Animal Advocates Need to Be Housing Advocates, Too
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there is not a single state in the country with enough affordable and available rental housing for extremely low-income families. In the context of affordable housing, low-income families are those making less than 80% of Area Median Income. And these numbers do not even consider pet-inclusive housing, which is even less likely to be readily available for low-income renters. It is no wonder that for years, housing issues have been cited as one of the top two reasons for pet...
A free editorial calendar template for your animal organization’s marketing efforts
Does your animal well-being organization use an editorial calendar to strategize and organize its marketing efforts? If not, or if you want some inspiration for your current plan, be sure to check out this toolkit from HeARTs Speak and Human Animal Support Services. Throughout the past year, the organizations have created a series of communications kits to help you talk to your constituents about the many ways that you are supporting people and pets (and how they can, too!). Now, they’ve created a way for you to use...
How to Start and Run a Pet Food Pantry
The little pug’s name was Miss Kitty. She belonged to a man who wanted to go into treatment, “but the one big barrier to him getting the support he needed was making sure that his dog was cared for,” says Shannon Glenn, executive director of My Pit Bull Is Family, which created the North Minneapolis Pet Resource Center, a pet pantry in Minnesota. Miss Kitty His mother, who Shannon calls J, wanted to help—she wanted her son to get well, and she wanted to help him do that by caring for Miss Kitty. She just wasn’t...
Pawsitively Thriving: Strategies for Work-Life Balance in Animal Welfare
[embedded content] Work-life balance is never easy for people who work in animal sheltering, and increased lengths of stay and high staff turnover have only made the job more challenging. As you support the people and pets in your community, caring for yourself and your teams can feel like a secondary goal. Listen to this webinar recording featuring Lindsay Hamrick, Director of Shelter Outreach & Engagement with the Humane Society of the United States, to learn why work-life balance can be difficult in animal welfare and practical tips...
People, Pets, and Purpose: Best Friends’ Brent Toellner, and Clare Callison of HASS
[embedded content] Welcome to the next installment of People, Pets, and Purpose, our (no longer quite brand new!) interview series exploring the human-animal bond, and what really matters. Check out previous PPP episodes with the Arizona Pet Project’s Leanna Taylor and Michigan Humane’s Matt Pepper. What does a humane community look like, in and out of its animal shelters? That’s the topic host Diaz Dixon—the Maddie’s® Advisor for External Affairs and Partnerships for the Human Animal Support Services...
Kitten Season is Here Again, and We’ve Got Resources for You
Well, it’s that time of year again. Kitten season. You’re either in it already, or the kittens are coming. You don’t need us telling you how hard kitten season is, especially in these very challenging times. The good news is we have a lot of tools and resources that will help you communicate with and engage your community, in the work of saving cats’ and kittens’ lives. 6 Tips for Building a Barrier-Free, Inclusive Foster Base When the ASPCA launched its LA Foster Program in 2017, a first...
Unleashing the Power of Data: Key Insights from 2022
[embedded content] Data, data, data! This webinar goes over key highlights from 2022 sheltering data on lost pet reunification, better data practices, ways data can help us improve. Hear from Maggie Lynch, Senior Director of Research and Development at Austin Pets Alive!; Amanda Foster, Assistant Director of Implementation Analysis for the HASS project; and Kate McHugh-Westfall, Embedded Data and Implementation Coordinator for the HASS project, in this live webinar moderated by Vincent Medley, Maddie’s® Director of Human Animal...
Case Management: Make It Your Animal Shelter’s Superpower!
“Case management” for pets housed in your shelter may sound new—but don’t worry, your organization is already doing it! Strengthened awareness helps you practice this care model more skillfully. What is it? Case management is the umbrella term for work done to recognize and serve individual pets in institutional settings, meet their unique needs, and match them with good homes. When you take a shelter dog on a walk, snap a flattering photo of them, or craft their online biography, you fulfill responsibilities as that...
From Lost to Found: How a 48 Hour Window Can Help Reunite Pets With Their Families
About half the pets who enter animal shelters come in as “strays,” but many aren’t stray at all—they are owned pets who’ve gotten away from home. Developing, refining, and teaching, data-backed, effective ways to reunite lost pets with their owners is one of the Human Animal Support Services’s top priorities, because it’s a key way to keep people and pets together, and prevent shelter overcrowding. Data from Shelter Animals Count shows that the majority of pets coming into shelters, come in as...
People, Pets, and Purpose: The Arizona Pet Project’s Leanna Taylor
[embedded content] Welcome to the next installment of People, Pets, and Purpose, our brand new interview series exploring the human-animal bond, and what really matters. In this incredible episode, if we do say so ourselves, host Diaz Dixon—the Maddie’s® Advisor for External Affairs and Partnerships for the Human Animal Support Services project—speaks with one of the most inspiring people we’ve ever come across. Leanna Taylor is CEO of The Arizona Pet Project, an organization that keeps pets with the people...
