Animal Welfare Professionals

When hosting a no charge adoption event, how far in advance do you promote it? What are the pros and cons of promoting it too soon or too late. Our goal is to empty the shelter and may need to combine it with a plea for fosters too. 

#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms

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Shelley McElravey
Director of Animal Welfare
Langley Animal Protection Society
Langley BC
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Based on what I've seen other organizations do successfully, promoting it about 2–3 weeks in advance seems to strike the best balance. It gives people enough time to plan without letting the excitement die out.

If you promote too early, the risk is that people see it, think "I'll go when it gets closer," and then forget. The benefit, though, is more time to highlight your pets and-since our goal is to empty the shelter-more time to make a strong foster plea.

Promoting too late can create urgency and energy, but it also limits your reach and makes it harder to line up fosters or volunteers.

Since your goal is to clear the shelter, one idea could be:

• Start with a foster push first ("Help us prepare for a major adoption event").

• Then follow with the no-fee event announcement about 10–14 days out.

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Julie Beatty
Grants Coordinator
Ziva Dog Rescue
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Thanks Julie for your reply. I like the timeline that you shared!

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Shelley McElravey
Director of Animal Welfare
Langley Animal Protection Society
Langley BC
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-24-2025 05:09 PM
From: Julie Beatty
Subject: No charge adoption events

Based on what I've seen other organizations do successfully, promoting it about 2–3 weeks in advance seems to strike the best balance. It gives people enough time to plan without letting the excitement die out.

If you promote too early, the risk is that people see it, think "I'll go when it gets closer," and then forget. The benefit, though, is more time to highlight your pets and-since our goal is to empty the shelter-more time to make a strong foster plea.

Promoting too late can create urgency and energy, but it also limits your reach and makes it harder to line up fosters or volunteers.

Since your goal is to clear the shelter, one idea could be:

• Start with a foster push first ("Help us prepare for a major adoption event").

• Then follow with the no-fee event announcement about 10–14 days out.

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Julie Beatty
Grants Coordinator
Ziva Dog Rescue
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We just did three no-fee events. They were our first and we had to experiment with the promotional timing. The first one we promoted it only a few days in advance, worrying that we would see a decrease in adoptions beforehand if we promoted to early. Unfortunately, it seemed we promoted too late and didn't really reach as many people as we would have hoped, ending up with a normal number of weekend adoptions for us. The second one we promoted sooner, two weeks ahead of time, however as that one was on a Monday & Tuesday instead of a weekend, we didn't really see a big turnout. The third one was another weekend event and we promoted that two weeks ahead of time as well. That one saw increased adoption numbers and we didn't really see a decrease in adoptions beforehand, either.

If we were to do it again, I'd likely go for promoting 2-3 weeks ahead of time as Julie said. That seems like the "sweet spot" in our albeit limited experience.

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Sam Maurice
Humane Society of Jefferson County
Jefferson WI
https://hsjc-wis.com
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Thanks for your reply Sam, I love that you shared your experiences and what worked and what issues came up. Very helpful!

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Shelley McElravey
Director of Animal Welfare
Langley Animal Protection Society
Langley BC
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-25-2025 10:18 AM
From: Samantha Maurice
Subject: No charge adoption events

We just did three no-fee events. They were our first and we had to experiment with the promotional timing. The first one we promoted it only a few days in advance, worrying that we would see a decrease in adoptions beforehand if we promoted to early. Unfortunately, it seemed we promoted too late and didn't really reach as many people as we would have hoped, ending up with a normal number of weekend adoptions for us. The second one we promoted sooner, two weeks ahead of time, however as that one was on a Monday & Tuesday instead of a weekend, we didn't really see a big turnout. The third one was another weekend event and we promoted that two weeks ahead of time as well. That one saw increased adoption numbers and we didn't really see a decrease in adoptions beforehand, either.

If we were to do it again, I'd likely go for promoting 2-3 weeks ahead of time as Julie said. That seems like the "sweet spot" in our albeit limited experience.

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Sam Maurice
Humane Society of Jefferson County
Jefferson WI
https://hsjc-wis.com
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I think it's possible it is region or area dependent. For us we really cannot post but for maybe the week before. If we mention it on social media, and we are in Northeast Tennessee, I kid you not people will start going to the shelter now thinking the option ( for whatever it is we're posting about) is NOW.

What we started doing is if we have a post like that will simply say something vague like look for it later this month, for example. Without any dates and then we'll put in the actual dates. 

I don't know if this helped at all though I just wanted to share.

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Susan Fisher
Secretary/social media
Friends of Elizabethton Carter County Animal Shelt
TN
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Thanks for your reply Susan. I like the idea of a teaser to peek interest and then the reveal closer to the date of the event.

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Shelley McElravey
Director of Animal Welfare
Langley Animal Protection Society
Langley BC
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-26-2025 07:35 AM
From: Susan Fisher
Subject: No charge adoption events

I think it's possible it is region or area dependent. For us we really cannot post but for maybe the week before. If we mention it on social media, and we are in Northeast Tennessee, I kid you not people will start going to the shelter now thinking the option ( for whatever it is we're posting about) is NOW.

What we started doing is if we have a post like that will simply say something vague like look for it later this month, for example. Without any dates and then we'll put in the actual dates. 

I don't know if this helped at all though I just wanted to share.

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Susan Fisher
Secretary/social media
Friends of Elizabethton Carter County Animal Shelt
TN
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Hi Shelley,

For us it depends on the length of the promotion! For example, if we are doing a waived fee weekend or single-day event, we will promote 7-10 in advance, so as not to detract from adoptions the previous week, and give the public time to plan to attend. The urgency of the shorter window still tends to bring out a lot of adopters. If we are waiving fees on certain animals for a longer period, say, a month, we will announce the waived fee promotion the week of (we're open for adoptions Wed-Sun and will typically announce on a Monday or Tuesday) - usually adoptions numbers are at their strongest the following week and the weeks that follow that, so it seems like it takes about a week for word to spread.

Hope that helps!

Regan Crisp

Communications Specialist

East Bay SPCA

Oakland, California

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Regan Crisp
Communications Specialist
East Bay SPCA
CA
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