Tis’ the season, once again! If you are working to find foster homes for your shelter’s pets over the holidays, check out these five tips!
Moving pets into foster homes over the holidays can be helpful for both your staff and animals. It gives your staff the opportunity to enjoy more family time and your shelter pets the opportunity to get out of the shelter for a few days and spend time with a loving family. If you and your sweet animals are ready to get holly and jolly, check out these tips!
- Utilize social media – We do believe in Santa around here, but we don’t believe you can ever post too little about fostering! 😉🎅 So, use your social media following its full potential, and post away about holiday fostering! Post on your shelter’s social media to educate your followers about your holiday foster program. Provide the dates the fosters will be needed, include the advantages of fostering a pet for the holidays, and feature pets who will need a foster home over the holidays.
- Reach out to dormant fosters – Have some fosters that have gone quiet? The holidays could be a great time to reach out to these foster parents. Send out a personal email and ask if they would be available to foster over a holiday break to help some pets get exposure out of the shelter and to give your staff a break. These fosters have already been trained, and may just need a good reason to get back into fostering. Don’t be afraid to ask!
- Send out an email campaign – Send out a call to action for all volunteers and fosters in an email campaign. Use the emails to explain you need fosters over the holiday season. In the email, it would be a good idea to provide a link for them to sign up for specific holidays (Thanksgiving, New Year, Christmas, or all of them) and which type of pets they are able to foster. Make sure this sign-up form also includes a way for you to contact them about the fostering.
- Create a press release – Alert the press and let the public know your shelter is in need this holiday season! This is a great way to reach new audiences and people who may not know that fostering is available over the holidays. Kids are home from school and people are on vacation, so reaching the public through a news story is a great way to bring in fosters over the holiday season!
- Emphasize short-term fostering – In all of the above tactics, it is a great idea to include the term “short-term fostering”. Holiday fostering is a great way for people who may have been apprehensive about fostering pets for weeks or months to get started by only fostering for 3-5 days over the holidays.
Keep in mind as well, that many of these fosters taking home shelter pets could turn into amazing adopters! So, here’s to hoping all of your pets find some holiday magic this season!!