Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello All,

Sorry for the long message, I am a bit lost.  

I am a new-ish member of the Board for a feline only shelter in Denver, CO.  It is my understanding that the Board has had many challenges and turnover in the last 4 or so years, made worse during Covid.  During my tenure so far, we have had several Board members leave and those of us remaining are ineffective and disorganized in several areas such as fundraising.  There's a lot of "we should do x" and then no follow through.   

Adding to this, the cost of living quickly rose considerably in our area.  We are having trouble finding and keeping employees coupled with lack of consistent funding has caused a high turnover of shelter employees which has drawn focus of the Exec. Board Committee towards immediate shelter issues.   We have no grant-writer and currently very little fundraising via Social Media or direct communication with our supporters.  We have no "big" fundraising events like I see many organizations do 1-2 times a year, no large donors or corporate donors.   

I, along with a few other members of the Board, had no previous Board experience and were expecting to participate in Board activities/fundraising but not lead or develop these activities ourselves.  Naively, I thought all of this was established already and had I known what I didn't know, would have asked a lot more questions prior to joining the Board. 

I have organized several smaller but successful fundraisers but lack the experience or time to take on these efforts myself.  Currently, we have lost several Board members and the remaining are left with no organizational plan, experience, guidance or path forward.  

Having said all that, does anyone have any resources or advice on how to reorganize the Board and Strategic Planning from the ground up?  How do organizations find qualified people to join their Board?    I feel like the shelter is in danger of closing if we cannot determine and execute a plan to move forward but don't even know where to start.  

Any assistance is appreciated!

#OrganizationalManagement

Hi there. So sorry that you're going through this. I'm not a board member but I am one of the managers. We also have a hard time keeping staffs as well. We had to use social media a lot to promote for everything. That has been the best help for us. You can look us on Facebook or instagram to get some ideas. It helps a lot that we have a great community helping us as well. 

You can also try open house kinda to show your community what your facility looks likes and what you guys do to help the pets out.  To get your community involved with your facility. 

sorry I'm not much more help.