animal, whether that is return to owner, rescue, transfer, adoption, return to location of origin, or in the case of managed intake, perhaps never entering the shelter at all.

So why does fully understanding what "length of stay" means matter? Because reducing length of stay is how we save more lives!

For instance, the longer pets remain housed in a shelter, the more likely they are to become ill from overcrowding, stress, or exposure to sick pets. This can drive down adoption rates, as well as being hard on the pets and a drain on the organization's resources.

Even if pets are housed in foster homes, keeping them there longer than necessary is also a drain on the organization, and prevents it from being able to move at-risk pets into those foster homes.

Here are some specific ways in which organizations can reduce length of stay and save more pets:

Become more organized when pets are taken into the shelter. This way, pets who need vet care can get it immediately, so those at risk of disease can be appropriately separated from the general population, and so those who are ready to be adopted can go right into the adoption area or to adoption events. Learn more about intake here.

Become better at doing adoptions so more pets are adopted more quickly. Get tips on improving adoptions here.

Build relationships with rescue groups, veterinarians, and other shelters so you can help each other care for more animals. Learn more about collaborating here.

Become better at returning pets to their owners. Nationally, these numbers are dismally low, resulting in a huge strain on the shelter and rescue system as well as suffering for families and pets. Improving RTO rates can dramatically reduce length of stay. Get more RTO tips here.

So the next time you hear someone say reducing length of stay means animals die, tell them no, it means they live!

 

How frequently should your animal organization post to Facebook?

How frequently should your animal shelter or rescue group post to Facebook?

"The answer to that question, which I'm asked all the time, reminds me of the old saying about how long your legs should be," said social media consultant Christie Keith. "Your legs should be exactly long enough to reach the ground."

In other words, animal organizations should post to their Facebook pages with the frequency that exposes their pets and their cause to the largest appropriate audience.

"The frequency you should post isn't related to how much time you have, how many volunteers you have who want to do it, or how many pets you need to find homes for," Keith said. "Your ideal posting frequency is a straightforward data point you should be able to find simply by paying attention to how different posting schedules impact reach, comments and shares on your posts."

Which doesn't mean there aren't guidelines. Posting more than twice a day, or less than three hours apart, is almost certainly going to harm your ability to reach and engage your page's followers.

"I see shelters and rescue groups that flood their pages with posts all day and all night, sometimes more frequently than every hour," Keith said. "This is absolutely a terrible idea. It will reduce overall reach, annoy your followers, and cause your efforts to be far less successful than they would be if you posted more strategically.

"I would rather see animal groups make the opposite mistake -- posting too rarely -- because while it won't help you, it also doesn't hurt you the way over-sharing does."

Where to start?

1. Post once per day at 3 PM local time and 8 PM local time to start, Keith advises. "I manage the Shelter Pet Project Facebook page, and after a great deal of trial and error, we learned those are the best times in terms of shares, comments and reach. Late nights are especially good for shares about pets needing adoption." She finds the evening is also prime time for fundraising for the medical expenses of abused or badly injured animals.

2. Watch the analytics that Facebook gives for each post. Once you have a baseline, try to post earlier or later; see how it impacts your numbers.

3. Experiment with posting just once per day. See how it affects your numbers.

4. Once you've established your best times of day and frequency of posting, stick with it only as long as it keeps working. If you see a drop-off, it may be because things have changed on Facebook. "If that's the case, you have to start the whole process over," Keith said. "The numbers don't lie."

One of Keith's biggest frustrations is animal groups that post all day long but don't get involved in conversation with their followers in the comments section of their posts.

"The more conversation that happens on a post, the more of your followers Facebook will show it to," she said. "If you have staff or volunteers who want to be involved in Facebook, tell them to work the comments section instead of posting over and over. Comments will help you; excessive posting only hurts."

Also of interest:

Social media: 6 new things animal organizations need to know

Helping animal organizations deal with Facebook's 'reach squeeze'

Beyond labels: Advocating for all dogs

How can advocacy have a positive impact on treating all dogs equally?

Individuals and communities can work together to eliminate breed-related stigmas, abolish outdated policies, and improve the chances for targeted breeds to find homes.

Advocacy can also help the families of targeted dog breeds get access to resources that will keep those dogs in their loving homes.

At the recent American Pets Alive! Conference in Austin, Texas, Leala Ward-Vinson, Megan Ransom and Lindsey Ortiz of the Love-A-Bull dog foster team gave a two-part presentation on meeting challenges related to re-homing/rescue, shelter and community relationships, owner support, breed-discriminatory legislation and models for progress all over the country.

View Part 1 here, and Part 2 at this link.

How to build a treatment program for cats with ringworm

Tens of thousands of cats are euthanized each year solely because they have been diagnosed with ringworm, a highly contagious but highly treatable skin infection about as serious as Athlete’s Foot.

Learn how to set up a ward where affected kitties can be isolated from other animal populations and treated until they are cleared of the disease and ready for adoption in this 25 minute presentation from the 2015 American Pets Alive! Conference, given by Brittany Dell’Aglio-Mitchell, Ringworm Ward Manager for Austin Pets Alive!

 

How to advertise pets for adoption on Facebook

If you've been inspired by our recent post on just how much exposure $5 will get your available pets on Facebook, but aren't sure how to get started advertising on the social network, this post's for you!

Creating your advertising account:

1. If you don't already have a Facebook advertising account, create one here.

2. Once you're done, it will take you right to the page to create an ad. However, instead, first take the tutorial at this link.

3. If you still have questions, call 1-800-601-0077 to get set up.

4. Once your account is created and you're ready to begin building your first ad, go to this link and click on "Manage Your Ads" in the upper right hand corner.

While the basics are covered in the tutorial, here are the steps and tips that will help you get your pets in front of the best audience for the least amount of money:

1. Click on "Create Ad" in the upper right hand corner.

2. Select "Boost Your Posts."

3. If you manage more than one page, select the one you want to promote the post on.

4. If you already have a post you want to promote, select that one. If not, you can click on the plus symbol and create one from scratch. Be aware that Facebook won't let you promote a photo, even if it's on a link, if it has a large amount of text on it.

For now, we'll assume you already have a post ready to promote.

Now click "Continue."

1. In step 1, Facebook will give your campaign a generic name. You may want to re-name it. Just delete what they gave you and type in anything that makes sense to you, such as the pet's name and the date.

2. Scroll down to step 2, "Create your ad set."

3. Ignore the custom audience field for now.

4. Under "location," the default will be your country. For adoption, you usually will want to target within a given distance of your area. Type in the name of your community and select it from the available choices. The default will be a 25-mile radius, but you can edit that as appropriate, to as little as 0 miles to as many as 50. If you want to advertise beyond 50 miles, simply select another community farther away, and target them as well, with the appropriate radius.

5. Select your desired age range and gender. These selections can influence how much your ads cost and how many people will see them, which you should take into consideration. However, you should  make your selection based on the best audience for the pet you're featuring instead of cost and reach.

6. Typically, it's not necessary to select language, but if it's important in your community, you can do so here. Be aware this will have a definite impact on reach and cost.

7. Scroll past "Interests" and "Behavior" and select your budget. For right now, leave it on "Per day" and select $5 if it's not already selected for you. Now return to "Interests."

"Interests" is where you'll have the most fun, get the most bang for your buck, and see the most benefit over using the "Boost" button on your page itself.

1. Interests can be another page, a hobby, or any type of activity that someone might post or participate in pages and groups about on Facebook. It can be running, hiking, baseball, knitting, or shoes! You can also select "dogs" or "cats," or big terms like "pet adoption" and "animal welfare."

2. You can add national and local organizations and businesses, including other shelters and rescue groups in your area. Remember if you add national organizations or businesses, your ads will still only be shown to those people in the area you targeted in the location section.

Be aware that pages without large numbers of followers, or interests that aren't already in the database, can't be selected.

3. Play around with this section. Add one interest, and see how it impacts your reach. Often, adding a very popular interest drives up the cost of the ad, which reduces reach. If that happens, remove that interest and see what the result is. Through trial and error, you'll come to a balance of a good audience for your message and a substantial reach at a low cost.

You can see more examples of how careful use of targeting can impact reach and cost here.

4. Note that you can save your audience, so if you are happy with the one you've created, give it a name and save it!

Now, you can go back to the budget.

1. If you're a beginner, it's best to start small -- at Maddie's Institute, we rarely spend more than $3 to promote a post, but once you get the hang of it, you might want to invest more money and let the ads run for a longer time period. For now, though, start small and see how the ad performs.

2. You can set a daily or lifetime budget, and select when you want the ad to run. If you select "lifetime budget," you can actually select the exact times of day you want the ad to run! Note that considering pet adoption is a popular late night activity for a lot of people, so don't shut the ads down just because you figure everyone will be in bed!

3. Optimize for post engagement, and let Facebook select the bid for you.

4. Facebook sells ad space on a bid basis, which means ad costs change constantly. It varies day to day and throughout the day, so if you get disappointing reach for your budget, you can always wait and run the ad later, when prices are lower.

5. Big retail holidays like Black Friday or Memorial Day weekend, and the whole period around Christmas, tend to be very expensive, so plan to avoid them if you can.

Now you'll go to Step 3, still on the same page.

1. Since we're boosting an existing post in this example, there's little to do here except look at all three views: Desktop, mobile and right column.

2. You shouldn't run an ad that doesn't look good on both desktop and mobile, but if the right column view is unattractive or confusing, de-select it. This will impact reach and cost, so be sure to scroll back up to check. Sometimes it increases reach, sometimes it cuts it in half.

3. Once you're satisfied with how your ad looks, and the reach you've obtained, click on "Review order." You can give your ad a name at this time if you want.

4. Click "Edit order" if you see things you want to change, or "Place order" if you don't.

5. Facebook will review the ad and send you an email when they've approved it, and let you know if they didn't. Rejections normally happen because of text on images, and if you're sure the text isn't excessive, there's an appeal link in the rejection email you can click. However, this process can take several days.

6. You can monitor your ad's performance right on the post itself, or through the Ad Manager at the same link you used to create the ad.

Is that all? No! But it should be enough to get you started. We'll share tips and tricks, as well as how-to instructions on more advanced features in future blog posts.

In the meantime, let us know how you do by commenting on our Facebook page!