Sara,
For our kitten foster program (~160 fosters), we have a weekly blast that goes out every Thursday to everyone with general info and announcements (medical coverage for the coming week, changes to the program, etc) as well as reminders (ie: how to get supplies/who to contact, etc) and important information. The bottom of the blast also has all of management's contact info and things like that. Certain things (how to arrange supply pickups) run every single week, while other reminders (when to schedule surgeries, how to schedule photo shoots, etc) rotate throughout the month. (Google Groups is your friend here for creating a mailing list vs having to type in all the email addresses over and over again.)
For fosters that are fostering kittens, we send out a Google form check in/report card with some basic questions that is mandatory, and helps keep a finger on the pulse of what is going on. For years we tried asking fosters to check in weekly on their own, but no one did, so we did the report card and it's worked very well. We were worried there would be pushback against it when we first tried it, but we gave everyone a heads up it was coming in the weeks before we rolled it out, explained why we were doing it/how it was going to help, and it went just fine. That was 4+ years ago and it's been a huge help. Someone needs to manage it, making sure it goes out every Monday, and then following up/reminding stragglers to respond, (Gmail Templates and scheduled send is your friend) but it's gotten to the point where by Tuesday everyone has replied. Its all about setting expectations and training the fosters to respond. For our Charm School fosters who are socializing hissy kittens, we have a more detailed report card that we run out of Airtable that captures more granular detail. Another big bonus of using Google sheets and Airtable is that you have the history of responses to look back at to chart progress, as well as the ability to share data with team members.
As for the supply request form and folks not using it, again, it's about training/setting expectations. We have online forms for vacation coverage requests and for submitting bios/photos. We tell our fosters that's the only way to do it, and the few that tried to email/call, we'd just tell them to fill out the form (and did not make exceptions) and that was that.
If you're thinking "my fosters won't do all of this", that's exactly what I said to the very wise person who taught me to create all of these processes. She replied "people only get away with what you let them get away with" and she was right. If you let them know it's coming, and explain the needs and benefits, it's easier for folks to get their heads around it and accept it. But then you have to do it and stick with it, but once you get the processes up and running, it'll make your life a lot easier.
Oh, and one other thing we did that helped a ton is give new fosters a mentor for their first litter or two they can reach out to with questions. Also, the mentor will actively reach out a couple times per week to check in. For the longest time we had one person that was the contact for all questions. That sort of worked when we were smaller, but once we got larger, there was no way one person could do it, so we started using mentors. Spread out the work here, one person can't (and shouldn't) do it all.
I'd be happy to chat via a zoom call to show you examples of our forms/communications and walk you through how they work. Having automated a bunch of processes, especially the weekly check ins, has improved communication and made things soooo much easier.
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Chris de Zorzi
Finance/Development Chair and Kitten Foster Dad
The Volunteers of the Burbank Animal Shelter
www.thevbas.org
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2024 06:36 AM
From: Sara T
Subject: Foster Communication
Hi all, I run a nonprofit animal rescue and we probably have 30-40 fosters at once. We lost one due to communication issues and I was wondering what you all do to communicate with your fosters easier? Do you do weekly updates? Right now it's very chaotic as i get some asking me to pull more animals, some asking for supplies, it's very all over the place if that makes sense and some I don't reach out to often unless they reach out to me as I assume all is well.
We did make a foster supply request form, but not all use it. Is there a program or anything we can do to help with better communication?
#FosterPrograms
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Sara T
President, Founder
Pottsboro Animal Welfare Society
TX
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