Shelter’s Edge

Guest blogger Claire Sterling shares some tips and tools for telling your agency’s stories.

Just as barking and tail-wagging are distinctly canine, and meowing and purring are unmistakably feline, storytelling is hard-wired into human DNA. People in every settlement on earth were exchanging stories long before they could read and write. Animal welfare work, replete with both joy and heartbreak, provides an abundance of stories we can draw upon to connect with prospective donors and adopters. We are fortunate enough to live in an age that offers great variety in both the vehicles through which we can tell our stories and the tools we can use to develop them:

• The Written Word – The written word remains a fixture within an ever-expanding universe of storytelling resources. An organization that makes extensive and imaginative use of written stories is Rescue Operation for Animals of the Reservation (ROAR), which rehabilitates and finds loving homes for stray dogs and cats on Native American reservations. ROAR honors the storytelling traditions of cultures it serves with Native American legends about animals, invites web visitors to write their own stories about how the animals in their own lives have inspired them through personal “Sage pages” and shares its own success stories about specific animals who benefited from the organization’s efforts.
• Photography - It’s often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is especially the case when it comes to individual animals in your care who either need or were recently placed in homes. In the case of the former, photos can help showcase the animal and make him shine via all your communications channels; in the case of the latter, photos of your adoption and rescue successes are an important tool when asking for donations, wishlist items and volunteer hours. Photos are often a key component of videos, enhanced by motion effects, text, music and/or voiceovers. The One Picture Saves a Life project, sponsored by The Animal Rescue Site, Petfinder Foundation, John Paul Pet and GreaterGood.org, is helping animal welfare organizations to make their photos the best they can be via a nationwide teaching tour; their website provides tips on pet photography and grooming. Petfinder also offers advice on how to get great shelter pet photos.
• Audio Podcasts – Radio-style interviews with those close to the work of an animal-oriented organization, or with its supporters and customers, can make for highly engaging stories that are relatively easy and economical to produce. All you need are a microphone, a quiet room free of ambient noise, a laptop and sound editing software. Podcasts are a staple among many media consumers — they can be accessed from anywhere, and their independence from visual content makes them an ideal choice for folks who want to rest their eyes after a long day at work, or who want to undertake visual tasks while listening. The podcast series “Take Me Home” on Pet Life Radio, hosted by National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals founder Susan Daffron, promotes pet adoption through conversations with guests from shelters and rescues about some of their favorite available pets. Over 100 episodes are available. For those new to podcasts, “How to Create Your Own Podcast” can get you up and running.
• Video – The power of video is in its multisensory nature. More of the brain is engaged in taking it in, and it is more memorable than any other medium. Fortunately, advances in digital media technology in recent years have meant that creating high-quality video is relatively affordable. It is now common practice for organizations with modest budgets to shoot high-definition video with a smartphone or standard digital camera and an inexpensive external microphone, and to edit the video with software on a laptop (nonprofits can receive deep discounts on both hardware and software through organizations such as TechSoup.To learn about what great videos are made of:
  - Check out our blog posts, “Nine Do’s and Don’t’s for creating Ah-mazing Adoption Videos” and “Slammin’ Shelter Video Roundup.”
  - Petfinder offers tips on creating and marketing videos of adoptable pets.
  - Nonprofit technology consulting firm Idealware provides some advice on crafting short video story arcs in its article “Three Acts in Three Minutes: Screenwriting for Nonprofits,” which uses the formula for a typical Hollywood script as a starting point for creating nonprofit-focused videos.

Whichever storytelling format you use, know your audience and tailor your messaging accordingly. Make sure your story includes:

• a call to action
• an explanation of why and how the action should be taken
• current information that won’t expire quickly

What storytelling resources have you found that might be especially useful to other animal welfare organizations? Feel free to comment and share!

Guest blogger Claire Sterling is Senior Grants Manager at the ASPCA and the proud “mom” of two adopted black cat siblings, Tartufo and Tiramisu.

Related links:
Upcoming Webinars: “Ingredients for a Successful Grant Application,” June 6, 3-4 ET
“Slammin’ Shelter Photos: Getting the Shot”

It’s National Volunteer Week! Regular guest blogger Claire Sterling is back to brag about the stellar volunteer programs she and the ASPCA grants committee reviewed – and to share what those programs all have in common.

Earlier this year, we invited nonprofit and governmental animal welfare organizations to apply for one of three $10,000 Volunteer Appreciation Program general operating support grants to be awarded during National Volunteer Week, April 21-27. While we at ASPCApro have our own take on what makes volunteer programs strong, we thought that inviting you to share the secrets of your volunteer programs’ success seemed like a great way to both expand our knowledge and underscore volunteers’ crucial role in advancing animal welfare.

We asked applicants to tell us how they recruit and train their volunteers, what keeps them coming back and how they help accomplish their organizations’ goals and achieve impact. Applicants also told us what kinds of work volunteers are assigned, what makes their volunteer programs creative and how these innovations could be replicated elsewhere.

We received 142 excellent applications; choosing the winners from among such an outstanding and diverse pool of candidates proved a daunting task. The number of active full- or part-time volunteers at applicant organizations ranged from as few as six to as many as 3,000, and 27% of the organizations that applied were run entirely by volunteers. Organizations’ operating budgets for the current year ranged from $1,600 to $14 million, and applicants represented (nearly evenly) the Northeast (21%), Midwest (23%), West (23%) and South (33%).

The applications were screened by an interdepartmental grants committee, and then more than 60 of the ASPCA’s own volunteers reviewed applications from eight finalists. They made recommendations based on the innovativeness of the volunteer programs and how creatively the organizations recruit and retain volunteers.

Based on our volunteers’ recommendations, three grant recipients were selected:

• Ark-Valley Humane Society, Buena Vista, CO
• Foothills Humane Society, Columbus, NC
• Mayport Cats, Jacksonville, FL

While the ASPCA is delighted to award grants to these three organizations in recognition of their volunteers, we cannot overstate how impressed we are by the high caliber of volunteer programs and rich information provided by all of you who applied. We look forward to sharing some of these promising ideas and best practices with you over the coming months. In the meantime, a few trends were clearly identified:

• One size does NOT fit all – A recurring theme we’re seeing is the care and attention organizations devote to ensuring that volunteers are given tasks tailored to their specific interests, skill/experience levels and personal goals, versus assigning tasks en masse.
• Buddying up – Many applicants indicated that they pair all new volunteers with a “mentor” who provides one-on-one training, support and answers to important questions that volunteers may not feel comfortable raising in a group setting. And the buddying-up is happening organizationally as well as individually – many groups have established partnerships with local schools that help to fill the volunteer ranks and build awareness throughout the community.
• Use of social media – Lots of applicants cited the use of social media tools like Facebook as an effective strategy not only for volunteer recruitment, but also for retention of volunteers via private online communities where volunteers socialize and keep in touch during their “off” time.

We extend our congratulations to the three winners and our gratitude to all of you who applied. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to learn about your impressive volunteer programs and the outstanding and generous work your volunteers do for your organization and for the animals and people in your community.

Vying for an ASPCA grant of your own? Then don’t miss this free webinar:

Ingredients for a Successful Grant Application
Thursday, June 6, 3-4pm ET
Presented by the ASPCA Grants Department

Related Links:
Webinar: Ingredients for a Successful Grant Application
Navigating the Grants Landscape

Guest blogger Claire Sterling is Senior Grants Manager at the ASPCA and the proud “mom” of two adopted black cat siblings, Tartufo and Tiramisu.

In Navigating the Grants Landscape, Part 1, guest blogger Claire Sterling gave a heads up on what the ASPCA is looking for when it comes to grant applications (fun fact – 60% of our applicants get money!). Here, she shares advice on how to highlight the ways in which your work helps the people in your communities.

An important strategy for shelters and rescues to embrace is to emphasize in their grant applications, on their websites and in other promotional materials, the various ways in which their work helps people in their local communities. Including specific anecdotes and statistics, along with photos, will help to build a stronger case and expand your pool of funding prospects. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of framing your work within a particular context that resonates with the funder. For example:

• A human services funder might be interested in supporting your organization’s work if you serve low-income families by providing free or low-cost veterinary care and/or vaccinations for their pets.
• A health funder might be interested in your work if you bring animals into hospitals to help lift people’s spirits.
• An education funder might be interested in your work if you bring animals to schools to conduct humane education programs or to help create a more supportive learning environment for children who have difficulty with reading skills.

One interest that many animal shelters and rescues share with community foundations – which primarily support the needs of the geographic communities or regions where they are based – is a local focus. If you think your work fits within the scope of a particular community foundation’s interests and you decide to apply for support, provide as much information as possible about which members of the community your work benefits and how. The better you can establish the link between the well-being of animals and the well-being of people in your area, the more likely you are to get funded.

This is of course highly dependent on the grant guidelines of each specific funder, so be sure to read them with care. The Foundation Center’s website features a free interactive U.S. map of over 850 community foundations – drilling all the way down to the county level allows you to see individual funder profiles, including websites linking to specific funding guidelines.

So take heart! While the funding landscape is an undeniably challenging one to negotiate, you’ve got lots of tools at your fingertips to set you on the right path.

What other resources have you found helpful? Add them in the comment box.

Guest blogger Claire Sterling is Senior Grants Manager at the ASPCA and the proud “mom” of two adopted black cat siblings, Tartufo and Tiramisu.

Boy scout photo: Warren W. McSpadden

Related Links:
Navigating the Grants Landscape, Part I
ASPCA Grants
“10 Steps to Better (Fundraising) Health in 2013”

Like links? Guest blogger Claire Sterling shares online tools and tips to help you get the support and funding you need.

It’s a jungle out there for animal welfare organizations when it comes to competing for foundation grant dollars. According to the Foundation Center’s 2011 statistics on foundation grants by subject category, grant dollars for “Animals and Wildlife” constituted mere 1% of grants awarded by the largest U.S. foundations. When you consider that companion animals and wildlife are lumped into the same category, the percentage of grant dollars awarded to shelters, rescues and other companion animal organizations was smaller still.

But don’t be discouraged! The good news is that the ASPCA is the second-largest companion animal welfare grantmaker in the U.S., having awarded $17 million in 2012 – and getting a grant from us is a lot easier than it would be from more conventional grantmaking organizations. In fact, last year we approved about 60% of the requests we received; by contrast, the national average success rate for unsolicited grant applications is about 17%, according to the National Park Service. Take advantage of the following resources to help you get the support you need from us and other prospective funders:

• Consult our grant guidelines to quickly determine what we’re looking for in our various types of applications.
• Access our free recorded webinars specifically geared toward the needs of animal welfare grantseekers:

- ASPCA Grants Application Process
- Tips on Tracking, Reporting, and Promoting Your Grant
- How to Get Better Results from Your Equine Grant Application
- New York State Shelters: Getting Funding for Spay/Neuter Programs

• If you work with horses, register for one of the ASPCA’s upcoming day-long professional workshops for equine organizations, designed to help equine rescue and sanctuary operators improve their skill sets in fundraising and other areas. The cost of the workshop is only $25, and a limited number of travel stipends are available to qualified participants who would be traveling a considerable distance to attend.
• Check out our tips on obtaining foundation grants, our list of grantseeking resources for animal welfare organizations, our previous fundraising-related blog posts and the Foundation Center’s GrantSpace learning portal.

What other resources have you found helpful? Add them in the comment box, and stay tuned for Part 2, in which Claire shares advice on how to emphasize the ways in which your work helps the people in your communities.

Guest blogger Claire Sterling is Senior Grants Manager at the ASPCA and the proud “mom” of two adopted black cat siblings, Tartufo and Tiramisu.

Related links:
ASPCA Grants
“10 Steps to Better (Fundraising) Health in 2013”

To pay homage to the memory of his beloved late wife, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the construction of India’s magnificent Taj Mahal palace in 1631. Over the millennia, individuals of more modest means have expressed the intensity of their love through music, poetry and art. Even the realm of non-romantic love abounds with deeply felt tributes, including the elaborate heart-shaped Valentine’s Day greetings earnestly handcrafted by young American schoolchildren for their families and friends each year. When it comes to the four-legged companions you work so hard to protect, a foundation grant proposal that demonstrates thoughtfulness and compassion and scores much-needed funds for these creatures’ care is also, in its way, a monument to love.

Here are a few tips for making your next proposal the best valentine you could give the animals who have captured your heart:

• Develop a plan for your work and your approach to prospective funders. Animal welfare work often literally involves matters of life and death, so thinking beyond the most immediate needs can be daunting. However, efforts to fully map out the scope of the work for which you’re requesting foundation support – including each project component, its chronological sequence and estimated duration, its associated costs, its long-term sustainability and indicators of its success – will be time well spent and, ultimately, saved later on. Researching funders most likely to support your work and developing strategies for approaching them is also critical; for example, members of your organization’s board may be able to open doors via their connections. It’s also helpful to confer with your colleagues to gather as much financial and programmatic data as you can in advance of submitting applications since you’ll need to refer to it frequently in the course of filling them out. And be sure to check your profile in GuideStar to verify that your organization is in good standing with the IRS.
• Carefully review funders’ application guidelines and instructions. Once you’ve got a solid list of funding prospects, do your homework to confirm:
  - that your work is a good fit with the funder’s stated priorities and grant history before you apply
  - that your funding request closely adheres to application instructions, and
  - that you can provide specific documentation (such as your organization’s Form 990, audited financial statements, and operating budget) as needed.
• Clearly state the need for and intended use of requested funds. While the need of the animals in your care may be painfully obvious to all who are closely involved, assume that the funder has no background about your specific situation – even if someone at the grantmaking organization does, the ultimate decision-makers there may not. Providing background facts and figures about the community where you work and/or the circumstances leading up to your current situation puts the “ask” in context. Describing the condition or relevant characteristics of individual animals brings greater immediacy to your story. In addition to discussing your organization’s general programs, be as specific as you can about exactly what the funds you’re requesting would cover:
  - Would they be spent on veterinary care, and if so, what kind of care?
  - Spay/neuter equipment, and if so, what type of equipment?
  - Training for staff or volunteers, and if so, what sort of training?
  - Food for the animals, and if so, how many days’ worth?
  - How many animals would directly benefit from the requested funds, and in what ways would they benefit?
  Include a breakdown of costs whenever possible. Being specific will demonstrate a level of thoughtfulness and care that can put you in a strong position to receive a “yes.”
• Explain what makes your organization uniquely suited to the job. Often, an organization will approach a particular funder for a grant without realizing that other organizations doing similar work are competing for the same pool of funds. What assurance can you give the funder that your organization is the best choice for their support? Describing a successful track record from previous efforts, recent recognitions or awards, a strong show of support from your community and other foundation donors, a history of effective collaboration with other agencies and/or the achievements of highly qualified staff are all effective ways to illustrate why funding your organization is a smart idea.
• Use examples and photos to bring your request to life. In the words of the ASPCA’s Vice President of Shelter Research and Development, Dr. Emily Weiss, “Every number represents a wet nose.” While providing relevant statistics can help build a strong case for supporting your organization, sharing a brief but compelling story about one particular animal or group of animals can make those figures more meaningful. Photos in which animals who would benefit from grant funds are clearly visible constitute another powerful tool you can use to literally add color to your proposal – and given the widespread usage of smartphones, snapping candids is now easier than ever. Your organization’s on-the-ground perspective is a precious asset that can be effectively channeled to engage funders in your work and offer them a glimpse of your furry valentines through your eyes.

For further information on effective proposal writing, visit ASPCAPro’s “Obtaining Foundation Grants” section and the Foundation Center’s GrantSpace portal.

Guest blogger Claire Sterling is Senior Grants Manager at the ASPCA and the proud “mom” of two adopted black cat siblings, Tartufo and Tiramisu.

Related links:
Obtaining Foundation Grants
Finding Foundations that Fund Animal Welfare Work
“Were You Revoked? Check GuideStar!”