Animal Welfare Professionals

#PeopleManagement(includingVolunteerIntegration)

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Charlotte Otero
Community Strategist at Maddie's Fund
she/her
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I am new here and ironically, maintaining and boosting morale is one of the main topics I was hoping to get information on!  The rescue I volunteer with is in the south and unfortunately we experience a very high euthanization rate in our rural pounds.  Our main focus is rescuing dogs from these pounds before it is too late.  We are a foster-based  rescue and we NEVER have enough fosters. So not only are not able to save all the dogs in the pounds, but we also can't help all the people who flood our inbox with messages about stray dogs and puppies.  It is a never-ending battle that weighs heavy on all of our fosters and volunteers, so maintaining morale is a real challenge. 

A couple of things  I think we need to do more of is communicate with each other about how we are feeling - vent, cry, whatever! so no one feels alone; and celebrate our successes (not sure how since we all have such demanding schedules) and be reminded that what we are doing makes a big difference! I always think of The Starfish Story - "It made a difference for that one." (by Loren Eiseley)

I look forward to hearing what others are doing!

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Jennifer Jasinski
Volunteer
The Arkansas Pet Savers
AR
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Team boosting is an ongoing task.  We are a small group that works hard.  I make a point of recognizing our staff and volunteers.  Recognition can be in the form of social media posts, and small gifts from me and/or the dogs.   The crew also enjoys having lunch, occasionally I buy lunch for them and we have time to talk about their struggles and accomplishments.  It isn't a well-thought-out plan, but helps them know we care about them. 

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Connie Ash
Director
Mended Paws Sanctuary
AR
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At our shelter, we have little papers called LHS PAW'S (Look How Someone Performed Awesome Work) that a staff member can fill out for another staff person when they want to recognize them for something. Our volunteers have rockstar slips that other volunteers or staff can fill out to recognize the volunteer. We also just recently restarted our Wellness Committee (staff and volunteers are included) where we get together once a month and plan a fun event. In the past we did a Shamrock hunt for St Patty's Day, we've done plant nights, pot lucks, etc etc. It's such a great stress reliever to have fun little events like this, and it helps build that teamwork comradery!

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Shelby Stromberger
Shelter Manager- Programs
Longmont Humane Society
303-772-1232 x 265
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Hello everyone,

I LOVE this topic!  That's not to say that I don't struggle to maintain morale and engagement because as you all know, the emotional aspect of the work we do is a great weight.   With my team, maintaining morale is the easy part.  Engaging employees in learning and wanting to participate in webinars, seminars, trainings is the real battle.  As a morale booster, I host a quarterly staff gatherings where team members receive awards for the previous quarter.  The team plays games, food is served and REAP (Rewarding Excellence Acknowledging Performance) awards are presented.  Some of the awards are for basic expectations. For example: The Early Bird is an award presented to the team member(s) who have been on time for their scheduled work shift every day.  The Top Dawg award is an award that the team themselves vote on the winner for.  We also have the Best Cattitude. The team also votes on this one.  We've played Shelter(Family) Feud, Shelter Jeopardy-we had to make these ourselves but it worked out okay.  We've also played Get To Know Me card games - this one was a big hit, giant bowling, giant checkers, and giant connect four.  These meetings have proven quite successful for team bonding and morale boosting.  Providing food is always a winner.  We also randomly play office trivia via email as a way to help team members regularly read email.  Fun little prizes are handed out to team member first to respond correctly.

I am open to suggestions regarding how to motivate the team regarding engaging in learning opportunities. I am registered for the upcoming class/webinar. Any other ideas are most welcome.

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Monica Gonzalez
Santa Fe Animal Shelter
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Such great ideas. The get to know me games are always popular. Did you purchase the card games or make them internally? 

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Angela Durden
SPCA Tampa Bay
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-05-2024 11:12 AM
From: Monica Gonzalez
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

Hello everyone,

I LOVE this topic!  That's not to say that I don't struggle to maintain morale and engagement because as you all know, the emotional aspect of the work we do is a great weight.   With my team, maintaining morale is the easy part.  Engaging employees in learning and wanting to participate in webinars, seminars, trainings is the real battle.  As a morale booster, I host a quarterly staff gatherings where team members receive awards for the previous quarter.  The team plays games, food is served and REAP (Rewarding Excellence Acknowledging Performance) awards are presented.  Some of the awards are for basic expectations. For example: The Early Bird is an award presented to the team member(s) who have been on time for their scheduled work shift every day.  The Top Dawg award is an award that the team themselves vote on the winner for.  We also have the Best Cattitude. The team also votes on this one.  We've played Shelter(Family) Feud, Shelter Jeopardy-we had to make these ourselves but it worked out okay.  We've also played Get To Know Me card games - this one was a big hit, giant bowling, giant checkers, and giant connect four.  These meetings have proven quite successful for team bonding and morale boosting.  Providing food is always a winner.  We also randomly play office trivia via email as a way to help team members regularly read email.  Fun little prizes are handed out to team member first to respond correctly.

I am open to suggestions regarding how to motivate the team regarding engaging in learning opportunities. I am registered for the upcoming class/webinar. Any other ideas are most welcome.

------------------------------
Monica Gonzalez
Santa Fe Animal Shelter
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We are a teeny tiny team of people wearing so many hats and moving mountains for at-risk animals. We get overwhelmed and stressed and have decided that we need to book a little staycation for our hard work and to plan our big goals for the year. 

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Amanda Gray
Grants and fundraising manager
Operation Liberation
FL
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For the month of February our Development Department is selling Sodagrams.  Anyone in the organization can buy their coworker a sodagram to show how much they appreciate their hard work.  The sodagram comes with a soda and a punny button (Examples: Don't be SODApressed-Hug a puppy or Best cola-borator).  We will deliver them every Friday and make a big scene-play music, use the bubble machine, wear the dog mascot costume.   The sodagrams dual as a fundraiser for our HW+ dogs.  This will be our first time selling the sodagrams so I can't comment yet on their effectiveness at raising morale but so far people seem excited about them.  

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Amanda Rinehart
Development Manager
Houston Humane Society
TX
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This is the cutest idea ever. I love it! 

Do you make the buttons yourself? Or did you buy them online somewhere? I think it would be a fun morale booster to give staff funny buttons out of the blue! 

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Mary Miller
Farm Manager
Lollypop Farm
NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-06-2024 06:46 AM
From: Amanda Rinehart
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

For the month of February our Development Department is selling Sodagrams.  Anyone in the organization can buy their coworker a sodagram to show how much they appreciate their hard work.  The sodagram comes with a soda and a punny button (Examples: Don't be SODApressed-Hug a puppy or Best cola-borator).  We will deliver them every Friday and make a big scene-play music, use the bubble machine, wear the dog mascot costume.   The sodagrams dual as a fundraiser for our HW+ dogs.  This will be our first time selling the sodagrams so I can't comment yet on their effectiveness at raising morale but so far people seem excited about them.  

------------------------------
Amanda Rinehart
Development Manager
Houston Humane Society
TX
------------------------------

One of the four pillars to our Strategic Plan that we recently created is about staff and volunteer retention so we actually created a little committee that I lead to come up fun things to help boost moral so I was very excited to see this as a topic! Like most shelters right now, we are all overwhelmed with animals and all wear many many hats so it's been a little slow going. The goal is to do a few activities a year and to sprinkle in small fun things when possible.

My favorite little thing I've been doing so far is that we put up a small white board in our breakroom and each week there is a silly prompt on it. We've done things like share your favorite book/movie/restaurant/other random stuff , silly questions (one week was "How many owls would you have to see in a row before you become suspicious?"), and even random silly facts and corny jokes. The goal for that is silly and simple and something quick so it doesn't take away a lot of time for their job. I also make sure to share with the whole staff and our volunteers when it's a list of favorites/recommendations. 

As an ice breaker for one of our all staff meetings a while back, everyone wrote down what they thought the theme song of their life is (they could share anonymously) and I made a Spotify playlist from all of the songs and shared with the team.  That seemed to be a big hit. 

I've found Pinterest to be a good place to find inspiration for some activities. A lot of what's on there is geared towards teachers and office workers so it requires so creativity to make it work for our team but it seems to be a good starting point. 

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Sara Purser
Outreach Coordinator
Arizona Animal Welfare League
AZ
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As we know, working in the animal wellness industry is so rewarding, but also comes with its fair share of tough days and challenges. 

As a Human Resources professional within the sector, my role is to support those who help the animals. One thing I implemented at our organization to help generate some team cohesion and increased peer to peer/cross departmental recognition was an Appreciation Station. 

I created a Google Form in which employees can input their name, who they'd like to recognize with a 'kudos', and why they are giving the kudos. 

I compile the results weekly, and distribute little certificates (created in Canva) to each employee for a job well done (I now do this digitally, rather than printed). For the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, I also entered everyone who gave and received a kudos each month into a monthly draw for a $5 coffee card. 

We are a small organization of approximately 35 people, and during the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, we had a total of 143 kudos!  

The attachment shows our Google Form for Appreciation Station. It's great because I can easily compile all of the results in Google Sheets or Excel.

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Tracy Campbell
Manager, Human Resources
Peterborough Humane Society
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I've been wanting to do some kind of shoutout board or something but I'm nervous that it'll just be the same people and some people won't get recognized and it'll be harder for them. Have you (or anyone with a shoutout board) come across an issue like this? (We have a staff of around 80 people)

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Sara Purser
Outreach Coordinator
Arizona Animal Welfare League
AZ
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-06-2024 01:26 PM
From: Tracy Campbell
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

As we know, working in the animal wellness industry is so rewarding, but also comes with its fair share of tough days and challenges. 

As a Human Resources professional within the sector, my role is to support those who help the animals. One thing I implemented at our organization to help generate some team cohesion and increased peer to peer/cross departmental recognition was an Appreciation Station. 

I created a Google Form in which employees can input their name, who they'd like to recognize with a 'kudos', and why they are giving the kudos. 

I compile the results weekly, and distribute little certificates (created in Canva) to each employee for a job well done (I now do this digitally, rather than printed). For the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, I also entered everyone who gave and received a kudos each month into a monthly draw for a $5 coffee card. 

We are a small organization of approximately 35 people, and during the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, we had a total of 143 kudos!  

The attachment shows our Google Form for Appreciation Station. It's great because I can easily compile all of the results in Google Sheets or Excel.

------------------------------
Tracy Campbell
Manager, Human Resources
Peterborough Humane Society
------------------------------

Hi Sara,

We have a "Shout Out" email system that works for the most part. However, we do have a number of employees who do not email so for the month of February, our Fun Committee found a plain wall and made a, "We See You" space.  Here, any employee or volunteer can write a note of recognition or appreciation to a colleague and post it on the wall.  It has only been up since Monday and we are having to clear an adjoining wall for more hearts - a great problem to have.   Everyone is participating and really enjoying reading all the messages. 

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Monica Gonzalez
Animal Resource Center Director
Santa Fe Animal Shelter
Santa Fe, New Mexico
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-06-2024 01:35 PM
From: Sara Purser
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

I've been wanting to do some kind of shoutout board or something but I'm nervous that it'll just be the same people and some people won't get recognized and it'll be harder for them. Have you (or anyone with a shoutout board) come across an issue like this? (We have a staff of around 80 people)

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Sara Purser
Outreach Coordinator
Arizona Animal Welfare League
AZ
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 02-06-2024 01:26 PM
From: Tracy Campbell
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

As we know, working in the animal wellness industry is so rewarding, but also comes with its fair share of tough days and challenges. 

As a Human Resources professional within the sector, my role is to support those who help the animals. One thing I implemented at our organization to help generate some team cohesion and increased peer to peer/cross departmental recognition was an Appreciation Station. 

I created a Google Form in which employees can input their name, who they'd like to recognize with a 'kudos', and why they are giving the kudos. 

I compile the results weekly, and distribute little certificates (created in Canva) to each employee for a job well done (I now do this digitally, rather than printed). For the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, I also entered everyone who gave and received a kudos each month into a monthly draw for a $5 coffee card. 

We are a small organization of approximately 35 people, and during the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, we had a total of 143 kudos!  

The attachment shows our Google Form for Appreciation Station. It's great because I can easily compile all of the results in Google Sheets or Excel.

------------------------------
Tracy Campbell
Manager, Human Resources
Peterborough Humane Society

I have this problem.  I have a small crew and a some of them are not in the "in" group.  They are also very quiet and don't really engage with the other employees as much as the outgoing ones do.  So I don't expose them to other employees ignoring them.  I give the shoutouts myself.  And I do contests like treasure hunts, where the employees find treasures in the course of their work.  The more they find, the bigger their reward at the end of the contest, plus, they get to keep the little treasures I hid.  These are all kinds of things, like a pack of post it notes, a bubble gun, a candle, hand creme, etc.  All smaller things I can hide.  The prizes are gift cards usually to amazon.  

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[Liesse ] [Langlois]
[Shelter Director]
[Animal Protection East Texas]
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-06-2024 01:35 PM
From: Sara Purser
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

I've been wanting to do some kind of shoutout board or something but I'm nervous that it'll just be the same people and some people won't get recognized and it'll be harder for them. Have you (or anyone with a shoutout board) come across an issue like this? (We have a staff of around 80 people)

------------------------------
Sara Purser
Outreach Coordinator
Arizona Animal Welfare League
AZ
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 02-06-2024 01:26 PM
From: Tracy Campbell
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

As we know, working in the animal wellness industry is so rewarding, but also comes with its fair share of tough days and challenges. 

As a Human Resources professional within the sector, my role is to support those who help the animals. One thing I implemented at our organization to help generate some team cohesion and increased peer to peer/cross departmental recognition was an Appreciation Station. 

I created a Google Form in which employees can input their name, who they'd like to recognize with a 'kudos', and why they are giving the kudos. 

I compile the results weekly, and distribute little certificates (created in Canva) to each employee for a job well done (I now do this digitally, rather than printed). For the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, I also entered everyone who gave and received a kudos each month into a monthly draw for a $5 coffee card. 

We are a small organization of approximately 35 people, and during the first 5 months of Appreciation Station, we had a total of 143 kudos!  

The attachment shows our Google Form for Appreciation Station. It's great because I can easily compile all of the results in Google Sheets or Excel.

------------------------------
Tracy Campbell
Manager, Human Resources
Peterborough Humane Society

Our shelter has a bulletin board in the break room.  I encouraged staff to write on provided papers a praise or compliment about a fellow staff member.  They put them in a container I provided and every few day I took them out and hung them on the bulletin board.   If one or two staff members didn't have a praise after a few times, I wrote something positive about them so everyone had some.  It became a popular place to stop and read all of the good that we as a group were doing to help the animals.  As extra incentive, everyone who wrote one or got one written about them was entered into a weekly drawing for a scratch-off lotto ticket.  I found a $1 scratch-off to be great incentive for many things when motivating staff to participate.

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Amber Dennison
Board of Directors, President
Humane Society of the Ohio Valley
Marietta, OH
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I've just recently been hired as a kennel technician, so I'm not sure what team-building and appreciation initiatives are in place at our shelter. I do know that there is a lot of staff turnover, so perhaps this is an area in which we can improve. As a former teacher who left the classroom after 15 years due to extreme burnout, I know that low-quality professional development and team-building activities are extremely demoralizing and have the opposite of the intended effect. Throwing together mandatory trainings and activities that don't add value is counterproductive. I'm excited to learn more about what animal welfare organizations do to boost morale and engage employees and volunteers. 

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Leanne Wyant
Kennel Technician
Humane Society of the North Bay
CA
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I've been trying to combat that by having the staff involved in what we plan. We're planning on regularly sending out emails to see what kind of things they would like to happen and not make sure we aren't doing the only like stereotypical things that no one really enjoys or has done a million times.  

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Sara Purser
Outreach Coordinator
Arizona Animal Welfare League
AZ
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-08-2024 06:13 AM
From: Leanne Wyant
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

I've just recently been hired as a kennel technician, so I'm not sure what team-building and appreciation initiatives are in place at our shelter. I do know that there is a lot of staff turnover, so perhaps this is an area in which we can improve. As a former teacher who left the classroom after 15 years due to extreme burnout, I know that low-quality professional development and team-building activities are extremely demoralizing and have the opposite of the intended effect. Throwing together mandatory trainings and activities that don't add value is counterproductive. I'm excited to learn more about what animal welfare organizations do to boost morale and engage employees and volunteers. 

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Leanne Wyant
Kennel Technician
Humane Society of the North Bay
CA
------------------------------

Hello,

I am new to the Maddie's Fund group so I hope I am posting correctly.  I am a veterinarian in Lafayette, Indiana and I do my best to help out at four shelters within a 30 mile radius of our clinic.  Every day I stop in at one shelter on the way to work and try to be available to any of the others on my way home on a given day.  I my give vaccines at one, prescribe medications at another, walk dogs at a third, etc.  Since I circulate among the four locations, I act as a "clearing house" as to who may need what in terms of medications, food, and other supplies that another organization can spare.  I try to be as visible and accessible to the staffs and volunteers at all four locations.  I will answer any questions to the best of my ability and I like to think that I am a consistent face for the animals in an endeavor that often has to deal with a lot of employee and volunteer turnover.  I will take care of any needs I can on site so no staff has to be spared to bring an animal to our clinic.  That way, the overburdened staff members and managers/directors can be there for the animals versus sitting in a waiting room.  I like to think that my constant presences shows those same staff members that I appreciate their hard work and understand the physical and emotional tolls that come with animal welfare work.

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Dave Murakowski
Veterinarian
Wildcat Valley Animal Clinic
IN
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That is so amazingly generous of you! 

I'm sure those shelters really appreciate your help.

Make sure you take care of you too and don't overextend yourself and get burnt out ❤️

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Amanda Gray
Grants and fundraising manager
Operation Liberation
FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-11-2024 05:33 PM
From: Dave Murakowski
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

Hello,

I am new to the Maddie's Fund group so I hope I am posting correctly.  I am a veterinarian in Lafayette, Indiana and I do my best to help out at four shelters within a 30 mile radius of our clinic.  Every day I stop in at one shelter on the way to work and try to be available to any of the others on my way home on a given day.  I my give vaccines at one, prescribe medications at another, walk dogs at a third, etc.  Since I circulate among the four locations, I act as a "clearing house" as to who may need what in terms of medications, food, and other supplies that another organization can spare.  I try to be as visible and accessible to the staffs and volunteers at all four locations.  I will answer any questions to the best of my ability and I like to think that I am a consistent face for the animals in an endeavor that often has to deal with a lot of employee and volunteer turnover.  I will take care of any needs I can on site so no staff has to be spared to bring an animal to our clinic.  That way, the overburdened staff members and managers/directors can be there for the animals versus sitting in a waiting room.  I like to think that my constant presences shows those same staff members that I appreciate their hard work and understand the physical and emotional tolls that come with animal welfare work.

------------------------------
Dave Murakowski
Veterinarian
Wildcat Valley Animal Clinic
IN
------------------------------

Hi there! Here at SPCA Westchester, we are expanding and enhancing our current foster program. One of the goals is to show our amazing fosters how much we appreciate and value everything they do for us. Over the weekend I was able to create a live Instagram video as I witnessed a grateful adopter return to the shelter with a bouquet of flowers to present to one of our most dedicated fosters! The foster was so thrilled with the flowers, the video shout-out, and the opportunity to share her love of fostering.

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Eileen Gallagher
SPCA Westchester
------------------------------

Increasing staff morale is something our organization has been working really hard at lately. We use Slack as our internal communication system and we've created a "shoutouts" channel where anyone can recognize anyone for anything. People use it for anything from "thanks for holding the door for me!" to "thanks for helping scrub the floors in preparation for a major donor event" - it gets lots of traffic and even those who don't post will react to posts, which is great to see. 

Personally, as a manager, I try to boost my team's morale with lots of little things - donuts on someone's birthday, bagels and spreads for our team meetings, we play "Foster Bingo" (squares are things that happen with such regularity with our foster parents/system/animals that it becomes comical, such as "I got pooped on today" or "They system froze and deleted my exam notes" or "all my appointments were on time today" type things). We do one round a month and the winner gets a little gift, typically something around the $10-$15 range. I also try to plan at least one big team-building/appreciation event a year (this year we're doing a Paint Your Pet session), and at the end of kitten season, I had my team out to my place for a bonfire and potluck cookout, which seemed to go over well.  As someone else already mentioned, I like to include my team in the decision-making process of what they would like to do - it is for them, after all.  I build all of this into my program's budget (about $500ish, we're a team of 4) so that the funds are available whenever I need them/I'm not draining my personal finances and therefore causing burnout in myself. 

This year we really want to hit the ground running with foster gatherings to give foster parents a chance to meet and socialize with each other (and us). Thanks to an anonymous donor we're able to hold a big start-of-the-year/you're-all-awesome event coming up, and then going forward we're planning to host regular (quarterly? Every 6 weeks?) gatherings at local breweries/coffee shops that are more low-key that just offer space and time for foster parents to come and go and hopefully build that camaraderie with us and each other. 

I hope this is useful information for someone!

------------------------------
Evie Schenkel
Foster Care Manager
Asheville Humane Society
Asheville, NC
------------------------------

We have played the bingo game except we have done it with our kennel techs.  It's fun.  We did things like "dog climbed a fence today", Or "cat pushed almost all her litter out of the litter box'.  My techs really seem to like this game.  I got them involved in making the boards because they know more than anyone what is likely to happen.  Everyone sent in suggestions.  

------------------------------
[Liesse ] [Langlois]
[Shelter Director]
[Animal Protection East Texas]
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-16-2024 07:45 AM
From: Evie Schenkel
Subject: February 2024 Resource Drive: Team Engagement & Morale Boosters

Increasing staff morale is something our organization has been working really hard at lately. We use Slack as our internal communication system and we've created a "shoutouts" channel where anyone can recognize anyone for anything. People use it for anything from "thanks for holding the door for me!" to "thanks for helping scrub the floors in preparation for a major donor event" - it gets lots of traffic and even those who don't post will react to posts, which is great to see. 

Personally, as a manager, I try to boost my team's morale with lots of little things - donuts on someone's birthday, bagels and spreads for our team meetings, we play "Foster Bingo" (squares are things that happen with such regularity with our foster parents/system/animals that it becomes comical, such as "I got pooped on today" or "They system froze and deleted my exam notes" or "all my appointments were on time today" type things). We do one round a month and the winner gets a little gift, typically something around the $10-$15 range. I also try to plan at least one big team-building/appreciation event a year (this year we're doing a Paint Your Pet session), and at the end of kitten season, I had my team out to my place for a bonfire and potluck cookout, which seemed to go over well.  As someone else already mentioned, I like to include my team in the decision-making process of what they would like to do - it is for them, after all.  I build all of this into my program's budget (about $500ish, we're a team of 4) so that the funds are available whenever I need them/I'm not draining my personal finances and therefore causing burnout in myself. 

This year we really want to hit the ground running with foster gatherings to give foster parents a chance to meet and socialize with each other (and us). Thanks to an anonymous donor we're able to hold a big start-of-the-year/you're-all-awesome event coming up, and then going forward we're planning to host regular (quarterly? Every 6 weeks?) gatherings at local breweries/coffee shops that are more low-key that just offer space and time for foster parents to come and go and hopefully build that camaraderie with us and each other. 

I hope this is useful information for someone!

------------------------------
Evie Schenkel
Foster Care Manager
Asheville Humane Society
Asheville, NC
------------------------------

I am new to volunteering with our local rescue group; the group is small but mighty and has accomplished so much in a short time!  Throughout the summer months many of the board members and volunteers participated in local parades.  While this provide a visual presence in the community, more importantly, it provided an opportunity for team engagement.  I work in learning and development and I would love to work with our rescue to provide a monthly newsletter for volunteers as well as quarterly foster trainings.  I am very excited to attend your forums and participate in additional education

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Carla Duket
Volunteer
Carlton County Animal Rescue
MN
------------------------------

To help assist morale and mental health, we have an HR program for all of our shelter staff that provides a free activity/program for them once a month.  Some examples of what we've done are: a free yoga class for them offsite, a handmade breakfast at the shelter (board members cooked for everyone and brought it out), game board nights at the shelter after hours provided with free snacks/drinks, and vases of flowers with handwritten notes of gratitude.  We have a budget that's agreed upon once a year by our Board of Directors with the years activities to follow upon. 

Of course, the higher end activities are the most popular and heavily attended so we only have 1-3 of those types of events to make sure we have enough budget to do something special for them each month.  Last year's "star" events in that category was a Pumpkin Patch trip where entry was covered, and they also got to pick a pumpkin and we did our first ever float trip which was a huge success. Out of all of the events there is only one to which we had to close the shelter down to the public for a staff appreciation day and the two months before hand we taught our Board Members how to clean and feed the animals, so the shelter was in safe hands while we were away for the afternoon. 

We also provide all shelter employes with additional days of mental health PTO, we just need a 24-hour notice so we can get them covered as we understand some days are more emotionally tolling than others whether that's related to the shelter or to their own personal lives.

Jasmine Kyle

Director of the Southeast Kansas Humane Society

Pittsburg, Kansas

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Jasmine Kyle
Director of the SEK Humane Society
Southeast Kansas Humane Society
KS
------------------------------

I take ALL my Volunteers for a day of  "horseback riding & lunch"! They LOVE it ! It's my way of saying "thank you"!

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Mary Murray
CEO, Founder & President
Greene Animal League
TN
------------------------------

Before I retired, I was the Nevada Grassroots Manager for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.  I recruited, trained, engaged and retained 200+ volunteers statewide.  We asked a lot of our volunteers and engagement and keeping morale up was critical. I had a couple key tactics that proved successful:

1. Quarterly virtual meetings of all volunteers that were focused, short (less than 30 minutes) and addressed an issue that the volunteers cared about instead of me forcing organizational policy on them.
2. Monthly in person meetings with food and goodie bags for leadership volunteers. For those volunteers living outside of Las Vegas, I flew them in/paid their mileage. This was something in my primary budget and paid for itself many times over.
3. At my annual Day at the Capital, one volunteer was awarded as "volunteer of the year" and received an impressive trophy (donated, of course!) and abundant recognition. 
4. I had personal relationships with every leadership volunteer and, again, this paid for itself! FYI-my volunteer structure was multi-tiered. I had a team of leadership volunteers who were empowered and who managed a team of volunteers.  I did not attempt to manage 200 volunteers; that would be a poor use of time PLUS not as effective as peer to peer volunteerism.
5. Finally, I never assumed WHAT motivated each leadership volunteer and they did not assume to know what motivated the individuals on their team.  People volunteer for many reasons and they were not often what I assumed! 

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Cindy Roragen, CEO
BixRo Horse Haven
Girard, KS
https://BixRoHorseHaven.org
https://facebook.com/bixrohorsehaven
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Congratulations, @Evie Schenkel from Asheville Humane Society in Asheville, NC!  You were randomly selected as this month's Resource Drive giveaway winner of a $50 gift card to PetSmart, Petco, or Amazon.  Thanks for sharing all the wonderful things you do to boost morale in your answer on this thread. Sounds like it would be a lot of fun to work and volunteer at your organization! 

Please check your DMs for a message from me about claiming your prize and thank you again for contributing to this thread and throughout the forum. We appreciate you! 

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Kim Domerofski (she/her)
Community Manager
Maddie's Fund
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