Our model of animal adoptions is broken. We’re the only industry in the world who have a desire to get people to take a particular action (adopt a pet), who then build our processes around making that action difficult, unpleasant, expensive and sometimes even impossible.
– When local councils want people to recycle their household rubbish, they give them free recycling bins.
– When businesses want their workforces be more healthy, they give their workers gym memberships, flu jabs and healthy living counselling.
– When charity op shops want people to donate goods, they arrange a free pickup service or drop off facilities.
– When the police wanted people to take more rest breaks when driving long distances, they set up freely available tea and coffee stations in known danger spots.
– When environmental charities wanted people to dispose of their old mobile phones and plastic bags responsibly, they set up collection bins in large-chain supermarkets and shopping centres.
– When new mother’s charities want people to have access to good infant parenting information, they set up free-call numbers staffed by registered nurses.
Of course none of these services were free to the charity or government department who was providing them. Some of these services cost literally millions of dollars every year to provide, that had to be recouped through budgets, donations or bequests. Those in charge had to get their tails out there and find the cash, because they understood that they couldn’t charge the public for these services – to do so would greatly reduce their efficiently, effectiveness and uptake.
So why then, when an adopter wants to save a life, do we expect them to pay relatively large adoption fees, in an effort to offset the majority of our expenses? (Along with any other myriad of hurdles to adoption we put in their way).
If your organisation’s mission is to ‘increase the number of pets adopted’ – it can’t simultaneously be – ‘make it hard through several of our policies and processes, for people to adopt pets’.
No wonder the uptake for our service is stunted, and that people fail to take our advice and come to us for their pets.
What we think we’re saying: ‘Adopt don’t shop’
What we’re actually saying: ‘Don’t buy from them, when you could buy from us’
What we should be saying: ‘Want to open your heart and home to a rescue pet? Let us help you find the right one. That’s what we do.’
Best Friends in the US is currently offering free adoptions. But they’re going one step further. If you’re the right home for a pet, they will fly the pet to you free of charge. They don’t just want you to adopt a pet free – they want to pay any costs to make that adoption happen.
The Found Animals group in Los Angeles, offered people $5 cash along with free desexing for each of their as part of their “Cash for Cats” campaign. They simply identified the areas where cats were breeding unchecked, and targeted the desexing to pet owners in those postcodes. They didn’t just want people to desex their cats, they want to pay them to do it.
Fundraising should be covering your organisational expenses. To rely on adoption fees is simply lazy. That’s not to say people can’t give you money when they adopt a pet – but this shouldn’t be a condition of the adoption. If that pet and that owner are a good match, then they should be united together.
If you want people to do something, then make it easy for them to do it. Make it free for them to do it. Make it impossible for them to say no to doing it.
Why don’t we see more success in our animal welfare organisations? Because we make it hard for people to do what we want. Let’s stop doing that.
