Turning Data into Life with Shelter Animals Count

Day 1

A working board of all the leading industry national animal welfare organizations had a name for their organization and a vision of changing the animal welfare industry forever by developing the 1st ever national database of shelter data.

The composition of the board includes ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society, Maddie’s Fund, National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA), Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Petco Foundation, PetSmart Charities, Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA) and leading shelters from all regions in the US.

The Industry Problem

Despite the hard work of shelters and rescues everywhere, it is estimated that millions of dogs and cats enter America’s shelters each year, and more than half of them will never leave. While great progress had been made, accurate and comprehensive nationwide data did not exist and had proved to be the largest industry gap. Shelter Animals Count was formed to change that by creating an effective infrastructure for complete and accurate shelter reporting.

The Challenge

Build a new brand who’s primary existence will be online
Gain consensus, engagement and approvals among a broad and diverse board of directors with other full-time jobs and no staff
Gain awareness for the brand among all US animal shelters and rescues
Convert all of the animal shelters online through a registration process
Provide a private Shelter Portal / Dashboard interface to securely submit 96 data points monthly
Enable Secure Online Data Management (user data, shelter data, animal data, etc.) and custom reporting for the board, consultants and employees
Warehouse the data collected
Create reporting interfaces that visualize key data metrics for the business, shelters and the public

The Strategy

Create a brand, online presence/awareness, robust database, self-service portal constituent data collection, and a board interface for back-end reporting and management. Program components included:
Brand identity development (inclusive of logo, color palette, style guide, collateral)
Website, registration and self-service data entry portal, and back-end admin interface for data management and reporting
Exhibiting materials (booth, graphics, collateral)
Promotional materials for recruitment campaign

The Results (as of April 2019)

Press announcement at launch garnering ½ billion impressions
5500+ Participating Animal Shelters/Rescues
50 US States Participating and 1741 US Counties (58%)
125,000+ Complete Monthly Data Records Collected
Ongoing press coverage in industry publications such as Pet Product News, Animal Sheltering Magazine, the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association and Best Friends Magazine