Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi Everyone!

Here at our No-Kill Shelter, PAWS Chicago, we are trying to figure out how to keep our remote volunteers busy with projects during the pandemic. Does anyone else's shelter have remote volunteers, and if so, what projects have you been assigning them? 

Any answers would be extremely beneficial! :)

My previous rescue had volunteers maintain the Petfinder profile - they write the bios for adoptable animals (using a questionnaire that is filled out with some information about the animal), post the photos, and answer the petfinder's query inbox (we asked people to contact us through our main inbox but people just see the big 'ask about Spot!' button and click it anyways).

Their social media accounts are also mostly volunteer run - volunteers and others help with the social media planning using a Trello board (so everything is reviewed), but volunteers do the actual posts. Encourage/remind volunteers to interact with social media posts so they have of comments and reactions and should show up more often on more people's newsfeeds.

Other ideas:

• help write/prep newsletters/email updates
• post animals on Craigslist or local 'looking for pets' Facebook groups (or commenting on/reaching out to people who post ISOs on those sites),
• if you have less tech-savvy volunteers who aren't on Facebook or don't really use email, some other volunteers could call to check in with them and give them updates on what's going on with the shelter
• thank you letters for donors

There is so much virtual content right now it's almost overwhelming! Might be a good time to create humane education programs, research grant opportunities, visit Maddie's University (https://www.maddiesuniversity.org/), do some exploring of other shelter's programs & websites? American Pets Alive! has great content (https://americanpetsalive.org/webinars). Maddie's Fund is sponsoring a comprehensive kitten care series with Million Cat Challenge. Maybe some volunteers could attend and provide summaries to the group or become subject matter experts? 

The Kansas Humane Society created a handbook with things that volunteers can do to help from home! Might be a good idea to create a similar one for your organization or share directly.

Attachment(s)

Volunteer At-Home Project Handbook - Kansas Humane Societ...pdf   1.38 MB 1 version

Nifty! Sharing! Thank you for posting...<3

Hello, in Florida students need hours for Bright Futures scholarships. The attached packet is designed for them and can also be used for other volunteers. 

Attachment(s)

Remote Volunteer Packet - Humane Society of Manatee Count...pdf   689 KB 1 version

Thank you for sharing!