Shelter’s Edge

Hands in the air for these 50 rockin’ agencies that were voted into the ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge by their communities. Congratulations to them on making it through the Qualifying Heat; we can’t wait to see what they have in store for this competition, in which agencies around the country push and stretch and innovate in order to save more lives than they did during the same three-month period the year before. Meet you at the starting gate on August 1!

* A separate announcement will be made as soon as we confirm the 5 agencies to be wait-listed

Related Links:
ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge
Contestant List

Anyone gearing up for a big online voting campaign? (Hello, all of you in the ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge Qualifying Heat!!) Whether you’re one of the 104 agencies currently competing to earn a spot in the Challenge or looking for folks to cast their ballots for you in a local contest, take note of these tips for rocking the vote.

1. Make sure that everyone who comes through your lobby knows to vote for your shelter. How about setting up a laptop so folks can vote right there, right then?
2. Add the voting link to your email signature, and ask your staff, volunteers and board members to do the same.
3. Posting the link every day on your Facebook Timeline is a no-brainer, and be sure to frequently update your supporters and staff on your progress—this is a great way to keep ‘em motivated and focused.
   

   Exhibit A: Chip Billingsworth, spokescat for Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society, lets supporters know how his agency’s doing during the 2011 Qualifying Heat.

4. How did Brother Wolf Animal Rescue make excellent use of voting stickers in their campaign during the 2011 Qualifying Heat?
   
   • They stuck ‘em on their mailing envelopes
   • They stuck ‘em on pizza boxes delivered to college campuses
   • They stuck ‘em on people at bars (who, according to BWAR, may not have remembered how the stickers got there the next morning)
   • They even campaigned on Facebook to get a sticker on every person in their hometown of Asheville, NC!
5. Go to high-traffic areas—i.e. schools or the mall—to pull in big numbers. By setting up laptop stations or sending staff/volunteers around with iPads, you can get votes right there on the spot.  “We found big college campuses to be a great vote-getting location!” says Greater Androscoggin Humane Society, 2011 Northeast Region Winner. “Catch them during the noon-2pm lunchtime. Not many people will say NO!”
6. Any big outdoor events scheduled in your community during the voting period? Grab a smartphone and wireless laptop and have folks vote directly at the event. Nothing coming up? Set up a voting table on the sidewalk in an area with high foot traffic, and bring along 2 or 3 folks to hand out flyers encouraging people to vote.
7. Offer a discount on your adoption fee to folks who present proof of their vote.
8. Got team players who are great on the phone? Organize a phone bank to have volunteers call your supporters directly and ask them to vote. It’s easy to write a script, and you’d only need 3 or 4 people to make calls for you.
9. Update your website to reflect the election. (Translation: Get the message about voting on your homepage, and make it prominent—you may want to think about putting the information on a splash screen.)
10. Make like 2010 $100K Challenge Contestant McKamey Animal Center and print up some yard signs that you can ask volunteers and board members to put in their yards during the voting period. “Even our city mayor put a sign in his yard!” they report.
11. Greater Birmingham Humane Society had staff and volunteers use soap crayons to write the voting URL on their cars during the 2010 $100K Challenge—a great way to increase your reach AND a fun way to take action.

How can you make voting more entertaining for your voters and volunteer campaigners?

Best of luck to all the agencies in the Qualifying Heat –12 days of online voting, starting today at noon, to select this year’s 50 official contestants in the ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge.

Related links
Webinar recording: “Community Support: Get Out the Vote to Save Lives”
Tips: Using Supporters to Get Out the Vote
ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge

Woo-hoo! Say hello to the 108 agencies who’ll be heading to the Qualifying Heat of the ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge.

From April 5 through April 16, these organizations will be rallying their supporters to vote online to send them to the $100K Challenge. Please join us in wishing them the best of luck and a big old YEE-HA!

Alphabetical by state:

West (W)
South Central (SC)
North Central (NC)
Southeast (SE)
Northeast (NE)

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Visit the ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge site for more information, and check back here at ASPCA Shelters’ Edge for regular updates.

Related links:
$100K Challenge FAQs
About the Qualifying Heat

Don’t get us wrong, pizza and ice cream parties are great, and by no means do we suggest you stop having them for your staff and volunteers! But in order to really get your team to hop aboard the save-more-lives train, you want to get them connected to your mission, have faith in them to succeed—and motivate with a capital M.

Here’s how some of your peers have been doing it.

Empower Your Volunteers
We love the respect and trust the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society shows their volunteers—the agency trains them as adoption counselors, starting them off with a checklist of the procedure staff typically follows. GAHS boasts that they’d never do so many adoptions without their volunteers.

“We filled our lobby with happy-match photos!” -- Greater Androscoggin Humane Society

Don’t Just Set a Goal…
Share it. Make sure your entire staff and volunteer team is up to date on your latest campaign. And if you’re targeting a specific number, turn up the heat with an adoptions thermometer like this one from Austin Pets Alive! Staff couldn’t wait to shade in the updated number each weekend.

…But Make That Goal Attainable
“Celebrating wins is important to boosting staff morale and keeping people going,” says Executive Director of Humane Society for Greater Savannah’s Lynn Gensamer. That means setting goals that are achievable, even if that means they’re a bit smaller than you originally aimed for.

Every number counts at the Humane Society for Greater Savannah

Send Them Home
The Humane Society of South Mississippi sent two staffers home to brainstorm the $100K Challenge; the change of environment allowed them to focus and come up with some really fresh strategies. So next time you have a big campaign coming up, tell your planning committee to get outta here.

Nice and refreshed over at the Humane Society of South Mississippi

P.S. To hear more winning strategies from the agencies mentioned in this post, check out our list of free webinar recordings.

Related Links:
Preventing Staff Burnout
Improving Staff Morale
Webinar Recordings

Applications for the 2012 ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge open at noon ET today. Need a reason to apply? We’ve got 10.

#10 Increase Adoptions
In 2010, contestants in the $100K Challenge adopted out 6,775 more animals than they had during the same 3-month period the year before. In 2011, that number was 9,191.

That’s 15,966 more photos like this one:

Humane Society of Greater Dayton

#9 Try Something New
Fee-waived cats. Overnight events. Half-price adoptions. Friendlier policies.  Attempting to break a Guinness World Record by cutting hair continuously for 72 hours. Locking a professional fighter in a kennel…

Humane Society of South Mississippi

Yup, Challenge contestants get out of the box.

#8 Increase Your Visibility
$100K Challenge contestants reported increases in volunteer hours, social media engagement and donors. In 2010, the Louisiana SPCA saw a jump from 1,700 to 4,000 Facebook fans during the course of the Challenge, while the number of active volunteers at NOAH Animal Adoption and Spay/Neuter Center jumped from 362 to 437.

With all that extra attention, folks’ll be lining up (literally!) to adopt…

Butte Humane Society

#7 Empty Your Kennels
The Humane Society of Williamson County wasn’t the only Challenge contestant to take a photo like this during 2011 kick-off weekend. (They were the only ones to dedicate an entire Facebook album to shots of all the empty cages and kennels after adopting out 102 animals, though!)

Humane Society of Williamson County

#6 Decrease Euthanasia
“On October 12, 2011, HSSM experienced, for the first time in history, a day when NO healthy, adoptable pets were euthanized. We want 364 more days like October 12, 2011. It can be done. We are already well on our way there.”
–Humane Society of South Mississippi, 2011 Second Place and Southeast Region Winner

Austin Pets Alive!

#5 Break Your Own Records
133% increase in adoptions. 11% decrease in euthanasia. 250% more cat adoptions. 226 adoptions in 24 hours. And then there’s milestones like this one…

“Our staff was kind of dazed and sitting around the lobby one afternoon. I asked if they had nothing to do. They looked at me and said, ‘We have no more animals.’ It was the most amazing moment in our organization’s history. We all sat down together and wept—and this time they were tears of joy.”
–Guinn Friedman, Humane Society for Greater Savannah, 2011 Community Engagement Prize Winner

New Hampshire SPCA

# 4 Get A New ‘Tude

“We have realized that everything we need to save more lives is right here in our own backyard. The Challenge helped us understand and learn, and taught us to look no further than our own community for the opportunity to make a difference, every day.”
–Sandy Grambort, Humane Society of North Texas, 2010 Contestant

Humane Society of North Texas

# 3 Run Out of Cats

Greater Androscoggin Humane Society

See those cats on the left in this before-and-after shot? “We had every cat condo in the shelter filled to the brim with cats and kittens. In less than 24 hours they had all been adopted, all because of our amazing supporters who shared the news about our first-ever 24-hour Super Adoption Event.”
–Zachary Black, Greater Androscoggin Humane Society, 2011 Northeast Region Winner

#2 Win Some Major Buckage
$500,000+ in prizes. 27 ways to win, from $5K to $100K. And really big checks like Ed McMahon would give out.

Austin Pets Alive!

#1 Save MORE Lives
The hard data: 2010 & 2011 Challenge contestants combined saved 16,339 more cats and dogs than they did during the same 3-month period in the years prior.

The warm fuzzy: “If even just one more life was saved, it would all have been worth it–but for us, it was 206 more. And it will be even more as we move forward with the programs, processes and momentum started as a result of being challenged to be and do better.”
–Stephanie Filer, Animal Rescue League of Iowa, 2011 Contestant

A wall of photos—one of MANY!—of each animal adopted at Greater Androscoggin Humane Society during the $100K Challenge.

P.S. Are you ready to take the Challenge? Applications open TODAY!—the journey begins here!

Related Links:
Apply for the $100K Challenge!
Keeping Up with the Contestants: Party in the USA!