Convince leadership to adopt Adopters Welcome

Maybe your supervisor or agency leadership is bringing Adopters Welcome to your organization. Or maybe you’re passionate about removing barriers to adoption and need to bring leadership on board. Start by identifying the decision-makers. They may be your supervisor, executive director, municipal officials overseeing your agency, members of your board or others who need to learn more in order to approve the change.  

You can start by introducing them to the Adopters Welcome philosophy and highlight ways it can help your organization achieve its lifesaving mission. For example, you can draft a proposal explaining the origins and benefits of Adopters Welcome: 

Adopters Welcome provides an approach to adoptions that embraces community members, encouraging them to adopt and helping them and their pets succeed. Based on recent research studies and data, Adopters Welcome helps shelters and rescues feel confident eliminating unnecessary barriers to adoption and embracing new, untapped segments of their community to save more animals’ lives. By reconsidering outdated adoption policies and approaches and embracing a new, welcoming approach to adoptions, Adopters Welcome will help us better fulfill our lifesaving mission. 

But remember, while facts are important, they’re never as effective at changing the hearts and minds as stories that help illustrate why you believe it’s so important to change. Being mindful not to place blame on individual people, think of a recent situation that’s personal to you and your organization that could have had a different outcome had the Adopters Welcome approach been in place.  

Did you recently deny an adoption because you felt the person couldn’t handle a large, energetic dog, only to run across them taking agility classes with the dog they bought at a pet store? Did you receive a holiday card from a woman wanting to share pictures with her beloved kitty whom she adopted only because you bent the rules against adopting to anyone without veterinary references? Or did you decline taking in another happy, healthy dog this week who could have potentially been fostered and adopted by your group if you were actively reaching every segment of your community?  

Tell stories and use them to make your case. A personal story that connects with your audience will be the most effective tool you have to convince them to consider the change.

Next, run some reports from your shelter or rescue’s data. Have adoptions stagnated or decreased over the last three years? After mapping out where your adopters live, can you clearly see sections of your service area that have not adopted? Has length of stay for dogs and cats increased over time?

Last but not least, give decision-makers the Adopters Welcome manual and webinar links to learn more.  

Ideally, they will be as enthusiastic to embrace the change as you are and, if so, head over to the Adopters Welcome DIY action plan and start working! But if they’re still skeptical, don’t give up—use the Adopters Welcome FAQs to answer their questions. Reach out to another local organization using the Adopters Welcome approach and ask them to provide a testimonial and support. Suggest that you be allowed to try Adopters Welcome as a pilot for a limited period of time to show that it can be successful.