Hey everyone! 

We have a Facebook group for our fosters.  Along with email blasts, we'll use this to post the animals seeking foster. I've also been using it to engage fosters, and have them interact more, both we us and each other. I've done posts of having people comment their fosters playing, or before they went off to their forever homes, and it got a nice amount of responses. I was wondering if anyone had a similar group they use, and if they have engagement ideas. Is there anything that works for you? I find it difficult since we're mostly cat based, so I can't really do things such a walks as we would if we had more dog fosters. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
#FosterPrograms
#MarketingandSocialMedia
#PeopleManagement(includingVolunteerIntegration)

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Brianna Carroll
Morris Animal Refuge
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We use our Fosters FB group to post surveys and run small contests (usually an animal related trivia question or an organizational question) and they can win $5-10 gift cards. We also do a "What's the Best thing about fostering?" post once in a while so we can use those responses for recruiting. We also ask "Tell us about he foster who has made the biggest impact on you as of now and why?" Hope this helps!

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Christy Fischer
Shelter or rescue director
Wichita Animal Action League
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I really love the suggestion of asking about the foster with the biggest impact! Thank you so much!

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Brianna Carroll
Morris Animal Refuge
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-18-2023 06:50 PM
From: Christy Fischer
Subject: Engaging Fosters on Social Media

We use our Fosters FB group to post surveys and run small contests (usually an animal related trivia question or an organizational question) and they can win $5-10 gift cards. We also do a "What's the Best thing about fostering?" post once in a while so we can use those responses for recruiting. We also ask "Tell us about he foster who has made the biggest impact on you as of now and why?" Hope this helps!

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Christy Fischer
Shelter or rescue director
Wichita Animal Action League
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OOOOOH, the foster that's made the biggest impact is GOLDEN!

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Nisa Katz
Homeward Trails Animal Rescue
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-18-2023 06:50 PM
From: Christy Fischer
Subject: Engaging Fosters on Social Media

We use our Fosters FB group to post surveys and run small contests (usually an animal related trivia question or an organizational question) and they can win $5-10 gift cards. We also do a "What's the Best thing about fostering?" post once in a while so we can use those responses for recruiting. We also ask "Tell us about he foster who has made the biggest impact on you as of now and why?" Hope this helps!

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Christy Fischer
Shelter or rescue director
Wichita Animal Action League
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We have a private Facebook group for foster families.  We don't post animals that need fosters, as we always call any available fosters to find out if it is a good fit and if they are able to take another cat or dog - we are a small rescue in a small community so we only have about 22 fosters on the average.  Our group is for asking questions, educational information, using our "experts" for behavior and health questions - mainly we want to be a support to our fosters so that they don't feel that they are alone.  We have a general rescue Facebook page that we post available animals, fundraising events and efforts, success stories, etc.   We utilize built-in Facebook systems to encourage new members; i.e., badges, recognition to new members, etc.

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Sabrina Hill
Aide 2 Adoption Rescue
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What about throwing out some fun questions (or surveys) from time to time to rally some feedback and engagement? Like, what is your favorite part of fostering or list three things you love best about cats.  Also, you could try enlisting your FB fosters to name the cats. Maybe throw out a "name this litter" contest on your social.

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Erin Ellis
Community Engagement Director
Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe

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Foster Program & Volunteer Management Specialist
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I love this topic and have a few resources for you:

Cincinnati CARE has a lot of cool techniques-- you can read about some of them in this blog, and you can see some examples here.

Also here's a list of prompts asking for photos from fosters.

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Kelly Duer
Senior Community Solutions Initiative Specialist
Maddie's Fund
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This is great - thank you so much!

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Brianna Carroll
Morris Animal Refuge
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-19-2023 08:45 AM
From: Kelly Duer
Subject: Engaging Fosters on Social Media

I love this topic and have a few resources for you:

Cincinnati CARE has a lot of cool techniques-- you can read about some of them in this blog, and you can see some examples here.

Also here's a list of prompts asking for photos from fosters.

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Kelly Duer
Senior Community Solutions Initiative Specialist
Maddie's Fund
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I love this idea of a Foster FB group! What about engagement posts asking things like what made them choose to get into fostering? or how they handle getting attached to Fosters, or other things that may come up being a foster?

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Kelsie Perez
Director Secretary
Friends of the Shelter
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Tips for getting attached and other hard parts of fostering is a great idea - thank you!!

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Brianna Carroll
Morris Animal Refuge
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-19-2023 08:46 AM
From: Kelsie Perez
Subject: Engaging Fosters on Social Media

I love this idea of a Foster FB group! What about engagement posts asking things like what made them choose to get into fostering? or how they handle getting attached to Fosters, or other things that may come up being a foster?

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Kelsie Perez
Director Secretary
Friends of the Shelter
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What a good idea! We're a national rescue so our fosters rarely get to meet but when I start a group message between a few of us it's always fun and so much in common. I never thought about forming a FB group so that we could share the fun, the challenges, the cute funny pix and videos! Thanks so much.

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Susan Leavitt
National Coordinator, East Coast, VP Board
American Maltese Association Rescue
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We too use a private Facebook group so only volunteers and fosters can view and comment. It's invaluable for communicating animals available, new procedures, events, help needed. We created Message Chat Groups so the team that does home checks can chat among their group and foster mentor threads with an experienced foster and 8-10 new fosters per group (they learn from each others questions.) We have about 20 chat groups for different tasks!  We did have a rash of negativity a couple of years ago so it's important to have someone moderate the page to remove name calling and crude remarks. The biggest thing we did to increase positivity was for admins to consistently post good news and thank you notes.

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Linda Lea
Big Bones Canine Rescue
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