4c AAC Space Crisis Information — original pdf

Backup

AAC Data for March Meeting Agenda Item: Reported Space Crisis Part 1: multi-year March data All March data 2017 to 2022 Intakes into AAC March 2017 to 2022 Adoptions March 2017 to March 2022 Pets Returned to Owner March 2017 to March 2022 Transferred to rescue group from March 2017 to March 2022 Pets Euthanized March 2017 to March 2022 Note on data: I pieced together data from reports and from the data portal. The report that used to be provided (see example here from March 2019) made it fairly easy to get older data over a multi-year period. There were a number of gaps where I could not piece together year-over-year data - including volunteer and foster data and kennel census data. As a layperson, it’s entirely possible some of this data is available for each month of each year, but I was unable to locate it. ● First and last day of the month inventory of pets in the shelter and in foster care, broken up by species (It’s hard to know what ‘full’ means year-over-year, without knowing the census. ● Number of volunteers ● Total volunteer hours ● Number of new volunteers onboarded ● Number of volunteer applications ● Number of animals that went to foster care that month - broken up by species/size ● Number of animals that were outcomes (adopted or transferred) from foster that month PART 2: Impact of being closed on Sundays Background: Annual aggregated data from 2014 and 2015 at AAC shows 44% of all adoptions were completed on Saturdays and Sundays, split roughly evenly between the two days. Saturdays and Sundays were by far the highest outcome days. Austin Open Data Portal makes it possible to see the outcomes that happened each day of the week. I reviewed the Sunday outcome data for various dates. Due to the fact that I had to count animal-by-animal, the data is just a sampling but provides enough information for me to draw the following conclusions: 1. AAC is losing the opportunity to outcome 60 to 200 (or more) pets each month by being closed on Sundays. 2. There is no evidence that Sunday has ever been the ‘slowest’ day. In order to understand Sunday activity vs. other days, staff would need to share data on adoption starts (people who come to the shelter on a Sunday to start an adoption process) and all outcomes by type. Data from Austin Animal Center open data portal March 3, 2019: 36 adoption, 11 pets returned to their owners, 2 transfers, and 4 animals euthanized (suffering and rabies risk). TOTAL: 53 animal outcomes March 10, 2019: 29 adoptions, 13 pets returned to owners, 5 pets transferred and 4 pets euthanized. TOTAL: 51 animal outcomes April 4, 2021: 6 adoptions, 5 transfers, 4 euthanasias. TOTAL 15 outcomes June 6, 2021: 16 adoptions, 7 transfers, 1 euthanasia, 5 returns to owner, TOTAL: 29 outcomes October 3, 2021: 15 adoptions, 3 pets returned to owners, two transfers, and 2 pets euthanized. TOTAL: 22 outcomes October 10, 2021: 8 adoptions, 4 pets returned to owners, 2 transfers. TOTAL: 14 outcomes PART 3: Volunteer program Contributing factors to space crisis (notes from reviewing website, social media, data) ● Website says the next orientation data end of April and the beginning of May ● Volunteer hours still appear to be about ½ to ⅔ of what they were pre-pandemic ● Can not find obvious volunteer recruitment news releases or social media ● Could not find targeted volunteer recruitment - volunteers could be helping with adoption and returns-to-owners on Sundays ● Low conversion rate from applying to volunteering (from monthly report) ● Did not see any promotion of specialty volunteer groups except something called ‘cactus cats’ unclear if this is a volunteer group or a category of pet? Foster program ● No big dog foster coordinator ● No dedicated staff for case management/foster placement of long-stay dogs ● No specific big dog foster recruitment ● Minimal marketing of long-stay dogs (no media and two FB posts in March) ● The website indicates people have to complete a foster application and wait for a week to hear back. No same-day foster options listed ● The shelter is still sending a historically low number of pets to foster homes ● No mentions of staff recruitment on social media and no news releases shared to announce staffing needs ● Could not find any news releases for adoption promotions ● No extended adoption hours ● No adoption promotion news releases or media that I could find Only two in March - one on microchip clinic (3/21) and one to announce a performance and waived adoption fee event on April 23. Staffing Adoptions News Releases Social media March FB posts: Adoption posts: 19 total split between cats and dogs (2 for urgent dogs) Lost dog posts: 20 total Pets in foster posts ready for adoption: 8 Shelter full/code red: March 4,7,8,11 Posts recruiting foster caregivers: 1 Posts recruiting volunteers: 1 Posts recruiting staff: no dedicated post but open staffing mentioned in 2 posts Closing early due to ‘weather’: one post NEEDS for social media posts ● Volunteer/foster recruitment ● Pets for adoption, especially long-stay and urgent - more posts and more pets ● How people can help same day ● Calls for same-day fostering for field trips, overnights - not just as a ‘special event’