Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello,

    A recurring topic for years now has been about DEI, and/or REDI and how to integrate into your organization. Our organization is a small rural rescue in central Georgia. We do not adopt out from this rescue in GA.   A base group of volunteers and fosters transport up a group of dogs monthly for an adoption event. SoCo has been saving dogs for over 20 years. It takes a village to keep it going and the village has gotten smaller, so the work load has increased for all of us still helping on both ends. 

   When it comes to adopting, fostering, volunteering I can honestly say there is no turning away any person in anyway based on race, color of hteir skin or even finanacials. We have a policy if you need to give up the dog just give them back to us and not a shelter or worse. Each person has their own gift to offer, big or small, we accept everyone willing to help. However, we do not attract diversity in our volunteers or even people willing to commit to a board seat. 

A little background comparison is where the shelter is      Montgomery County, GA about 248 sq mile pop: 8,700

                                                                                                                               Mercer County, NJ               about 228 sq mile pop:382,000 by far we are diverse in NJ. This does not even include neighboring counties including over to Bucks County, PA where I live an                          about 600 sq mile pop:650,000 .

SoCo is surrounded by a couple counties similar to itself with similar pop and square miles in GA. Our rescue is the only resource for most of these animals. We cannot attract people to volunteer in GA let alone it is difficult to keep staff. They are very unreliable which causes a lot of work to be put on a couple people just taking care of the dogs and shelter. 

Does anyone have suggestions, plans that worked for their organization , or thoughts on this matter please feel free to message me privately if this is an uncomfortable topic for you or please post here. I would like to hear from anyone that tried and failed as well as has succeeded. 

#Diversity,Equity,InclusionandJustice

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Heather Hoffmann
Volunteer
SoCo Animal Rescue
GA
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You might want to evaluate and reconsider your approach to finding volunteers, where you are looking and advertising, how your current staff comes across on social media and in the community, and the language you use in your work. But even if they want to, the people you are trying to recruit may not have the time and/or resources to volunteer. This has been a long-time issue with unpaid internships as well: the people who are able to do them and get a leg up in their career are the people who have enough money and time to work for free, and that's disproportionately white people. 

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Maria Saucedo
GIS Analyst
Pets for Life at HSUS
Baltimore, MD
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Thank you for your input. I agree in the location of the shelter itself there are not people with resources to give up their time. Other possibilities, like high schools (there  is only one and the middle school is with it) are not close enough to the shelter and even a woman's facility was tried and they turned out to be too inconsistent to rely on the woman coming leaving the shelter in great need sometimes.

In New Jersey where the volunteers and fosters are based  the demographic is much more diverse. We are welcoming of anyone wanting to help however, we are also in an area where there are many shelters, rescues and people who would  volunteer but do so at a location closer to their home and not drive over an hour like I do to help on adoption days and so forth. 

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Heather Hoffmann
Volunteer
SoCo Animal Rescue
GA
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-12-2024 11:08 AM
From: Maria Saucedo
Subject: Integrating DEI / REDI into rural shelters and volunteer programs

You might want to evaluate and reconsider your approach to finding volunteers, where you are looking and advertising, how your current staff comes across on social media and in the community, and the language you use in your work. But even if they want to, the people you are trying to recruit may not have the time and/or resources to volunteer. This has been a long-time issue with unpaid internships as well: the people who are able to do them and get a leg up in their career are the people who have enough money and time to work for free, and that's disproportionately white people. 

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Maria Saucedo
GIS Analyst
Pets for Life at HSUS
Baltimore, MD
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