Completed Community Collaborative Projects

Over the past nine years, Maddie's Fund^® has forged collaborations within a diverse and often competitive animal welfare industry. Our efforts have helped make collaboration between animal control, traditional shelters, adoption guarantee groups and veterinarians the operational model that many individual agencies and communities now aspire to.

No More Homeless Pets in Utah
A statewide coalition consisting of 28 adoption guarantee organizations, 54 animal control agencies, one traditional shelter and 91 private practice veterinarians.

Maddie's Pet Rescue Project in Lodi
A community-wide project consisting of an adoption guarantee organization, the local animal control agency, and eleven out of twelve of the community's private practice veterinary hospitals.

No More Homeless Pets in Utah

Dates: 2000-2005
Funding: $8,501,362

No More Homeless Pets in Utah operated throughout Utah's urban, suburban and rural communities, over 84,900 square miles and in 230 cities. The state's population is 2.5 million.

The No More Homeless Pets in Utah coalition consisted of 28 adoption guarantee organizations, 54 animal control agencies, one traditional shelter and 91 private practice veterinarians. The lead agency was Best Friends Animal Society.

Lifesaving Accomplishments Compared to Goal

• 100% of total adoption goals met
• 94% of adoption goals by adoption guarantee agencies
• 62% of healthy death reduction goal
• 100% of total death reduction goal
• 98% of private practice spay/neuter goal
• 105% of the total spay/neuter goal
• By the conclusion of Year Five, NMHPU had implemented adoption guarantees for healthy shelter animals in twelve counties.

Organizational Development:

Communication, Networking and Technical Systems

• Built and maintained a strong statewide coalition of large and small, rural and urban, adoption guarantee and traditional animal welfare organizations.
• Secured the cooperation of all except one animal control agencies in the state, from individual sheriffs to large well-funded municipal agencies.
• Maintained a productive working relationship with nearly 100 private practice veterinarians and reached out to the state Veterinary Medical Association for the first time.
• Instituted a system for compiling, tracking and analyzing data from every shelter in the state.
• Created statewide marketing and advertising campaigns.
• Established a statewide website to keep partners and the general public up to date on projects, goals and achievements.
• Produced comprehensive yearly analyses of the NMHPU campaign, What Worked, What Didn't, What's Next.

Project Partner Assistance

• Worked with partners to post all groups' animals on the Internet.
• Devised idea exchange meetings to build partner skills and promote best practices.
• Hired program coordinators to counsel partners in areas such as advertising, dispute resolution, and event organizing.

Program development

• Established two Furburbia offsite adoption centers.
• Created high volume Super Adoption events and many smaller adoption events.
• Designed a successful spay/neuter voucher program.
• Replicated West Valley City's exceptional lifesaving achievements in two additional communities.

NMHPU Internal Operations

• Expanded the volunteer base from 250 to 600.
• Increased donations annually, from $60,000 in Year One to $700,000 in Year Five.
• Built fundraising capacity with new events and marketing methods.

Total performance after five years:

• 133,154 total adoptions
• 107,753 spay/neuter surgeries
• 40,310 fewer shelter animal deaths

 

Maddie's^® Pet Rescue Project in Lodi, California

Dates: 2000-2005
Funding: $467,936

Lodi is an agricultural and bedroom community in California's Central Valley. The city's population is 60,000.

The project consisted of lead agency Animal Friends Connection Humane Society (AFCHS), Lodi Animal Services and eleven out of twelve of the community's private practice veterinary hospitals.

Lifesaving Accomplishments Compared to Goal

• Reached 97% of adoption goals.
• 100% of spay/neuter goals.
• In Year Five, the Project achieved an adoption guarantee for all healthy shelter animals!

Organizational Development:

Infrastructure

• The non-sheltered AFCHS grew from being an all-volunteer organization to having a paid Executive Director and a part-time paid assistant.
• Enlarged the volunteer base to more than 200.

Fundraising

• Developed databases for members, volunteers, donors, and fundraising events.
• Initiated a planned giving program and an endowment fund.
• Raised the number of fundraising events from one to five.
• Increased United Way donations 900%, from $1,000 in Year One to $10,000 in 2005.
• Started car donation and cartridge donation programs.

Program Development

• Boosted Internet adoptions by 75%.
• Established a Cat Sanctuary.
• Added an isolation building to quarantine new cats before they enter the Sanctuary.
• More than doubled the number of offsite adoption days, from 24 to 52 per year.
• Inaugurated seven new adoption events.

Communications

• Produced AFCHS's first general information brochure.
• Published a quarterly newsletter.
• Developed cat and dog education booklets for new adopters. The cat booklet has been used as a model by In Defense of Animals and distributed to over 1,0000 organizations nationwide.

Community Collaboration and Outreach

• Worked with several city task forces, including the City of Lodi Animal Services and the City of Stockton Animal Services.
• Assembled the San Joaquin Animal Coalition (SJAC), which consists of multiple agencies in San Joaquin County dedicated to education and spay/neuter.
• Partnered with many affiliated community organizations, including the California Teachers Association, Lodi Education Association, Friends of the Library, Friends of Lodi Lake, Lodi Parks and Recreation, Micke Grove Zoo and Stockton Animal Shelter Friends.
• Mentored high school students through the Animal Friends of Tokay High School Club, which grew to more than 20 members this year, and brought in student volunteers to help at the Cat Sanctuary and at fundraising and special events.
• Garnered several awards from the City of Lodi for helping the local community.

Total performance after five years:

7,364 total adoptions
3,920 spay/neuter surgeries
2,270 fewer shelter animal deaths