Animal Welfare Professionals

Please join us on Wednesday, September 2, 2026 at 11am Pacific  / 1pm Central / 2pm Eastern as we look at insightful findings from the 2024 national foster survey. We will be joined by @Audris Campbell, Founder and Principal at Research Gurus and @Kelly Duer, Senior Shelter Solutions Specialist at Maddie's Fund.

Register for Community Conversations here

The 2024 National Foster Survey provides a national look at foster care programs for dogs and cats across the United States. This presentation will share key findings from the survey, including trends in foster care programs and active foster caregivers, as well as findings related to foster onboarding, application processes, and social media engagement. The findings provide insight into factors associated with foster program outcomes and the evolving foster care landscape.

This webcast is intended for adoptions and foster staff and volunteers, return to home and intake prevention staff, grant writers/fundraisers, marketing and communications staff - but all are welcome!

Key Takeaways

• Explore factors associated with stronger foster program outcomes

• Examine the role of foster onboarding, application processes, and social media in today's foster programs

This webcast has been approved for CAWA and NACA continuing education credit. All registrants will receive an email a day after the webcast with information on on how to access a certificate of attendance. 

Also, Maddie's Fund will be awarding up to $10,000 in grants each month! Each time you attend a call or watch the recording on demand during the month, take a moment to complete this monthly grant awards entry form.

Please note: Views expressed on these calls are not necessarily endorsed by Maddie's Fund.

About Our Speakers

Audris Campbell is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Research Gurus, where she helps mission-driven organizations use research and evaluation to answer important questions and make better decisions. With more than a decade of experience in survey research, program evaluation, and data-driven strategy, she has worked with organizations ranging from nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies, including Google and Gallup. Audris is passionate about turning research into practical insights that improve programs and drive meaningful impact.

Kelly Duer is a Senior Shelter Solutions Specialist, Maddie's Fund. Her focus is on helping shelters and rescue organizations increase lifesaving through the implementation of robust foster care programs. Her role includes consulting with shelters, creating and providing training for organizations and their foster coordinators, writing and assisting with research on foster care.

Kelly previously coordinated a foster program that brought orphaned children to the United States in order to find them permanent adoptive homes, worked as the Foster Expansion Coordinator for a national study of foster care, and assisted with the behavioral foster study that was conducted at the Fairfax County Animal Shelter. Her work with foster care and social media has been featured in many national publications, websites and networks, including Animal Sheltering magazine, the Huffington Post, Best Friends magazine, BarkPost, iheartdogs.com, HuffPost Live and Fox News.