Animal Welfare Professionals

We're a small kitten rescue in Portugal with 150-200 animals a year. We use a mix of our home sites (4) and fosters (~10). The fosters are short term (2-3 weeks), and we have to keep the turnover from foster back to the kitten rooms quite fast so the kittens get adopted as we have no facilities for adults. 

We use Pawlytics to keep track of kittens. But where we struggle is with overviews of foster availability as this affects our ability to make quick intake decisions for urgent cases. 

What do other small rescues use for foster scheduling and at a a glance availability? It has to be free. 

Do you have suggestions for relationship management? Many of our fosters go away travelling for long periods, but it's important to have a way to keep in touch with them and keep them connected to us. There are also people who come to our area for holidays and like to foster for a month. So we need to keep them engaged too.

Regarding Relationship Management. I volunteer for two nonprofits: one shelter based and one foster based. The shelter-based has no formal relationship management system - the volunteers just chat to each other when they attend the shelter though there is an informal Messenger group that tracks who is available daily for dog walking.  But the foster based one used social medical really well. All volunteers are logged onto RescueGroups post orientation AND strongly encouraged to join a general Volunteer Facebook private group.  That group is used mainly to rally volunteers for fund raising and fostering calls. In adddition, there is a separate TNR Facebook private group and an Auction private group for fundraising. We have just launched a Volunteer Mentor pilot where one person reaches out to ever volunteer through the Facebook group or through email to check on them and to promote additional volunteer ops. Would that kind of outreach help you maintain a calendar that logs your volunteer availability? 

We're a small kitten rescue in Portugal with 150-200 animals a year. We use a mix of our home sites (4) and fosters (~10). The fosters are short term (2-3 weeks), and we have to keep the turnover from foster back to the kitten rooms quite fast so the kittens get adopted as we have no facilities for adults. 

We use Pawlytics to keep track of kittens. But where we struggle is with overviews of foster availability as this affects our ability to make quick intake decisions for urgent cases. 

What do other small rescues use for foster scheduling and at a a glance availability? It has to be free. 

Do you have suggestions for relationship management? Many of our fosters go away travelling for long periods, but it's important to have a way to keep in touch with them and keep them connected to us. There are also people who come to our area for holidays and like to foster for a month. So we need to keep them engaged too.

Hi Bunny

There is a WhatsApp group that they won't engage with and a private FB group ditto. The only way they're responding right now is individual requests. I am tearing my hair out!

Regarding Relationship Management. I volunteer for two nonprofits: one shelter based and one foster based. The shelter-based has no formal relationship management system - the volunteers just chat to each other when they attend the shelter though there is an informal Messenger group that tracks who is available daily for dog walking.  But the foster based one used social medical really well. All volunteers are logged onto RescueGroups post orientation AND strongly encouraged to join a general Volunteer Facebook private group.  That group is used mainly to rally volunteers for fund raising and fostering calls. In adddition, there is a separate TNR Facebook private group and an Auction private group for fundraising. We have just launched a Volunteer Mentor pilot where one person reaches out to ever volunteer through the Facebook group or through email to check on them and to promote additional volunteer ops. Would that kind of outreach help you maintain a calendar that logs your volunteer availability? 

We're a small kitten rescue in Portugal with 150-200 animals a year. We use a mix of our home sites (4) and fosters (~10). The fosters are short term (2-3 weeks), and we have to keep the turnover from foster back to the kitten rooms quite fast so the kittens get adopted as we have no facilities for adults. 

We use Pawlytics to keep track of kittens. But where we struggle is with overviews of foster availability as this affects our ability to make quick intake decisions for urgent cases. 

What do other small rescues use for foster scheduling and at a a glance availability? It has to be free. 

Do you have suggestions for relationship management? Many of our fosters go away travelling for long periods, but it's important to have a way to keep in touch with them and keep them connected to us. There are also people who come to our area for holidays and like to foster for a month. So we need to keep them engaged too.

We also have pretty low engagement in our FB group. I've had luck with just keeping a spreadsheet of all our fosters and moving them between tabs as they fill up space in their homes. It does somewhat require me to text and call people individually, but I've also had way better luck with people taking on foster animals when I call them personally to chat about it. 

I don't know if that helps but it's been going alright so far! 

Hi Bunny

There is a WhatsApp group that they won't engage with and a private FB group ditto. The only way they're responding right now is individual requests. I am tearing my hair out!

Regarding Relationship Management. I volunteer for two nonprofits: one shelter based and one foster based. The shelter-based has no formal relationship management system - the volunteers just chat to each other when they attend the shelter though there is an informal Messenger group that tracks who is available daily for dog walking.  But the foster based one used social medical really well. All volunteers are logged onto RescueGroups post orientation AND strongly encouraged to join a general Volunteer Facebook private group.  That group is used mainly to rally volunteers for fund raising and fostering calls. In adddition, there is a separate TNR Facebook private group and an Auction private group for fundraising. We have just launched a Volunteer Mentor pilot where one person reaches out to ever volunteer through the Facebook group or through email to check on them and to promote additional volunteer ops. Would that kind of outreach help you maintain a calendar that logs your volunteer availability? 

We're a small kitten rescue in Portugal with 150-200 animals a year. We use a mix of our home sites (4) and fosters (~10). The fosters are short term (2-3 weeks), and we have to keep the turnover from foster back to the kitten rooms quite fast so the kittens get adopted as we have no facilities for adults. 

We use Pawlytics to keep track of kittens. But where we struggle is with overviews of foster availability as this affects our ability to make quick intake decisions for urgent cases. 

What do other small rescues use for foster scheduling and at a a glance availability? It has to be free. 

Do you have suggestions for relationship management? Many of our fosters go away travelling for long periods, but it's important to have a way to keep in touch with them and keep them connected to us. There are also people who come to our area for holidays and like to foster for a month. So we need to keep them engaged too.

Hmm, that's useful to know, thanks. The problem is very much one of knowing where there are spaces (eg today had an emergency and I couldn't get the kitten to someone fast). Additionally, we all work full time so it is going to be a burden to be doing a lot of chats individually, esp with language barriers. I have thought about splitting them between 2-3 people, so all fosters have a contact to chat to and who knows their availability, but so one person isn't spending half the day talking to fosters.

We also have pretty low engagement in our FB group. I've had luck with just keeping a spreadsheet of all our fosters and moving them between tabs as they fill up space in their homes. It does somewhat require me to text and call people individually, but I've also had way better luck with people taking on foster animals when I call them personally to chat about it. 

I don't know if that helps but it's been going alright so far! 

Hi Bunny

There is a WhatsApp group that they won't engage with and a private FB group ditto. The only way they're responding right now is individual requests. I am tearing my hair out!

Regarding Relationship Management. I volunteer for two nonprofits: one shelter based and one foster based. The shelter-based has no formal relationship management system - the volunteers just chat to each other when they attend the shelter though there is an informal Messenger group that tracks who is available daily for dog walking.  But the foster based one used social medical really well. All volunteers are logged onto RescueGroups post orientation AND strongly encouraged to join a general Volunteer Facebook private group.  That group is used mainly to rally volunteers for fund raising and fostering calls. In adddition, there is a separate TNR Facebook private group and an Auction private group for fundraising. We have just launched a Volunteer Mentor pilot where one person reaches out to ever volunteer through the Facebook group or through email to check on them and to promote additional volunteer ops. Would that kind of outreach help you maintain a calendar that logs your volunteer availability? 

We're a small kitten rescue in Portugal with 150-200 animals a year. We use a mix of our home sites (4) and fosters (~10). The fosters are short term (2-3 weeks), and we have to keep the turnover from foster back to the kitten rooms quite fast so the kittens get adopted as we have no facilities for adults. 

We use Pawlytics to keep track of kittens. But where we struggle is with overviews of foster availability as this affects our ability to make quick intake decisions for urgent cases. 

What do other small rescues use for foster scheduling and at a a glance availability? It has to be free. 

Do you have suggestions for relationship management? Many of our fosters go away travelling for long periods, but it's important to have a way to keep in touch with them and keep them connected to us. There are also people who come to our area for holidays and like to foster for a month. So we need to keep them engaged too.

We're a small kitten rescue in Portugal with 150-200 animals a year. We use a mix of our home sites (4) and fosters (~10). The fosters are short term (2-3 weeks), and we have to keep the turnover from foster back to the kitten rooms quite fast so the kittens get adopted as we have no facilities for adults. 

We use Pawlytics to keep track of kittens. But where we struggle is with overviews of foster availability as this affects our ability to make quick intake decisions for urgent cases. 

What do other small rescues use for foster scheduling and at a a glance availability? It has to be free. 

Do you have suggestions for relationship management? Many of our fosters go away travelling for long periods, but it's important to have a way to keep in touch with them and keep them connected to us. There are also people who come to our area for holidays and like to foster for a month. So we need to keep them engaged too.

Hi Bettina - I have the exact same problem and need as you!  Did you ever find any program/website/software that allows you to see what each foster has for availability? I'm so tired of no replies to Facebook posts and would really like to know who has empty spots so I can target them for intake. Thank you for any information you might have - best!

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Michelle Staryos
Volunteer -
LCCR
PA

Original Message:
Sent: 08-13-2023 05:05 AM
From: Bettina Vine
Subject: Foster scheduling and management - small orgs

We're a small kitten rescue in Portugal with 150-200 animals a year. We use a mix of our home sites (4) and fosters (~10). The fosters are short term (2-3 weeks), and we have to keep the turnover from foster back to the kitten rooms quite fast so the kittens get adopted as we have no facilities for adults. 

We use Pawlytics to keep track of kittens. But where we struggle is with overviews of foster availability as this affects our ability to make quick intake decisions for urgent cases. 

What do other small rescues use for foster scheduling and at a a glance availability? It has to be free. 

Do you have suggestions for relationship management? Many of our fosters go away travelling for long periods, but it's important to have a way to keep in touch with them and keep them connected to us. There are also people who come to our area for holidays and like to foster for a month. So we need to keep them engaged too.

#FosterPrograms

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Bettina Vine
Animal Health Director
The Kitten Connection
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