Herding Cats & Saving Lives with Million Cat Challenge

Day 1

Client shows up with a logo, a passion and a goal for saving 1 Million + Cat Lives over a 5 year period through the socialization of 5 Key Initiatives (some of which are seen as controversial). The business owners are geographically divided (one on the east coast and one on the west coast), both with other full-time jobs. There is no brick and mortar location, no online presence, no offline presence … a startup in the truest sense.

The Challenge:

Create a brand who’s primary existence is online
Gain awareness for the brand among all US and Canadian Animal Shelters (public and private)
Convert all the Animal Shelters online through a registration process and migrate manual data collected
Provide a private portal / dashboard interface for securely collecting Shelter data
Enable Secure Online Data Management (user data, shelter data, animal data, etc.) for the business owners, consultants and employees
Warehouse the data collected
Create reporting interfaces that visualize key data metrics, including a complex calculation for a rolling lives saved counter
Provide custom exports for data portability
Deliver valuable content and tools to the shelters to help implement the 5 Key Lifesaving strategies
Retain engagement levels throughout the year and retrieve new data annually

The Strategy:

Create an online presence and self-service portal for data collection and back-end reporting. Employ cost-conscious tactics for off-line program awareness, recruitment and engagement. Program components included:

Website, registration and self-service data entry portal, and back-end admin interface for data management and reporting
Exhibiting materials (booth, leave behind postcard)
Participant engagement pieces (certificates, window clings, online badges)
Awareness and fund development (T-shirts, 2-year progress report)
Engagement and celebration (milestone videos and blog site)

The Results:

Adoption of the 5 Key life-saving initiatives is spreading across North America
1,500 high-volume US and Canadian shelters are actively participating
1 year after launch, 250,000 lives saved
2 years after launch 500,000 lives saved
4 years after launch, the goal of saving 1 million lives was shattered, saving 1,148,129 lives
US Territories join The Million Cat Challenge in 2018
As of April 20, 2019 the current count of lives saved is approaching 2 million