Rebecca, this is exactly the kind of thinking the guide is meant to spark, and honestly you are already living it. Paying reclaim fees so the barrier to getting a pet back is not financial is prevention done right, and the fact that it nudged owners toward microchipping on their own is the ripple effect we talk about. Lower one barrier and families start protecting themselves upstream. Pennies for PAWS gets it.
On your questions, and I'll be straight with you because that helps more than a rosy answer. Right now the Pet Help Desk infrastructure runs lean. I am the sole operator at launch, building the systems, with a part-time coordinator helping on outbound calls. So I am not going to pretend I have a big volunteer bench you can copy. What I can tell you is what I have learned recruiting for the non-animal side, because that is the hard part.
The behind-the-scenes roles, data, referrals, follow-up calls, resource research, are the hardest to fill, because most people who love animals want their hands on the animals, not on a spreadsheet. What works is not advertising for a generic volunteer. It is naming the specific skill and the specific problem it solves. A retired bookkeeper, a nurse who is good on the phone with people in crisis, a college student who wants real database experience. When you frame it as this exact task matters this much and here is who is good at it, you pull the person who actually wants that job and stays. The generic ask pulls people who fade.
The other thing is showing the invisible work its impact. A volunteer doing intake data never sees the dog go home. So I close the loop for them, this many families you helped route got kept together this month. People stay when they can see that the unglamorous work moved the needle.
Still building this myself, so I am learning as I go. Happy to compare notes as you grow your own back-office team, since that piece is where most of us are thin.
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Join The Shift To Prevention.
BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
calendy.com/animal-angels
bjadkins@animal-angels.organimal-angelsfoundation.org
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-03-2026 08:14 AM
From: Rebecca Burley
Subject: The Shift to Prevention a Guide - Latest Version
I watched the video replay of the community conversation and downloaded the guide. Many of the prevention ideas resonated and aligned with the mission of Pennies for PAWS. We've formed strong relationships with several rural shelters and have become one of several organizations in our area that assists financially with vet care. We have paid reclaim fees for over a year at one of our local shelters so that if a stray pet does make it all the way to the shelter, the barrier for reunification is not financial. As a result of that barrier lowering, some owners have chosen to get their pet microchipped so that the animal might skip the shelter in the future and be more easily reunited if it strays again.
I'm wondering how many volunteers you currently have running the infrastructure of the Pet Help Desk and how you recruited volunteers to help with the aspects of your organization that do not directly involve interacting with animals.
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Rebecca Burley
Shelter or rescue volunteer
Pennies for People, Animals, Wildlife and Shelters, INC
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-02-2026 01:02 PM
From: Bj Adkins
Subject: The Shift to Prevention a Guide - Latest Version
Hi Laura! Well, thank you for downloading it, and I'm sure you might find an idea or two. If you find an idea or two that I may have missed in the guide, I would love to hear that as well. The guide is a living, breathing document right now. As I learn more through research and talking to the shelters and staff and everything, all that actually gets put into the guide. When I do a new version, I'm going to be trying to send everybody an email and let you know that there is a new version available. Because it is a work in progress, I will be updating the versions. When I do, I'll send everybody an email when a new version is available.
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BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
bjadkins@animal-angels.org
animal-angelsfoundation.org
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-02-2026 09:55 AM
From: Laura Clark
Subject: The Shift to Prevention a Guide - Latest Version
Thank you for sharing this resource. I look forward to reading and learning from it and hopefully finding a few ideas we can implement at our municipal open admission shelter!
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Laura Clark
Colleton County Animal Services
SC
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