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Deciding Whether to Launch a 501(c)(3) Support Group Playbook
As the world attempts to return to some sense of normalcy, we're still feeling the impacts of the global pandemic across animal welfare. While there have been positives for the industry, the disruption of our daily lives over the last two years is showing its impact on lifesaving, and it's not all good news.
The Brown County Humane Society (BCHS), an open-admission shelter, has been a shining example of no-kill success for a long time. They first reached the 90% save rate benchmark in 2008. At that time, there were still many naysayers who didn’t even believe no-kill was possible at all, let alone in a community like Brown County.
Each year, a dedicated group of Best Friends staff and volunteers compile a colossal spreadsheet with 611,000 individual cells of data. This comprehensive dataset tracks lifesaving across the country and the latest numbers are in.
Caring for and protecting companion animals involves strong emotions. Understanding how we feel and harnessing our feelings for productive solutions, recognizing and respecting how others feel so that we can bring them along is equally as important as we navigate lifesaving change across the nation.
Since 2017, the partnership between The Rachael Ray Foundation and Best Friends has supported Best Friends Network Partners through millions of dollars in grants to help reduce shelter deaths in communities across the country.
The Best Friends 2021 Lifesaving Dataset showed that over the last year, adoptions did not keep pace with the increase in the number of cats and dogs entering shelters. Unfortunately, that trend has continued into 2022, and with many around the country experiencing the same issues, transports are happening less frequently, adding to the strain on animal shelters.
When saving shelter pets' lives, you can't know what's working or not if you're not tracking your efforts. So in 2016, Best Friends began an ambitious project to create the most comprehensive and accurate dataset tracking the lifesaving efforts happening in shelters across America.