Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi: We are a non-profit, no-kill dog shelter in rural Mississippi and planning for setting up a public education/resource booth (as a non-profit) at 2 small local art festivals. We plan to offer flyers on basic dog care tips, benefits of dog training, local reduced-cost spay/neuter options,  a small photo gallery of dogs at the shelter, and as a means to draw people in (especially youngsters), a coloring contest using educational dog coloring sheets (with a gift card prize for slushies). We would love some ideas that have worked for your organization on public education outreach at festivals. (Following festival guidelines, as a non-profit there, we cannot sell anything.) I am hoping it will rain ideas as we plan for these events and for these communities desperately needing resources/education for their dogs. Suggestions?  Thanks in advance!  C. Howle

Hi Cynthia,  I am a new member and love your question, as I'm very interested in the public education space as well, and I think the community needs to be part of the solution to animal welfare. My company recently interviewed Matt Pepper at MI Humane and his take on this was so inspiring.

I am very interested in what other people have to answer you, and want to add my question on top of it: Do you see value in adding a digital component?

I'm working on developing free email course to provide resources directly to people's inboxes. My first one is for adopters with post-adoption resources for dogs (specifically because I adopted a new dog in January and he's turned out to be a bit of a troublemaker lol and has inspired me to try to pass on what I've learned to others). I'm hoping to be able to provide it to shelters that may not have the bandwidth to develop their own post-adoption resources, i.e. post-op reminders, training tips for common behavior problems, first aid, etc. 

With digital resources, people can either provide an email address or scan a QR code to sign up for a newsletter list where they will get access to all that information or have it sent directly to their inbox in consumable bites. 

As a fan of email marketing, I think you should definitely at least capture some email addresses at the festival for any great ideas you have after the fact as well!

Best regards,
-Cait

Hi: We are a non-profit, no-kill dog shelter in rural Mississippi and planning for setting up a public education/resource booth (as a non-profit) at 2 small local art festivals. We plan to offer flyers on basic dog care tips, benefits of dog training, local reduced-cost spay/neuter options,  a small photo gallery of dogs at the shelter, and as a means to draw people in (especially youngsters), a coloring contest using educational dog coloring sheets (with a gift card prize for slushies). We would love some ideas that have worked for your organization on public education outreach at festivals. (Following festival guidelines, as a non-profit there, we cannot sell anything.) I am hoping it will rain ideas as we plan for these events and for these communities desperately needing resources/education for their dogs. Suggestions?  Thanks in advance!  C. Howle