How Can I Volunteer At A Local Animal Shelter

Nonprofit animal shelters rely on the kindness of animal-loving volunteers to foster animals, send them, help out with special events, and help with solar day-to-day tasks around the shelter.

Finding and retaining volunteers is seldom piece of cake for any nonprofit, and animal shelters take particular challenges. Volunteers need to do some dirty work; it'southward not all cuddling puppies and playing with kittens.

Finding volunteers for your brute shelter begins with understanding what motivates someone to volunteer and what volition attract volunteers to your organization. When you know that, you can craft a message that will bring people in to help.

Consider the motivations of your volunteers

Lots of people honey animals, but at that place are underlying reasons why a few volunteer to work at a shelter.

Some people seek a more than satisfying experience than their day jobs provide and want to utilise their knowledge to assist your shelter achieve its mission. Some need to meet volunteer requirements for school. Some want to get feel for their resume. And some only desire to meet other people who love animals, particularly if they're retired or unemployed.

Keep these motivations in mind as you create your volunteer programme, and set expectations for volunteers.

Lay the foundation to find volunteers for your animal shelter

To persuade people to volunteer for your animal shelter, yous need a volunteer program with a strong foundation. Create a clear vision with understandable plans for the program. Write a mission statement to define the program'south purpose.

Set aside a defended section of your website where interested people can learn about your volunteer program. Include a paragraph well-nigh the mission of your shelter and the importance of dedicated volunteers. Call the section "Volunteer Opportunities" or something similar to make information technology easy to find.

Next, consider what you need volunteers to do. There are many ways people can help besides walking dogs and entertaining cats. Write job descriptions detailing the skills y'all need from volunteers, such as assisting at adoption events, providing information on animal adoption, and introducing the animals to people who are interested in adopting them.

Go along the motivations of your potential volunteers in heed when writing these job descriptions. For example, high school students may only need a certain number of hours to fulfill a school requirement and will have other commitments. You lot don't want the description to audio like a total-time job, but you want prospective volunteers to know that the hours they volunteer will be meaningful.

Carefully consider the bulletin you use to recruit volunteers. Your shelter's website and social media messaging demand to resonate with potential volunteers.

Craft a strong volunteer recruitment message that conspicuously lays out the types of volunteers you lot seek, then ask yourself if your ideal volunteer would say "aye" after reading the message.

What skills practise you need? Do yous need someone who is savvy at social media or a person who tin conversation upward potential fur-ever parents for that sweetness elderly cat?

Make information technology easy to sign up for volunteer opportunities

Make information technology piece of cake for potential volunteers to sign up and help you. Embed a form on the Volunteer Opportunities folio of your site where they tin can list their contact information and interest areas.

An case to animal rescue volunteer form templates

Calculation an actress stride, such equally requiring them to phone call, creates a barrier for many people. Younger people are often averse to picking up the phone, but a spider web form they tin fill out while they're looking at your opportunities is familiar and volition help yous go volunteers in the door and trained sooner.

Accomplish out to the customs

Once you have the foundation of your volunteer plan in place, begin reaching out to the community with targeted volunteer outreach.

Partner with a professional organization if you need volunteers with specific skills, like marketing. Consult with local high schools and colleges to find out how yous can post volunteer opportunities for students. Agile adult communities, where residents are oft retired but, for one reason or another, can't have pets in their homes, are also a proficient place to recruit.

Consider partnering with local businesses for a pet food or blanket drive for your shelter. It's a win-win for y'all both. The business demonstrates to their customers that they're giving back to the community, and you increment customs awareness of your organisation. And the people who donate to your brute shelter are the ones nearly probable to volunteer at your shelter.

Encourage your volunteers to provide information about volunteer opportunities to the people cooing over the cats and dogs at your events.

Equip these volunteers with a brochure or bill of fare so interested people know where to turn for more than information. Train volunteers so they tin can confidently answer questions nearly the fourth dimension commitment and skills needed at the shelter. People who end to look at the animals and express regret that they can't bring one home may exist ideal volunteers.

In addition, offer small incentives to encourage give-and-take-of-mouth volunteer recruitment. For case, you could run a volunteer bulldoze a couple of months before your next big adoption issue and provide a certificate of gratitude to each volunteer who gets someone to sign up.

The bottom line is, plenty of people are willing to volunteer at your beast shelter. To detect them, you need to conspicuously state what you need in a volunteer and do a little legwork so they can find out about the opportunity.

Some volunteers will be regulars who make clean up the animals' temporary homes, while others will be occasional event volunteers or volition provide foster homes for some of your animals. Make it easy for them all to limited interest in the opportunities yous've posted, and yous'll be that much closer to fulfilling your shelter's mission.

This article is originally published on Mar 23, 2020, and updated on Dec 08, 2021.