Want to make a better connection with your community members? Make sure you're speaking their language (literally!)! During the
Open Arms Challenge, participants made big strides in understanding the demographics of their community members. Many organizations worked to translate their most popular resources into another language commonly used in their community.
Below are a few lessons you can learn from the Open Arms Challengers on supporting your community in a variety of ways and languages.
Start from within: Identify what languages your staff and volunteers speak
Austin Humane Society committed to expanding their reach into their largely Spanish speaking population. They identified adoption team members who spoke Spanish and those adoption counselors received an increase in compensation for this additional skill. "We are excited we now have at least one Spanish-speaking Adoption Counselor during every shift that we are open to the public. This eliminates the communication barrier and creates a more positive experience for our Spanish-language adopters and shelter visitors. We were able to facilitate more adoptions to Spanish-speaking families as a result of our challenge. Having dedicated Spanish-speaking staff during all open hours and implementing a new Spanish-language adoption questionnaire allowed us to focus on relationship building with these adopters, collaborate with them, and facilitate more adoptions. We anticipate that this result will only continue to grow now that we have these options available."
Reach out to local schools & universities to help translate material
Animal Rescue League of Berks County worked with their local Penn State University branch to translate shelter materials into Spanish through their Spanish class.
"The bilingual signage incorporated around our building, the accessible website information, and our bilingual adoption paperwork made it possible for Spanish speakers such as Rafaela to have a smooth adoption experience. Upon arriving at our shelter, she was able to easily check-in online, complete an adoption profile, meet the animals she was interested in, and finally, adopt a dog, all in her native language. She was overjoyed to get to take her new companion home without feeling uncomfortable due to language barriers and can look back on her experience with a positive perspective." - Gen, ARL Adoption Counselor
#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms#CommunityPartnerships*#Diversity,Equity,InclusionandJustice#PetSupportServices*------------------------------
Charlotte Otero
Community Strategist at Maddie's Fund
she/her
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