New Data Finding: Weekend & Evening Hours = Higher Adoption Rates

There are only so many hours in a week that a shelter can be open. So which ones are best to maximize adoptions?

Data says: Evenings and weekends!  

It stands to reason that being open for adoptions when more of your community is available would correspond to more adoptions. But now we have the data to demonstrate this isn’t just intuitively right.

New analysis from the Best Friends data team finds that shelters that have a higher percentage of weekend and evening hours also have higher adoption rates.

You can read the full data report here. 

Even we were surprised by how much higher. Shelters where weekend hours make up 40% of overall hours had adoption rates roughly 20% greater than those where weekend hours make up just 20% of overall hours.

The difference when it comes to increasing the percentage of evening hours was more modest but not insignificant. Shelters with 10% evening hours had adoption rates of about 63%, compared to 68% for shelters at the 20% level.

What could a 5- or 20-point boost in adoption rates look like for the pets in your care? For a shelter admitting 1,000 animals annually with an adoption rate of 50%, that’s 50 or 200 more pets going home.

These are percentages of overall hours — not shelters adding on extra hours in total. This means even with limited staff or a fixed budget for staffing, you can try moving hours around instead of finding additional staff or a budget to cover these hours.

The lesson is: Try it! Pilot a shift in the hours you're open for adoptions, to include some evenings and weekends. Then track your data on Shelter Pet Data Alliance and see if more of your pets go into homes.  

Reach out to the regional team to get hands-on support in making this happen!