Top 5 Realities Every Shelter Leader Should Be Ready For

Leading an animal shelter is challenging, and most people don't walk into the role knowing what all the challenges are or how to address them. I certainly didn’t.

But in my experience leading municipal animal shelters — and working with my team, community, and local elected officials to achieve no-kill — I’ve learned some universal principles that can help. They are mainly centered around key relationships you need to develop, and the critical information and knowledge you can use to make these relationships most impactful.

In a way it comes down to this: Whether your shelter is no-kill or you are embarking on the first steps of a steep climb, you will never get to the summit alone — and you don’t have to.  

Get to know your local decision-makers and elected officials and invite them to get to know you. These are the people who will approve your budget, and who will help you tackle ordinance changes. These relationships are critical.

Not everyone is singularly motivated by lifesaving the way you are. People in your local government likely have differing priorities. It’s important that you understand what matters to them, so you can advocate most effectively — and it’s important they understand what is involved with lifesaving in your community.  

Don’t be intimidated. There are simple ways you can build these bridges. For example, invite your commissioners, city council members, or mayor to take a tour of your shelter and invite them to shelter events. Take every opportunity to speak at city meetings to celebrate your wins and show gratitude and appreciation to any and all government colleagues when the opportunity arises. 

You need to tell your shelter’s story, or others will. It is vital for your continued success that you build and maintain relationships with the media.  

This means helping your media contacts whenever you have the opportunity and reaching out to the media regularly with updates about your organization. The first time they hear from you should NOT be when something has gone wrong.

Make it as easy as possible to work with you and your shelter, and you will become the go-to for the journalists in your community for all animal stories. 

The only guarantees in life are death and taxes — AND the fact that you will never make everyone happy. As a shelter leader, you ultimately have only two choices: Become no-kill and be criticized, or maintain the status quo of killing savable animals and be criticized anyway.

One of the many benefits of pursuing no-kill is the clarity and objectivity it provides for shelter leaders in making difficult decisions. In a business, your bottom line is profit. In an animal shelter, your bottom line is saving lives. Do not let critics distract you from what matters the most.  

Remove every barrier standing in the way of the community getting involved to help — you can find ideas in Best Friends' Bring Love Home Challenge materials. Eliminate restrictive operating hours and adoption barriers. Develop your foster program and create more volunteer opportunities.  

Most importantly, operate with complete transparency. Open your doors and invite the community to partner with you and your team for sustainable lifesaving.  

Ultimately, if an animal loses their life for lack of space — even at a shelter that is progressive, following nationally recognized best practices, transparent, and consistent — the responsibility doesn’t sit with one organization alone. It’s a reflection of how much support exists across the entire community.  

If you have made your shelter easy to partner and participate with, and you have conducted your operation with complete transparency and a sense of urgency, you’re not just doing everything you can — you’re creating the conditions for your whole community to do the same.  

Effective messaging and social media strategies are important parts of getting your community on board with lifesaving, too.  

You’ve built the relationships with the government and media. Now it’s time to make your case for the budget you need.  

In the same way that the public cannot help you save lives if you are not timely and consistent with your communication, your local decision-makers cannot advocate for your budget if you cannot articulate your needs.

You need to know your budget well enough to speak about it with confidence in different settings to different audiences. For example, you can create talking points and fact sheets that you can update periodically throughout the fiscal year. If your organization has any animal services contracts, know them inside and out. Keep track of key performance metrics (call response time, intake, outcomes, etc.) and compare them with previous budget cycles. Be prepared for impromptu elevator pitches as well as public town hall meetings.

Need help gathering and analyzing your organization’s data? Set up a free Shelter Pet Data Alliance account, and easily navigate through monthly and yearly comparisons of your intake and outcome data, see local and national trends, and leverage analyzed data in your daily decision-making and advocacy. Best Friends Network Partners have access to a data analyst when they use SPDA.

Running a successful shelter requires an ability to adapt to unfavorable circumstances. Effective shelter leaders are always mindful of kennel space, intake, outcomes, finances, staffing levels, and population health.

You also need to know the legal environment you are working in — what is required, forbidden, and allowed under your local ordinances and state laws. Know the boundaries and leverage the relationships you’ve built with lawmakers to push them when needed.

Come prepared with solutions when starting conversations with decision-makers. Use data, and examples from similar jurisdictions or organizations to offer your leaders an easy win.  

And we’re here to help, too. You can reach out through your regional team to ask for assistance on your ordinances, or put in a direct request for a free 1:1 coaching session with the Best Friends Advocacy team.