What? Give Them Away?
Wisconsin Humane Society
Several years ago I was conducting a consult for Wisconsin Humane Society (WHS). Some of you had the gift of meeting the visionary of WHS – Victoria Wellens. Victoria passed away in 2009 – leaving us way too soon. Victoria had a way of seeing both the eyes of the animals in her shelter and the eyes of those animals at risk in the community at large. While I was there on a dog-focused consult, I noticed that the adult cats were being adopted at an incredibly fast rate. In fact, WHS’ average total length of stay for adult cats was around 5 days!
There were several reasons for their success – including great staff and volunteer training, a focuse
d and mean machine of a vet department, and a lovely facility. But the adoption rate was not always so high at WHS. Victoria had noticed that cats in her facility were competing for homes with cats who were listed in the local newspaper, offered in boxes in parking lots, etc. – and all of those cats were free. Not only were those cats ‘competition,’ but they were largely unaltered, unvaccinated cats – which only added to the problem.
So WHS removed the adoption fees for adult cats. All adult cats, at all times, were free. I thought this was absolute genius – WHS was driving folks to their doors to adopt altered, vaccinated adult cats! They were saving so many lives and impacting more folks with their humane message. I began talking about this at workshops and events – and let me tell you it was not well-received!
“FREE CATS?!!” folks exclaimed. Then they followed with one of two concerns (if not both): “Adopters will not value them if they are given to them for free” and “How can we possibly afford to give them away after all we invest in them?” I even heard some folks worry that the public was going to come to adopt a cat to feed to some other animal in their household.
There was a very easy answer to the financial concern. First, each day those cats are in your care, it is costing you money – estimates range, but even assuming a low estimate of $8 per day, we can find significant savings by decreasing the length of stay! There are a couple of methods to offset the perceived loss of revenue. If you have a retail store, drive traffic there – send them home with the right litter and food! Also, there is likely opportunity to raise adoption fees on puppies, small dogs and maybe even kittens.
As for the concern about feeding the cats to other pets in their house… All potential adopters went through the very same adoption process. At WHS, that is the Meet Your Match process. With a combination of open questions and respect for the potential adopter, this allows for a dialogue to help assure the safe match of pet to new pet parent. Adopters still fill out a survey, meet with a counselor, etc. The only difference is the fee is waived. Also, and I know someone will disagree with me – but there are not many folks feeding cats to other pets period, and even if they did exist, it is not likely they are coming to the shelter to find their cats… The question I could not answer with good data was the value and attachment piece – did folks who adopted a cat for free perceive their cat differently than folks who paid a fee?
Shannon Gramann (then an ASPCA shelter intern, now manager of Shelter R&D) and I conducted a study at Animal Refuge League (ARL) in Westbrook, ME, to find out the answer. ARL agreed to conduct a couple of fee-waived adoption promotions. This gave us a great laboratory – adopters all had the same experience, the only difference being that during the fee-waived promotions, adopters did not pay a fee. We used a standardized tool to measure pet attachment called the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale (LAPS) and collected data on the two groups – those that paid the adoption fee and those that did not.
We found that there was no difference in attachment levels between the two groups. We also found that length of stay decreased during the fee-waived promotions, adoptions increased, and total revenue did not decrease. This research was published in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, Volume 4, 2009. You can read more about other shelters’ experiences on ASPCApro.org.
Has your shelter implemented a fee-waived promotion? Does the idea still give you a bit of the willies? Tawk to me!
Tags: adoption, Animal Refuge League, fee-waived adoptions, free cats, length of stay, Wisconsin Humane Society
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Leslie Harris Says:
We at Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society have waived fees on our adult cats since late last summer when we were admitting them at a rate 10 times higher than we were adopting them out. We didn’t change the adoption process, we just waived the fee. And, boy, did we save lives! Cats flew out the doors, nearly every adopter gave a donation, and adult cats–for the first time ever–really gave kittens a run for their money.
We offset the loss of income by asking for donations and by charging what probably seems like an arm and a leg to people in other parts of the country for our dogs (there aren’t a great many adoptable homeless dogs in our community so we’re blessed). We also offset the loss of income by shortening the length of stay and reducing the incidence of disease (by keeping cats in shelter less long).
I encourage anyone thinking about doing this to reach out to other organizations that have been successful with it. Ask how they dealt with criticism, monitored their stats, and made sure they were still doing quality adoptions.
Bridget Kirkish Says:
I have adopted both adult and younger cats from the Wisconsin Humane Society and I can tell you there is no difference in the bond I have with the “free” adult or the younger cat I paid a fee for. In fact I think people may even want to make some type of donation towards the care the adult cat received. I did.
WHS does great work in our community and I am happy to be a supporter of all the good they do for animals.
Patti Kunz Says:
I am so impressed with this article and all of the programs of the WHS (visit their website). I am proud you are part of Wisconsin and making such a huge difference for the animals. Thank you!