How to revive a stagnating animal nonprofit - Ep43
Release Date: 05/24/2021
Shelter Success Simplified
GUEST: Scott Giacoppo. Scott is the Director of National Shelter Outreach for Best Friends Animal Society and oversees the development of lifesaving efficacy and sustainability for animal welfare partners across the U.S. Prior to Best Friends, Scott was president of NACA – the National Animal Care & Control Association – as well as chief of Animal Field Services for the District of Columbia for 10 years, overseeing all animal control and cruelty investigations team members for Humane Rescue Alliance. He began his animal protection career with the Massachusetts Society for the...
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GUEST: Kimberly Wade. Kimberly is an expert consultant for Humane Network focusing on communications and social media. She was campaign manager for Maddie's Pet Project in Nevada, communications director at Nevada Humane Society, news producer at KOLO 8 News Now, and has a degree in broadcast journalism and communications from the University of Central Florida. MAIN QUESTION: What are some tips for animal organizations to create better social media pages and posts? TAKEAWAYS: If you don’t have a photo, you don’t have a story. To take good photos, avoid a busy background. Get a...
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GUEST: Brent Toellner. Brent is the Senior Director of National Programs for Best Friends Animal Society. Prior to joining Best Friends, Brent, his wife, Michelle, and a few others co-founded the Kansas City Pet Project to run the municipal shelter in Kansas City, Missouri. MAIN QUESTION: There's a lot of pressure in animal welfare and people can feel alone in their work — what tips and ideas might help? TAKEAWAYS: In animal welfare, we’re pushed to do more with limited resources. People often feel they just need to work harder and do more programs, but that doesn’t work in the...
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Main question: What are the common issues you find when doing organizational assessments of animal organizations around the country?
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MAIN QUESTION: How does Doobert's new Companion Case Management module improve communications with the public?
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Question: How can animal organizations better meet people where they're at?
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GUEST: Kat Albrecht-Thiessen is a pioneer in lost pet investigations. She was a police officer, bloodhound handler, crime scene investigator, and search-and-rescue manager before beginning to apply her skills in 1997 to finding lost pets. She is founder of Missing Animal Response Network and author of the book “Pet Tracker.”
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QUESTION: How can animal organizations build a healthy workplace culture, which is so important in a competitive job market?
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What works to engage more members of the community with our animal welfare work so that we can raise more funds — and what doesn't work?
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GUEST: Diane Blankenburg is CEO & Co-Founder of Humane Network.
info_outlineGUEST: Stacy LeBaron hosts a weekly podcast called the Community Cats Podcast where she interviews nationally and internationally renowned experts about cats and cat welfare. She also served for 16 years as president of the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society, assisting more than 105,000 cats and kittens in and around Salisbury, Massachusetts. Stacy is a current member of the Shelter Medicine Committee at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, an adviser to the Massachusetts Animal Coalition (MAC), Vice President of the Board for PAWSitive Pantry in Vermont, and committee member for HubCats Chelsea. Stacy also facilitates two smaller coalitions in Massachusetts, the Boston Homeless Cats group and Merrimack Valley Partnership.
MAIN QUESTION: What steps do you recommend to revive an organization that has become stagnant or inactive?
TAKEAWAYS:
- There are generally two ways to revive an organization: Reinvigorate the passion of existing people, or allow the organization to start a new life with new leadership or management. Stacy calls this latter “recycling the organization.”
- Identify the key challenges or weaknesses of the organization, which can usually fit into four categories:
- Funding (lack of funding)
- People (often lack of energy due to hard work over many years)
- Vision (the lack of an inspiring vision or direction for the future)
- Scalability (Issues that hinder growth or desire to stay the same)
- Figure out where you can make the biggest impact for the funding you have.
- Consider doing an assessment of the needs in your community and what other organizations are already doing – look for an unmet need to focus on.
- Consider merging with another organization.
- And consider partnering with other organizations (even outside animal welfare) this could include sharing resources such as HR, bookkeeping, and marketing.
LINKS:
- Community Cats Podcast
- Community Cats Pyramid about how certain programs affect cat population numbers
- Stacy LeBaron on Shelter Success Simplified podcast Ep12 about tech solutions and innovations for animal groups
- Leadership recommendation: Steps for planning an animal shelter or clinic