The panel is being moderated by Ryan Clinton of FixAustin.org (another community that’s been saving 90 percent for several months now), and includes Bonney Brown of the Nevada Humane Society, Reva Laituri of the No Kill Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter in Marquette, Mich., Mitch Schneider of Washoe County Animal Control, Michael Linke, Director of the Royal SPCA in Tasmania, Australia, and Suzane Kogut, the Executive Director of the Charlottesville SPCA, an open admission animal control shelter that is celebrating its fifth year of no-kill.
The panel opens with Mitch Schneider talking about the public-private partnership between animal control and the Nevada Humane Society. He was “against” no-kill, thought it was a divisive term, but when Washoe County decided to go no kill and brought in Bonney Brown, he figured he’d just “do my job and stay out of her way.” But that didn’t last: “She changed our world for the better.”
Bonney points out that Nevada Humane takes ALL Washoe County’s owner surrendered pets.
Mitch: In a transformation in ANY field, you can retrain a third, fire a third, and a third will quit.
Bonney says that’s pretty much what happened at Nevada Humane — only four original staffers left. Says board became receptive after a scandal damaged the shelter’s image in the society.
She says that all team members have to be on board with the mission. Tough decisions are what you’re being paid to make and the animals lives depend on it. You will have to fire people.
Susanne Kogut: Their board also wanted to do something different – thought her ideas were crazy. They told her she couldn’t use the term “no-kill,” and she said that it was her best tool for fundraising and community support. “Good thing I have trouble with authority.” She said it anyway and one day the board started saying it, too.
“Do not hate or make your community mad at you; you absolutely need them to do this.” “Need a passion to save lives and a relentless determination to succeed.”
Once to quit once a month and seriously, 5 or 6 times. “You just gotta push through it and keep going, because you fundamentally know you’re doing the right thing…. because it’s all about the animals.”
Ryan: Reva, you were the president of a board of directors. Didn’t have control of the shelter, but you had a vision. How did you see something many boards of directors don’t? And what’s it like doing this transition from the board.
Reva: Got on board in early 80s until mid-90s. Came back around 10 years later.
We had around 60 percent adoption rate when she left, but when she came back they were killing over 60 percent.
She went to conferences given by big national groups with the shelter director, and realized she got a lot of rhetoric from her, maybe burnout or bad experiences. Adoption procedure was ridiculous. People called them “animal nazis” who would rather kill than adopt. Couldn’t keep volunteers, high turnover of staff. Donations down. Everything was bad.
Then in 2006 got introduced to “Meet Your Match” and the philosophy that you let the adopter take ownership of the process.
Also, more visionaries on board.
Director was always poking a stick in the wheel, would go behind the scenes and do things against new rules, making adoptions harder.
In 2007, another board member read Redemption, and the board started making a lot of changes. The director wouldn’t go along with it, found out director was lying to the board, and in July of 2007, she resigned. She had resigned before and board had always begged her to stay, but this time they said “Thank you.”
In her last six months she did her best to obstruct change (resignation was effective six months later, which she says in retrospect was mistake).
Director left the animal welfare movement.
Ryan: “Which is probably a good thing for animals.”
Ryan asks Michael Linke about the toll of the transition on relationships. Staff of 60, only has 2-3 remaining. “You have to make tough decisions sometimes.”
Discussion of working with union workers — know your laws.
Ryan asked Mitch, what do you do when you have shelter directors who aren’t interested in saving lives/
Mitch: Dealing with someone who is entrenched in old thinking, doesn’t want to change, cause failure. He worked with someone like that who ended up retiring, then the fight was with the people who sided with the old guy. Most of the people changed “kicking and screaming.”
Ryan: But why were YOU reachable, as a self-described former no-kill hater/
Mitch: “No-kill” was always used as a weapon against animal control by humane societies and rescue groups, traditionally. But I didn’t come into animal control as a profession, had a lot of experience as a trainer, saw pet owners differently and wanted to treat them as I’d like to be treated. I believe in doing the right thing for the right reasons. Not to say I’ve never made mistakes, but I’m always trying to do the right thing for the right reason. Gov’t should never stand in the way of no-kill — there’s no logical justification for it.
His love of logic is why he has focused on return to owner. Dog’s better off, owner’s better off, taxpayer’s better off.Around 65 percent return to owner rate for stray dogs. Seventy five percent are back to owner same or or next day.
“We hire staff who love animals but are asked to do the ‘dirty deed’.”
Michael started in animal welfare 2-3 years before “Redemption” came down. People who worked in that industry told him that they were just a “recycling center” and couldn’t worry about the animals they killed, and he said it took him almost no time to realize he didn’t want anything to do with that way of doing things.
Within 8-9 months were rehoming more than 90 percent dogs.
Figured it was ridiculous to kill to create space for another pet, “You have to solve the problem in front of your face first, not just kill them.”
Susanne: Planning needs to be fast, short-term and flexible. Don’t waste time planning for things that might never happen.
Bonney: There’s a lot of power in just doing it and seeing what happens. There’s always more than one good solution. Our challenge was just to think of one of those solutions. As Seth Godin said yesterday, people are looking for a leader. Just stand up and say, now we’re going to do this. You can’t be terribly risk-averse. Show great confidence to your staff and they will rise to the occasion. Doubt and negativity are contagious, but so is a can-do attitude. I think we don’t see more no-kill communities because people are timid, and think “What if this, what if that.”
But Bonney says she does like documentation and setting things up like manuals, because it needs to be able to keep happening without her.
“Create and adjust.” The “create” part is really important. When you’re doing it, you keep adjusting it. It doesn’t have to be perfect right out of the gate.
Susanne: Eliminate “we can’t because” and “it won’t work because.” Focus on solutions, not what won’t work. If you can’t offer a solution, just shut up.
Mitch: Document what you’re doing, and as things work, make them part of your policy and procedures. Leave people who come behind you a road map. Bonney and Mitch aren’t going to live forever.
Ryan: Now, speed-dating questions. No comments, no experiences.
Q to Reva: Why didn’t you accelerate the resignation of your director?
A: We should have.
Q to Bonney: How increase adoptions and foster homes?
A: Customer service, streamlining adoption process, making it friendly. We see lots of adoptions each day, adopters only adopt a few pets in their lifetime. They’re heroes! Make a big deal about it! Let them leave your shelter feeling really good!
Susanne added marketing, don’t make it so hard — true with fosters too. Don’t put up a lot of barriers. The minute someone wants to do it, don’t make a big process out of it. If they walk in the door to foster, send them home with some kittens!
Q: Have any of you made complete career path changes and did any of you take a big step backward to do it?
A: Susanne: Do you mean in how much you make? Absolutely. But it’s about how you define success in your life. I was doing very well financially in the corporate world, but I wanted what I did with my life to have meaning. It was a huge step back financially, but what I have is myself. As hard as it is at the end of the day, I know that I’ve made a difference in animals’ lives.
Q: For Mitch, what is RTO program secret?
A: Ah, you should have gone to my show! Email me mshneider@washoecounty.us. I will send you my white paper.
(Missed a couple of questions when I had a brief computer issue, sorry.)
Q: Best tool to reach out to communities?
Susanne: Cute animals! All the other non-profits hate us.
Reva: Community ownership. People can sponsor part of adoption fee, advertising, vaccination, cat condos — we get the money like nobody’s business. We acknowledge them right on the page. People love that. Our website is a lot of people’s home page.
Q: During first 6 months- 1yr, during staff turnover, how do you find new staff and keep up morale of staff that’s there?
Michael: We were open and honest with existing staff.
Susanne: You are better off with a person who has no knowledge and doesn’t want to sabotage everything than the reverse.
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