Hello Reader,
It’s been 10 years since I dressed up as an elf and delivered adopted dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens to their new families on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Of all the holiday adoption events I’ve ever been part of, this one was my very favorite. We created lifelong memories for adopters and had so much fun in the process. Our community was so excited to take part that we adopted nearly every animal in the shelter!
Holiday adoption events are morale boosters for staff and volunteers and they present a great opportunity to be creative. You can do an ‘ugly sweater’ adoption event, holiday pjs for pets, Christmas morning presents for the pets, and so much more. This is also a great time to engage volunteers who can provide extra TLC and marketing for pets.
I’ve had the privilege of working closely with Pedigree Foundation this past year and we’ve created some resources that will be helpful to all shelters and dog advocates to increase adoptions. You can find those resources here:
- Bark to Basics Webinar featuring Misty Valenta, Mirah Horowitz, Jeffrey Zerwekh, and Michele Figueroa. We cover a lot of ground in this 90 minutes which should be required viewing for anyone in a supervisor or manager role. I learned SO much from listening to these four leaders and I think you will too. We dig deep into negativity bias and how leaders can actively work against burnout, turnover, and hopelessness as well as discuss great ideas and events to get more dogs adopted, specially tailored to overcrowded and overwhelmed organizations.
- Build Your Dog Adoption Superhighway toolkit. This workbook-style toolkit is designed as a training manual to increase engagement with your community of adopters and get more dogs adopted faster. We cover barrier busting tools and exercises, help shelters evaluate the adopter experience, and introduce the WIRC model (Welcome, Inform, Respect, Celebrate) for increasing and improving dog adoptions.
- Bark to Basics: Creative Ideas for Dog Adoptions toolkit. In this toolkit, the companion piece to the Bark to Basics webinar, we share tons of great ideas from real shelters and rescues to get more dogs adopted and fostered. These ideas have all been proven to work in the past year, when shelters are looking for high-impact solutions. This toolkit is a great one to share with all levels of staff with the assignment to “Choose one of these ideas.”
As next Monday is Christmas, I wanted to send you an early eNewsletter so you can spend time with your loved ones (including your pets!) on Christmas and not miss the content. The next eNewsletter you can expect in your inbox will be on New Year’s Day.
Have a safe and happy holiday season!
Sincerely,
Kristen
