Social Media Best Practices For Animal Rescue

Whether raising money or finding forever homes for fosters, I see 1 problem that Animal rescues need help with.  They need help find people that are different than the people they already know.  They need to expand into the realm of unknown influencers of the web.  They need to be always cultivating the new contacts.  But what is the system?

Here are 17 ways to get past just friends and family. 17 Ways Marketers can Leverage Facebook Graph Search   Now the goal here is to find people you do not know and target their interests.  So use the search bar like below:

With this type of search you can type anything in the search bar, geographic locations plus some interests tied to your rescue … or needing fosters for certain breeds… Get creative, reach new people.  You can take the people you find and put them in a group.  Then when you are ready to target your posts using ads on Facebook take a look at this reference Facebook Organic Post Targeting.  There are 7 free tools that you can use to help keep your posts take flight free-facebook-tools-marketers-should-consider. 

Now finding twitter people that are not on your radar is just the same.  Use the search bar and put in the places or terms your are looking for just like with Facebook.  Remember you have already found the people you know will adopt or donate, now you need to pass on the next level — People you do not know.  It just doesn’t “happen”  you have to work at it.  Here is a great article of some great ideas that can help Improve your twitter marketing results.

This search and building lists takes work.  But when you have a crisis, or are on a donation campaign, your lists will be ready to go.

Crowdfunding and Crisis Communication

Can your rescue take a crisis and turn it into a fundraising opportunity?
Yes it can, but it takes some strategic planning.  Your goal is to present your crisis to more people than just your friends and family.  This is harder than it sounds.  Try using the steps below.

1. Monitor the conversation when a crisis hits.  Can you control the conversation when a crisis hits?  Yes you can.  The goal is to stay ahead of the conversation.  Below is a system that does just that. 

For more information on these 4 steps, visit http://wearesocial.net

2.  Control the conversation.  Once you have an information tracking system in place, you need to control the information and how you present your side of the story.  This resource will help you do just that.  The 5 Step Guide To Using Social Media in Crisis Management

3.  Use the information in your crowdfunding efforts.  Now for the big question, can you take this information and use it your crowdfunding efforts?  Yes you can.  These are the organizational numbers and communication backbone to get your crowdfunding efforts past your family and friends.  The Future of Fundraising explains how fundraising is changing with the social media times.  There are many fundraising sites that can get the job done as you can see in e-fundraising-methods.  However what I see most for Animal Rescue and Crisis for Animal Causes is GoFundMe.  Here are 11 steps to help you set up the perfect Crowdsourcing campaign.

4.  Get the information past the friends and family layer.  But what do you do when you have no more people to send out your great campaign to?  You use some great social media tools to find your next layer of people.  First Facebook has some great ways to segment who your posts go to.  This is very handy when finding new people. Grow Your Facebook Fans Without a Budget is an excellent way to find people to get past just friends and family for Crowdfunding during a crisis.  Facebook Targeted Posts is another perfect resource.

But let’s not cut out Twitter.  Improve Your Twitter Marketing Results shows you how to segment who gets a new twitter post from you.  But there is more, Hashtagify.me can show you additional influencers that may add you GoFundMe campaign to their Twitter feed.  Due to their influence they may actually swing you a few dollars.

So to get past the friends and family line in a GoFundMe crisis, try the steps above.  Use Social Media Crisis Communication and Seek out new levels of people to send your fundraising campaign too.

 

 

 

Animal Rescues Need Market Influencers When They Use Social Media Marketing

What Defines an Influencer for Your Animal Rescue? Context, Reach, and Actionability. Here is an article on those concepts The Definitive Guide to Influencer Targeting

Let me explain this in the language of Pet Rescue world. An influencer is someone who can talk about a Pet Rescue, any Pet Rescue, to their social media friends and make an impression. This impression is strong enough for those friends to do something. And the friends are large enough in number to matter. This could mean donation dollars increase substantially, or adoption numbers triple, or volunteer hours are always staffed, or petitions are always signed.

Now don’t you want to find these people? Here’s how:

Make a list of all of the rescue organizations in your area. Remember these are your competitors for funding and available foster families as well as forever homes for animals in your rescue.

You want to start building a stealthy looking database. So think of building worksheets. Here is what a typical worksheet should look like:

My guess is you just became overwhelmed. And you’re right… this spy work is not for the faint of heart. It is time consuming. You are starting at the main rescue page and following frequent posters back to their pages.

So why do you want to do this?

These people are powerful players in your Animal Rescue community. They have people. People have money, homes or time. They go to events. They sign petitions. They get people to do things that they normally would not do on their own.

Why does this matter for funding an Animal Rescue?

Not everything can funded through grants. Sometimes you have to collect money directly from people. When you are in a situation that requires fast action, it is good to have this leg work done. You need to have your local movers and shakers ready to run circles in their social circles for your cause. Once you find these Animal Rescue Influencers, start posting on their Social Media pages. Get to know them virtually. Make positive posts to what they are saying, don’t try to “selling them your cause” right off the bat. This is a long term courtship. Use the information from your worksheets to build a strategy to capture their attention.

Now when you have conquered your local social media network and you are ready to cast a wider net, here is a way to find a Social Media Celebrity to champion your Animal Rescue. Take a look at this handy article for ideas. Influencer Marketing

Here is how one system that could help you find donations in a pinch.  Go to hashtagify.me and search for hashtags related to certain causes close to your heart. Look for the top influencers for that hashtag. Here is an example. These are the 6 top posters to the hashtag AnimalRescues.  In doing so you just found people who you might post to that might respond to a funding request. Make posts to them, be the virtual friend, What do you have to lose?

You can also use the Geographical Facebook searches using the resources from the Can Animal Rescues Use a Social Media Strategy Effectively? to find people with similar interests to make your appeals to as well.

Can Animal Rescues Use a Social Media Strategy Effectively?

Many animal rescues use Facebook, but do they have a strategy when they do? Or do they just post their current animals and fundraisers?

Believe or not the most successful animal rescue groups have a strategy to get the most out of their Social Media platform.

Let’s examine a how an animal rescue can build a great social media strategy.

First part of an effective strategy is having a specific reason for being. Many pet rescues are breed specific, like border collie rescues, or golden retriever rescues, but there are other social media platforms to build an animal rescue around.   For example, Humbolt Paws Cause out of Humbolt County California has a very successful lost pet Facebook following.   Humbolt Paws Cause is built on providing a service, a very distinct service and they do not deviate from it.  When the community finds or loses a pet, they know where to go.

Another platform for a social media strategy is age.  Many groups only rescue senior animals.  This allows people who are looking only for older dogs to the right sites

And supporting a cause, like animal testing  is yet another platform.Maybe owning another animal is not in future for some people.  However supporting causes can be.

These platforms set the stage for the second part of the strategy, defining the target market of the audience.

Just what does that do?

Looking at how the target audience talks about stuff and what keywords interests them is important. If you use the keywords online and present information that interests them, you come up in their search when they search for animals. Here are 2 resources that can help you with targeting and keywords. Using Google AdWords for Blogging and Nielsen’s lifestyle segmentation systems.

The third part of the strategy is the hardest for animal rescues, finding Influencers and Competition. While the competition part is easy, every rescue is a competitor, just how do you know who influences the decisions of the people within group? Is there a strategy behind this part of the strategy?    Yes!!

For big public causes there can be complicated systems for this. Check out this article: 10 Steps to Finding the Influencers in Your Market.

But let’s face it, if you are a local rescue, you are looking for local people making local decisions. This can be achieved by using the Facebook search tool featured in the following articles. 17 Ways Marketers Can Leverage Facebook Graph Search and How to Use Facebook Graph Search to Improve Your Marketing

The goal is to search by geographical location. Once animal rescue competitors have been found (and my guess is you already know who they are), you examine who is posting on their pages. Look then look for common posters. These can be your influencers. The influencers can also be the people who are always donating to several rescues, or organizing community events.

Regardless of how you find your influencers, you analyze how they use social media. Do they tweet? How many times a day? Do they only use Facebook? What types of posts to they respond to? Do they have a blog? What is on Instagram?

You get the idea.

This brings us to the fourth part of the strategy, aligning your strategy with the influencer’s strategy.

Your goal should be to build a Social Media Marketing Strategy that resembles what the influencer(s) is/are doing. Right down to the time of day and place that they do their posting …

Why???

Because they are successful in shaping the opinion of who is getting funding and getting animals adopted.

Now that you have the strategy basics in hand it is time to get started building. Whether you are rebuilding your strategy or creating a strategy from scratch, take some advice from the Humane Society. They have done some great research on the best Social Media Strategies in their article Putting Your Best Facebook Forward Here is a recap:

Keep Everything Positive – Every animal needs the most positive representation as possible. Make sure you have happy pictures showing how the animal interacts with their environment.

Current Information Is Important – As the animal progresses in the rescue home, they need more current pictures. Tell how their days are progressing, have they taken a walk or played with a house mate?

Catch More Flies With Honey – Do not post the “urgent” “on death row” or “ _ days to live” because hysterical posts attract hysterical people. There are people who cannot say no, who end up ultimately hoarding animals. These types of posts get a “following” and it turns off true family adopters.

Simple and Sweet — Post important information that allows the pet to be tracked through multiple shares. Don’t neglect that picture—images are more likely to get shared.

Taking The Mystery Out of Where to Find Rescue Grant Information

Your animal rescue is going to love the grant ideas you have found. It’s time to fill out the applications, and keep organized for upcoming years.

The First Steps to Finding Rescue Grants has a great system to get you organized to save strays for years to come. 

If you are following that system, you know it is time to tackle the 990 information for columns E, F, and G. 

The 990 is a tax form that tax exempt organizations use.  

So just what is a 990 and what can it do for you?

It holds all sorts of great information for pet rescues applying for grants.  This is where you can get individual names and phone numbers to call if you have questions about the grant … or if you want to contact them for other types of support.  This phone number is located right on the first page.

The list of people that you could call is in part V-A

Keeping this information in a spreadsheet can get you organized for other applications down the road.

But what is column E titled Grant Award Amount all about?  If you think you find that information on the grant application link, you would 1/2 right.   But on the grant application link the grant amount is what they “could” award, or “how much they have” to award.  The 900 lists what they “do” award.

Here is a picture of actual 900 information.  This grant did not award anything over $3000.  So a best practice is not to ask for anything more than that.

You stand a better chance of winning a grant award if you follow this system.

This valuable information is included either as an attachment or on schedule O.  In looking at the full section you can also see if the animal grant is centered around giving money to just 1 type of group, or 1 geographic place.  That might help you weed out applying for grants that you may never be awarded.    So click on this link 900 information, and jump into a 900. 

Make sure you have both selected when you search.  It will make your life a bit easier.

Create a spreadsheet to keep you organized for this year and for next year too!! If you need a refresher on finding grants, visit The First Steps to Finding Rescue Grants.

Foster Success

Here is cat tale that is an excellent story of how dedicated an animal foster can be: Foster Success.  So many animals need to be rescued.

And so many of the lucky rescues need medical care.

There are success stories just waiting to happen all over the United States.  If your house is already full, consider stopping by a local rescue event and donating a few dollars.  Their lives are worth every cent.  Animal rescue organizations can turn a few dollars into amazing things.

Please adopt your next dog.

Fellow Blogger Learning from Dogs This is an incredible point of view.  Our pets really are an extension of ourselves … This blog article from Learning from Dogs shows how far many pet families have come.

Continuing the message of that special bond between us humans and our dogs.  Read Please adopt your next dog. It will uplift your heart.  This is why so many rescue organizations do what they do… To continue the bond between humans and animals.

Our animals let us show our humanity.  Lets show off our greatness… Lets adopt …

The First Steps to Finding Rescue Grants

Finding funding for animal rescues is a process. Now that you are financial organized you are ready to look for grant funding. But if you do not have your direct and indirect cost spreadsheet in order, check back to the article Getting a Rescue Financially Grant Ready.

Your goal is to have direct costs and indirect costs in your mind, as well as any trends that you found as you were putting that spreadsheet together. Also be thinking of new programs that you may want to start. You need a list of needs and normal operating costs fresh in your mind. Good grant writing basics calls for having your costs front and center when you get started.

Now it is time to get your grant application system in place. This requires a whole organizational process in itself. Finding animal grants is fairly easy. But finding the right grants for your cause is a bit more challenging. Getting this system down helps take the stress out of filling out grant applications. So let’s get started. The first part of your system is to create an excel spreadsheet with the headings as you see below.

So where to you actually find these grants? Here is a grant writing tip, these links are a great place to start: Grants4.com, Grants for Nonprofits : Animal Welfare, Red Rover Grants for Organizations, Grant Gopher, Helping a Cause 4 Paws.

The second step is filling out this spreadsheet with information from the grant links. This step is time consuming and at times frustrating. Be prepared. You are going to complete columns A through D and it’s time to weed out which animal grants do not apply to your group. You will get to the remaining columns later.

Open up each grant on the lists. As you read through them you are looking for grant goals that match your rescue’s goals. But is more than just looking for the grants that match the breed that you support. You are looking to match up those trends that you have going on too. For example, do you have a growing elderly animal population? Or are you supporting veterinary bills for injured animals? In addition, you are looking for funds to start those new programs within your rescue. For instance, do you need special equipment or a new building to start a new program? Or are you looking to start transporting rescued animals to other states in hopes of getting them into no kill shelters? All of these questions represent different types of grants.

As you find rescue grants that match your needs, fill in columns A through D. Columns E through G are filled out using the information on the organization’s 990. (Link to the 990s We will discuss how to find the information for columns E, F, and G in the next article)

After you have finished with lists in the links, the next place to find grants is to google … Yes, Google. In the search bar type your state’s name and Animal Grants (e.g.  Alabama Animal Grants) then hit search. Repeat the same process of reading and filling out the spreadsheet. Once you get A though D completed, you will see your game plan take shape. You can organize your grant writing time by the application submission dates. And the best part … you are organized for upcoming years too.

Getting a Rescue Financially Grant Ready

Many times when we think of animal rescues, we think of the passion that they have for their cause. We see their exceptional effort that they show to save animals. And when they ask for funding, we see them highlight the success stories with pictures, promoting the impact for everyone to see. But what we fail to recognize is that it comes down to it, animal rescues have a business side too. These groups are leveraging every asset to save animals. Many of these groups have no formal training on how operate like a business. They rely on their passion to bring in donations and figure out how to keep the books on the fly.

This makes applying for grants a dramatic process. So just how does a group get organized?

The first thing to do is to know the direct costs and indirect costs of operating. When researching this information on the web, you will find many generic articles Grants and Guidelines, Indirect Costs: A Guide for Foundations and Nonprofit Organizations.

However many grants will only fund direct costs. So what is the difference?  And how do rescue organizations apply this information?  Look below and see.

Direct cost are items that can be traced directly to an animal receiving the care within the program, like a veterinary bill or a special transport expense. These types of bills can have an animal’s name on it.

Indirect cost by definition cannot be broken down far enough to put an animals name on it. This would include advertising costs, administrative costs, and bills that are associated with fundraisers.

The allocating of costs is a sorting process. This sounds simple, but let’s dig a little deeper. If you track expenses over time, you build a story that you can tell in numbers. You can state over time that your reach and impact have increased. Or you can tell if you have an animal that needs to have their story told because a large vet bill. So, how you sort your expenses can also help tell your story.

But how does that look? Sort the veterinarian bills by animal type. Cats and dogs, can be sent to different grants. And let’s not forget about if you pay for vet care for animals that are in need, but that are not enrolled in your rescue program. That could be a different grant all together… Each sorting category can be a different grant, or a different statement of impact within one grant. Take a look at the spreadsheet below for ideas. Once you adopt this sorting system, you can write grants with ease. And when you are awarded one, you can fill out your reports of funding use afterward quickly.

So let’s save the drama for the storyline. Show your passion, and have the numbers to back it up. Good grant writing is about showing need and impact. With solid a solid accounting system on the front end, you can do both.