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How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

  • 1.  How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-15-2022 06:42 AM

    I'd love to see how you're doing it! Here are a few ideas I've come across lately:

     


    #FosterPrograms

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    Kelly Duer
    Senior Community Solutions Initiative Specialist
    Maddie's Fund
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  • 2.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-16-2022 08:27 AM
    Our organization uses a Trello board that I created to advertise the animals needing foster! This board is really only available to current foster parents though and not the general public. Here's our board: https://trello.com/b/DVmMjRDI

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    Shelby Bundy
    Longmont Humane Society
    3037721232x234
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  • 3.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-28-2022 09:13 AM
    Who keeps your trello board up to date? What kind of volume do you have? I've toyed with Trello but getting the animals up there with their information takes a lot of time. It seems like I might as well just send an email plea about each animal.

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    Maria Anselmo
    Montgomery County Office of Animal Services
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-28-2022 10:47 AM
    I keep it up to date myself since I am the only Foster person in the shelter. I have a volunteer to help out on my days off, but she only does emails and will occasionally post things to trello if it's urgent. We have a fairly steady foster parent base of about 200 foster families, and I'd say 98% of those get their foster animals off of the trello board. I will say, that setting up the trello board was the most challenging and time consuming part of the process, but once it was all set up- it only takes a couple of minutes to post a new foster opportunity- and with the phone app I can easily add photos too. We relied solely on email solicitations when I started this position, but it was constant back and forth of 'sorry this ones been picked up already" so I switched to Trello to make it more easily accessible and viewable for foster parents to know what is available in real time.

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    Shelby Bundy
    Longmont Humane Society
    3037721232x234
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-29-2022 03:36 PM
    In our organization we have 20 plus dogs in the kennel themselves and a lot of dogs out in foster homes already.  We do not use Trello.  We use instragram and Facebook.  where we post our foster needed stories .  They have a template for the stories that get posted.  Our foster director/co-director keep the posts up-to-date at the moment but they have sought out a volunteer to manage this for them.  They don't do the stories alone but post in the communication app we use that a story is needed.  After that the stories are posted to instagram (main media used).  This allows for easy forwarding by others if you are also seeking fosters.
    We keep a foster database with the information regarding information about the types of dogs etc that come in and get in contact with the foster on the list to see if they are willling to potentially foster.  
    We post our community events to instagram that shows a picture of the dog and the time they will be at the event if anyone wants to come and meet them.
    Through our communication app  and our care team scheduling app, we see many of the incoming dogs and the volunteers do a lot of reaching out to potential fosters.
    We have a foster link on our home page and that's how we develop a listing of potential fosters and they type dogs they are willing to foster is generated.

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    Teresa Harrington
    Volunteer
    The Animal Pad
    LA Mesa CA
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-21-2022 05:03 PM
    We have a volunteer only group on Facebook for all the rescue volunteers. I always think that a cute puppy can find foster that never planned to foster

    Many of our dogs arrving on Transport.  About 10 days before transport we post the dogs in that group and in the rescue chat group, with links to Petfinder for full information, and asking the fosters to choose the one they want. 

    We keep that post updated with who still needs home

    With the holidays and other reasons I don't understand them, we have just few fosters, and even begging for help on social media do help

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    Tammy Fabian
    Executive Director
    Friends For Life Animal Rescue
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  • 7.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-21-2022 10:35 PM
    We're a small mainly feline rescue group and our founder and adoption coordinator board members decide before we do an intake who's open and out of those open who would be best suited for the intake. 
    We have fosters who specifically only want a single adult cat, ones who can only foster kittens due to their own cats and some who are open for whomever needs to be rescued. 
    We always ask them if they want to foster the intake before saying yes to rescuing those in need. 
    This system works pretty well for us especially with having at least 1-2 fosters for each specific age groups i.e. neonate bottle babies to adults.

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    Tracy Hanson
    Ellie's Legacy Pet Rescue
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-28-2022 10:14 AM
    I have been thinking about creating a Facebook page for our fosters because it can be so hard to get the word out. Our shelter uses Facebook for daily posting but I feel an actual group would be more targeted.

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    Kate Williams
    Manager
    Animal Welfare Friends
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-27-2022 11:33 AM
    I'm a volunteer at a canine rescue. Generally our foster directors search our eligible Foster's for a good match.
    We post to our website
    We have an Instagram account where we post pictures, a story and link to website for foster or adopt. Also have a Facebook page.  Have a Facebook volunteer page

    Ask volunteers to post to their social media pages
    Post about community events with pictures and times available dogs will be there so people can meet yhem


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    Teresa Harrington
    Volunteer
    The Animal Pad
    LA Mesa CA
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  • 10.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 12-30-2022 06:45 AM
    We have a staff/volunteer/foster private Facebook page that we will occasionally use to post a plea out to a wider audience, typically when our traditional foster team is either at saturation or not interested in a harder-to-place pet that absolutely must go out; sometimes we'll post Foster-To-Adopt pets there too so volunteers and staff have first pick.  We rely mainly on email for 99% of all asks. I have a group email (Current Active Fosters) that I send a blast out to for most animals, though I will also sometimes reach out to individual fosters if I have a placement I know they want or would be especially interested in.  Using email primarily is so much easier for me because all the communications come to one place, and I'm already on there constantly. We're a private kennel-based humane society with 162 active foster families and around 2-3k intakes a year.

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    Krystyna Zarn-Langford
    Geauga Humane Society's Rescue Village
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  • 11.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 01-02-2023 01:14 PM
    We have a foster list that we use to email out our foster needs. We have one master list with everyone that is foster trained that we send larger foster pleas out to, but we also have our fosters organized into categories so we can send out targeted emails. i.e. neonatal kittens, puppy foster, adult dog foster, etc. We have a foster cell phone and knowing that not everyone checks their emails and some foster needs are emergencies, we text fosters as well.

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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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  • 12.  RE: How is your organization letting fosters know which pets are available for foster?

    Posted 01-03-2023 07:49 AM
    Our rescue has a foster/volunteer facebook page - we list the dogs with any information we have on them along with pictures if we have.  The foster that comments first gets the dog to foster.  If we still need more fosters, we also reach out to applicants that have already applied for adopting.

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    geri golonka
    Foster/Volunteer
    Tiny N Tall Rescue
    St. Charles, IL
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