The Best Friends Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Animal shelters across the country have been in a capacity crisis for the past two years due to rising intakes and adoptions that are simply not keeping pace with the number of animals coming in.

At the 2023 Best Friends National Conference, speakers Tori Fugate and Misty Valenta told the audience during their session that by reframing the perspective to “never let a good crisis go to waste,” they allowed themselves the opportunity to try new and creative marketing that they never thought possible - and they say you can do it too.

This week, we’re sharing a session from this year’s conference titled “Capacity Crisis Marketing.” You’ll hear how Tori at KC Pet Project and Misty at the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter publicized their shelter capacity to their communities while still promoting their pets, programs, and services. You’ll hear unique ways to use different mediums to effectively communicate the current capacity of your shelter and engage your community to get involved. Through effective messaging on social media, email, text programs, and more, you’ll continue to see support from your community, obtain media coverage, and ultimately save lives.

• To watch the video or to check out the slides for this presentation, visit the website for The Best Friends Podcast: https://network.bestfriends.org/proven-strategies/best-friends-podcast/best-friends-podcast-ep-149

After a hiatus, we’re excited for the return of the Best Friends Podcast! 

To catch up on what’s been happening around the country since our last episode, we contacted the Chief Program Officer for Best Friends, Marc Peralta. We discussed what’s happening regarding intake and outcomes in animal shelters and dug into the details around some less-than-helpful news articles that came out over the last few weeks. 

Marc also shares how, when times are tough, he leans on his experiences from the past 17 years in animal welfare.

To access resources from this episode, check out the website: https://network.bestfriends.org/proven-strategies/best-friends-podcast/best-friends-podcast-ep-148

The period to submit proposals to speak at the 2023 Best Friends National Conference is now open! Check out this link for more information on the requirements, timeline, and how to submit: https://bfas.io/NiEM

To get us started for 2023, we take a moment to think about the year ahead. What has happened over the last few weeks and months that can help us plan for what’s coming next?

Do we expect intake to continue rising at the pace it did through 2022? Will adoptions pick up and at least keep pace with intake? What about the impact of other factors within animal welfare and beyond, such as the economy?

The senior director of lifesaving programs for Best Friends, Brent Toellner, looked at the data and trends and shared what he thinks the year ahead may look like in this week’s episode.

For more resources related to this episode, check out the website for The Best Friends Podcast: bestfriends.org/podcast

If we’re going to meet the 2025 goal of ending the killing of pets in animal shelters, we need to redefine the relationship the community has with animal shelters. What is the best way to keep people and pets together and keep animals out of shelters unless they truly need to be there? 

The community supported sheltering model invites community members to play a more prominent role in saving lives. That allows the shelter to focus on the animals who need the most help - those with urgent medical needs or behavioral challenges. For people who think they need to surrender their pet, this new model does away with the “no questions asked” surrender process. People can often keep their pets if we start a conversation and work with them to solve the problems that led to the shelter in the first place. American Pets Alive! is working with organizations across the country to pilot a community-supported sheltering model they call Human Animal Support Services. 

This week we spoke with Kristen Hassen, the Maddie’s® American Pets Alive! Director, who has been part of the team working hard to see this vision of a better future in animal sheltering become a reality.

Strategic planning is a phrase that can strike boredom in the hearts of, well, a lot of us! 

But over the last year, from the ongoing pandemic to the political division and civil unrest, we’ve seen how critical it is for us to react and do what is necessary to continue saving lives. A strategic plan can help you do just that.

This week we look at how one organization has used strategic planning to set clear direction and align everyone in the organization behind the goals and what needs to happen to achieve them. 

It’s hard to imagine animal welfare and sheltering without Maddie’s Fund. From the support of individual shelters and rescue organizations to national campaigns and the vast amount of resources and programs, online courses, and conferences, Maddie's fundamentally changed what we do and how we do it. Mary Ippoliti-Smith has been there since there very beginning and has been directly responsible for much of that impact.

Today, as a member of the Executive Leadership Team, she is responsible for the family foundation’s strategic direction.

We talked to Mary about her storied career and what she sees ahead for the no-kill movement.

As we say goodbye to 2020, we are taking a moment to pause and reflect. While many are saying good riddance to 2020 (justified!), we are also trying to focus on the positive things that have come out of what is possibly the most stressful and challenging year in more than a generation.

When the pandemic took hold, all of us were trying to figure out the best way to navigate through it personally and professionally. At Best Friends, we believed - and we still do - that sharing our experiences and knowledge provides support and inspiration to help us save more lives. We hold that belief now more than ever. We do this through The Best Friends Network - a coalition of thousands of shelters and rescue organizations across the country.

We hoped a podcast would be a positive and useful addition to the already full slate of resources offered through the Network. And the tens of thousands of downloads since we launched 273 days ago has helped us realize that it is.

So here’s to a better 2021, and hopefully, many more episodes to come.

Thank you for being part of this journey with us.

Spoiler Alert!

We want to make sure we don’t ruin Amazon Prime’s new reality show The Pack for you, so if you are planning to watch the series wait to listen to this episode until you’ve seen them all!

Mark LeBlanc and his dog Ace were one of twelve teams competing to win the around the world race that challenged the contestants - both two and four-legged - through a series of different tasks designed to test their skills. The top prize was $500,000, but the contestants also chose a charity that would receive $250,000 if they won. We won’t say who wins, but Mark’s charity was Best Friends!

We talked to Mark about his experience on the show, about his life with Ace, and learned more about his photography and the new podcast he hopes will inspire people to live their best lives.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of our lives, it meant overcoming obstacles to every aspect of our work - including fundraising. The cancelation of in-person events, for example, required quick thinking to ensure the projected revenue from those annual events wasn’t lost.

It’s also been a good reminder of how we must take advantage of every opportunity, and this year’s GivingTuesday is a perfect example. Since its inception in 2012, GivingTuesday has become a worldwide phenomenon inspiring billions of dollars of charitable giving each year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. With our communities in lockdown, effective online engagement and digital fundraising efforts are more important than ever before.

What was the outcome of GivingTuesday this year and amid the economic crisis, are donors stepping up when we need them now more than ever?

Guests:

Amy Starnes, Senior Director of Digital Fundraising, Best Friends Animal Society

Sarah Cano, Community Engagement Coordinator, Humane Society of Harlingen

In 2010 a judge put an injunction in place that prevented the city shelters in Los Angeles from not only performing any trap, neuter, return (TNR) but also barred them from talking about it with the public. The injunction was a result of a lawsuit filed by a group of people who were concerned about the impact community cats were having on wildlife.

Since TNR is the only humane method of effectively reducing community cat populations, the injunction only served to worsen the problem it sought to address. But this week, in a unanimous vote, the L.A. City Council approved a 716-page report that is a big step towards making TNR an official policy of Los Angeles Animal Services.

A lot of work lies ahead, but we should take a moment and celebrate the opportunity that now exists for both the cats - and wildlife - of the City of Los Angeles.