Here’s How ‘Virtual Fostering’ Can Help Your Shelter’s Pets
Zach was a terrified dog. After eight months in a home, he’d been returned to the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation in Northern Virginia, in rough emotional shape. He was throwing up every time he went into a car. He was scared of strangers and new environments. Zach had come to Northern Virginia from a rural shelter, along with his brother, who showed no signs of this kind of fear, and was quickly adopted—an adoption that stuck. But Zach wasn’t having it so easy. Luckily, that’s when Stephanie Ferri came into his...
5 Ways Your Animal Shelter Can Facilitate Mutual Aid to Keep Pets in Homes
In a previous blog, we got into the 101 of what animal mutual aid is and how it harnesses the will of your community to keep people and pets together. The short version, to save you a click: Mutual aid is when people get together to meet each other’s basic needs. Animal mutual aid is when people help each other with pet-related challenges—and in so doing, keep families together and pets from entering the sheltering system when they don’t have to. This can happen in any number of ways—think taking care of a...
Companion Animal Healthcare Market – Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 – 2027)
Certain factors that are responsible for the growth of the companion animal healthcare market are increasing pet adoption across the world, rising government initiatives for animal health, and growing technological advancements in animal healthcare. A significant rise in the adoption of pet animals, including dogs, and cats, has been observed in recent years. The developed countries represent a significantly large share in companion animal ownership, owing to the favorable economic conditions and several other factors. For example, according...
Who Do You Want to Be? Use This ‘3 Words’ Exercise to Find Out
I think a lot about the way I am perceived, or the way I’ll be described when I leave this world. Sometimes I’m really disappointed in myself but other times, I know I got it right. Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” How do you want to be described by the world? If you could choose three words to describe yourself, and how you want to be remembered, what would those words be? I am…...
8 Ways to Recruit Volunteers and Keep Them Engaged
Volunteers are the heart and soul of a community-centered animal shelter. They drive the organization’s mission, vision, and values, and make it possible for a shelter to expand its support for people and pets; to keep more families together and save more lives. Now, while so many shelters are full and then some, plus understaffed, volunteers are especially needed. Which got us wondering—how are shelters recruiting volunteers, and keeping them excited and engaged, through this time? We asked, you answered! Below...
Diaz Dixon Talks About Belonging, Friendraising, and Uncomfortable Conversations
[embedded content] We’re thrilled to introduce you to Diaz Dixon, HASS’s new Maddie’s® Advisor of External Affairs and Partnerships. Diaz joins HASS in this role after serving on the project’s executive committee. Diaz is a human service provider turned community patron passionate about targeted messaging and relationship building to enhance business development and self-growth. You may have seen his well-received TEDx Talk about the challenges of preconceived notions and how they shape and impact our realities. In...
10 Ways Shelters and Rescues Can Use QR Codes Today
QR codes are everywhere these days—at restaurants, where you scan them instead of being handed a physical menu; bouncing around your TV screen during the Super Bowl (what was that ad even for?!); on the back of a business card, to direct you to someone’s LinkedIn page or TikTok channel. And no wonder, since some 85 percent of Americans now carry smartphones. More and more animal shelters and rescue groups are finding creative, effective ways to use those data-filled squares that you scan with your phone—and you can, too!...
Getting to know HASS’s new director, Vincent Medley: Transforming animal sheltering with hope, joy, and data
[embedded content] We are so pleased to introduce you to Vincent Medley, who’s joined our organization as Maddie’s® Director of Human Animal Support Services. Vincent comes to the Human Animal Support Services project with over two decades leading government animal services agencies, and field services departments—and, through this experience, a deep commitment to lifesaving and preserving families. In this video interview with Arin Greenwood, a writer for the HASS project, Vincent talks about how his background...
Funding for Animal & Environmental Causes Has Grown by $10 Billion in 10 Years
A report finds more donors giving more money to animal and environmental causes—though this funding is still just 3.4% of total giving. We spoke with author Jamie DeLeeuw about what she found, and what it means for the public and animal orgs. Over the last decade, funding for animal and environmental causes has grown by $10 billion—from $6.15 billion in 2010 to $16.14 billion in 2020. But it’s still just 3.4% of total giving. These figures were noted by Jamie DeLeeuw, Human Animal Support Services’s director of...
5 Webinars You Don’t Want To Miss
It’s been a great year of HASS webinars so far, with people from every part of animal welfare sharing their thoughts and lifesaving expertise. Here are five—and if you like these, which we really think you will, be sure to check out the rest of HASS’s webinars, starting from the very beginning of the HASS project. You can find them all here, which is where new webinars are posted, too. Every webinar is free, and each one is aimed toward helping you save lives and keep families together. We hope you’ll check them out,...
