If you work in animal welfare, you know very well just how incredibly complex and unique shelters and rescues truly are.
And as we shift towards a time when animal welfare organizations are increasingly seen as rehoming organizations, it’s important to have a system in place that supports the varied and nuanced ways that animals move through your custody, especially because they impact your average length of stay (which is arguably the most important number to gauge your efforts!). One of the most effective ways to do this is to not only account for all of the animals that are moving through your organization, but also the people—including staff, fosters, and adopters—who are responsible for them, too.
That’s why one of Shelterluv’s most powerful functions is Status, which in a nutshell tracks your animal workflows from intake to outcome seamlessly and intuitively. The best part is that statuses are customizable to fit your organization’s unique needs, whether you have shelter operations, foster operations, or even a mix of the two.
A Quick Look at Status on Shelterluv
In Shelterluv, animals move through your custody through simple status changes that don’t prompt a separate event (for a video overview of our status and attributes features, click here). Intakes, outcomes, and fosters, on the other hand, are considered separate events governed by their own wizards and require you to complete additional information depending on which option you select.
We made Foster an event so that you can easily associate the animal’s record with that of its foster’s and also get accurate, detailed reports on your foster program performance—just another way you can monitor your efficiency!
Curious to find out how Shelterluv’s status feature works? Here’s how five different organizations are using it to keep track of their foster and in shelter operations:
Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center
Foster Statuses:
In Shelter Statuses:
Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center in Riverside, CA was founded as the Riverside Humane Society in 1897. It is a limited-entry facility that focuses on rehoming healthy, adoptable animals, all of which must pass health and behavioral evaluations in order to be admitted into its organization. The Mary S. Roberts staff uses Shelterluv’s status feature in order to track animals who are awaiting initial health checks, behavioral assessments, spay/neuter, or are on hold for other reasons, as well as those who are adoptable or have been adopted but are still at their facility.
Wadena County Humane Society
In Foster Statuses:
In Shelter Statuses:
Wadena County Humane Society is an independently funded shelter based in Wadena, MN and adopts out nearly 500 animals each year. Their In Shelter Statuses come with detailed descriptions so that anyone hopping in the system can accurately capture an animal’s status, which is especially important since they have animals that are pre-intake and pre-intake with pending adoptions.
Another Chance for Animals
Foster Statuses:
In Shelter Statuses:
Another Chance for Animals is a foster-based rescue in Evansville, IN that processes 1,100 adoptions per year. Because all of its animals are distributed between foster homes, it is crucial that the Another Chance staff maintain updated records of their foster network to ensure smooth operations. Because Shelterluv requires that you pair foster animals’ records with foster parents’ records, you get a streamlined snapshot of where your animals are located as soon as you log into Shelterluv every time, along with real-time updates of what your foster network’s capacity looks like. Gone are the days when you had to send email blasts to your foster network and just kept your fingers crossed that someone would respond!
Bryan Animal Center
Foster Statuses:
In Shelter Statuses:
Bryan Animal Center in Bryan, TX is a municipally-operated animal shelter responsible for 1,000 adoptions per year. Unlike the other organizations that we’ve looked at so far, Bryan Animal Center has statuses for animals who are in its facility to get a microchip implanted or a county tag along with one for animals who are on legal hold because their owners have been detained or because they are owned. These are all great examples of how an organization’s Shelterluv statuses reflect what its operations really look like and how its workflows take shape.
Lost Our Home Pet Rescue
Foster Statuses:
In Shelter Statuses:
Lost Our Home Pet Rescue in Tempe, AZ processes 800 adoptions per year. Aside from its rescue efforts, Lost Our Home specializes in helping pet owners and their families in times of crisis, namely through its Temporary Care program, which gives animals a place to stay until they can return to their families. Its statuses are more exhaustive than the others we’ve looked at so far; for example, it has more detailed medical hold statuses to give staff members more background on an animal’s situation at first glance. It also allows staff to see which animals are at its facility for the Temporary Care program and which animals are participating in its Weekend Getaway program, which allows potential adopters to see how an animal adapts to their home environment for a weekend before proceeding with the adoption.
Status is a powerful way to keep your organization streamlined and on track to reach your goals—no matter what those specific goals may be. When you sign up for Shelterluv, our onboarding and support teams will help you transfer your existing data over and provide tailored tips so that you can make the most of our software.
Let Shelterluv help take your organization to the next level. Take a self-guided video tour of our software or sign up for a free 14-day trial to learn more!
Feature Image by Krista Mangulsone on Unsplash