Hi Jennifer!
Thank you for coming to the presentations! I'm thinking you're looking for ways to engage businesses and other groups in recruiting fosters, which I have a few resources on. Because it's kind of related, I'll also include some resources on businesses and groups who are fostering themselves. One thing I hear pretty consistently from foster coordinators is that partnering with local universities has been particularly successful. Several have commented that college students are some of their best behavior fosters, since they often don't have pets of their own and can be pretty open-minded about the pets they care for. I hope these are helpful:
This flier from Stray Hearts that's aimed at recruiting business fosters
Video about how Fredericksburg SPCA works with business and government partners to market their field trip program (3 min.)
Video about how Louisville Metro Animal Services works with local police to take dogs out on field trips
Asheville Humane Society's business foster program
This example of prompting fosters to recruit via word of mouth, from Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation
This quote from Lisa Waugh, cofounder of Ruck County Pets Alive, about their library foster program:
We have been very successful with our Library Cat program. One of our volunteers who handled data entry on ShelterLuv & Petfinder is an employee at the library. She brought it up with the other employees. I think it is key that there is a team of multiple people on board with it.
We place an adoptable friendly cat with them and they do marketing on social media tagging us as well as talking about the cat to patrons who come in.
We share their social media about that particular cat.
I am attaching several pics but they have many posts & videos if you want to look at their page for McMillan Memorial Library.
One of their past fosters is a permanent resident at the library because they loved him so much. He loves other cats so he is really good for cat testing with the fosters who come in.
This is just one avenue of cat placement for us. We also do our local Petsense store for adoptable house cats, online marketing of patio cats & barn cats and online applications for feral cat placement at farms or acreage outside of town.
Since we began Rusk County Pets Alive in Aug 2018 we have placed over 800 cats from our local shelter, Henderson TX Animal Center.
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Kelly Duer
Maddie's Fund
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-26-2022 08:20 PM
From: Jennifer Salan
Subject: Request: New Foster Recruitment Resources
Hello, I'm still inspired by my attendance at the Best Friends National Conference earlier this month. As a foster, and someone who is passionate about the idea of community-supported sheltering, I attended some of the presentations by @Kelly Duer and learned a lot. The recent thread on Fosters marketing their foster pets for adoption was very helpful. I'm wondering if anyone has a similar list of tips, suggestions, or guidelines for recruiting completely new fosters to a program. Specifically, I'm interested in any ideas for reaching out to larger employers or if anyone has experience doing this. The same for faith groups. I am thinking it's best to build a relationship with one person who's already connected, ie Inreach but look forward to hearing about your experiences and any resources you may be able to share.
#FosterPrograms
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Jennifer Salan
volunteer
AWLA
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