Wisconsin Humane Society

A conversation with Angela Speed, VP Vice President of Marketing & Communications Wisconsin Humane Society

The Wisconsin Humane Society uses a lot of Kuranda beds & cat towers. We thought we’d ask them for some insights about how their housing and care for shelter dogs & cats has evolved. We also learned something about fundraising and donations.

Kuranda: Tell us about Wisconsin Humane Society

Wisconsin Humane: The Wisconsin Humane Society is the largest animal welfare organization in Wisconsin and we're one of the oldest in the country. We were founded in 1879, and I think one of the things that makes us most unique is that we operate six shelters in six different counties all along Lake Michigan. We're on the eastern side of Wisconsin and operate six shelters and also a spay/neuter clinic. Four of our locations were mergers that happened in just the past decade. There are many animal shelters who reach out to us about our model of merging with other area shelters.

Kuranda: Why are so many shelters merging?

Wisconsin Humane: Because it's more efficient. In Wisconsin, there's about 55 counties and you used to have about 55 independent shelters because every municipality is required by law to house stray dogs, and this work is expensive. You have independent organizations paying an executive director, accountants, IT, marketing, and other costs that add to overhead expenses but can be consolidated with a merger. We have found that consolidation is more sustainable; we just acquired our sixth shelter literally June 1st in Kenosha County. With every merger with another organization comes a lot of change and a lot of growth that makes us larger, but also stronger.

Kuranda: Tell us about some of the services you provide to the community.

Wisconsin Humane: We're an independent nonprofit and we don't receive general government funding, so it's important for us to remain sustainable and inspire the community by the work that we do. We serve more than 40,000 animals and their families every year. That's through everything from, of course, adoption, to youth programs, veterinary services, a pet food bank, and all sorts of wonderful youth programs. We have summer camp running right now. We do outreach programming, foster programs, dog training classes, and we also house a wildlife rehabilitation center at our Milwaukee Campus.

Kuranda: You're doing an awful lot. I see this in a lot of shelters what brought on all of this energy?

Wisconsin Humane: So looking at the larger scope, the peak of animal overpopulation in the United States was about 1971, and since the 70s, many organizations have done more and more spay/neuter work. Spay/neuter programs have developed, and so we have seen fewer animals coming into the sheltering system in the last 50 years. However, there is still incredible need, both for animals who are homeless, but also for animals affected especially by poverty. We serve more owned animals through our programming than we actually do homeless animals at this point. Of course we offer housing and adoption services for about 13,000 animals a year, which is more than 35 a day, but we serve so many animals and families out in the community, too

Kuranda: How has COVID affected your shelter?

Wisconsin Humane: That was a challenging, yet fascinating time being in animal welfare. The demand for animals was through the roof, especially as people were stuck at home. The shelter animals were flying into new homes, which was wonderful. We did continue to serve the community in other ways, but every day we would open to a line of people looking to adopt.

Since COVID, now is really the first time we are now seeing a return to pre-COVID like numbers, where shelter intake is higher again. Inflation has been affecting that — we believe significantly — as the cost of that care and the cost of food has gone up for everybody, and that includes pet food and veterinary care. We're also at a point in time in this industry where there's a huge veterinary shortage across the United States. So people are really struggling to not only find vets, but afford veterinary care. When I look at our Google Analytics on our website, for the first time ever, I'm seeing fewer views of our available dogs page, but skyrocketing numbers for our low cost vaccine clinics, pet food bank, and huge increases in views of our low-cost Spay/Neuter Clinic in West Allis. People are seeking more services for their owned animals, and the length of stay for dogs, especially on our adoption floor, is going up. We still are able to uphold our promise that we made since 1999 that we do not euthanize animals for space or time.

Kuranda: So you're a no-kill shelter.

Wisconsin Humane: Correct. We don't use the term “no kill” because it’s not universally understood. Most people think it's that you don't euthanize for space or time, but there are others who think “no kill” means a sanctuary where animals are never euthanized. We euthanize for severe medical conditions or behavior issues where the quality of life is severely compromised, or the animal poses a true safety risk to humans or other animals.

Kuranda: Have you noticed an increase in adoption returns after the COVID crisis has calmed down?

Wisconsin Humane: No, there was a lot of speculation that when the pandemic was winding down and shelters were seeing an increase in intakes that it was due to COVID returns, and there is absolutely no national or local data that we have that supports that. The animals we're seeing coming into the shelter were not necessarily “COVID adoptions.” They're pets who are affected primarily by inflation and financial struggles. For example, towards the end of the month — towards eviction time — we see a bump in walk-in surrenders, and more people citing they can't afford medical care or they can't find housing. There's a significant lack of affordable housing, especially that allows large dogs, and that's another top reason why we see animals surrendered to us.

Kuranda: You had tremendous success with a Kuranda bed drive. How did you have so much success?

Wisconsin Humane: We have had a handful of Kuranda bed campaigns, both to replace broken beds in our shelter, and then to acquire brand new ones when we merged with Kenosha. They have been fast and successful, and we primarily communicate that sort of fundraiser via social media and then through mass email. We have a list of about a 100,000 constituents on our email list. We did a campaign in April before (we acquired) the new shelter to support our other locations. The campaign met its goal within 24 hours. It floored us, but there's something so compelling to people who support our work about the fact that you can donate a tangible item that will make animals, dogs in particular, more comfortable in a shelter setting. We're really fortunate in that our shelters are well kept and largely designed well, and our dogs in some of our locations have spacious adoption suites. They're not all in metal and concrete kenneling. But that being said, any shelter is more stressful than a home environment. So just to be able to do something as simple as getting the dogs off the floor and onto a more comfy bed is empowering to people. The public really responded to that. Donating a tangible item and then seeing the picture of the bed with a pile of puppies and how those beds are used is rewarding. Maybe they can't adopt right now or foster or volunteer or help in another way, but they can donate a bed. It's at a price point that is accessible to many of our supporters.

Kuranda: I saw an evolution where you're now selecting aluminum beds as opposed to the PVC beds.

Wisconsin Humane: Yes, silver aluminum! Some of our shelter dogs found the PVC beds to be convenient chew toys, so to preserve the longevity of the beds, we’ve been switching out to aluminum. Don’t worry, the dogs are getting Kongs and other toys to chew! (FYI Some shelters put parts on their wish list for people who can't afford to donate a whole bed.)

Kuranda: Is there anything you wish we would do better with our beds?

Wisconsin Humane: No, we’ve been really happy with the dog beds and the options available, including replacement parts. We have had success too with the cat equipment drives, but dogs far more.

Kuranda: How have you needed to evolve your marketing strategies with social media like Facebook? Can you still reach all your followers with each post or do you have to pay for it now?

Wisconsin Humane: We are definitely subject to the Facebook algorithms, which are always changing. But more and more we do have to pay to boost the post in order to get more traction. We budget for it now in our marketing budget. We didn't have to years ago, but it does seem that even investing just$20 on a post can help it reach a lot more people. That being said, the Kuranda bed campaigns we posted to Facebook didn’t even need to be boosted! They were shared widely by our supporters. We do ask people in our posts to share if they are unable to donate right now, which helps gain more eyes on the post.

Kuranda: Have you done any ‘matching’ campaigns?

Wisconsin Humane: We do find that our donors are inspired by matching campaigns. We are launching our largest one of the year this summer, where the goal is to raise $330,000 from the public in a matching campaign. We have been doing more matches than in the past – because they work! Campaigns that “unlock” a donation can also be really successful. We had two campaigns where if we reached 50 new monthly donors, a company would donate $10,000. And those tend to hit the goal, whereas if our goal is to simply acquire 50 new monthly donors, it's not nearly as inspiring as knowing that there's a bonus gift available that gets unlocked if individuals collectively make that happen.

Kuranda: Are donations driven primarily through social media one way or another, including broadcast emails?

Wisconsin Humane: We are fortunate to have many channels in which individuals, foundations, and corporations support our work. Perhaps surprisingly we still reach many individuals through old fashioned snail mail, which accounts for over a million dollars in revenue every year. We also have staff who write grants, as well as work with foundations and companies in our communities. Our website also gets about two million page views every month, and digital giving is easier and cost efficient.

Kuranda: In terms of TV and radio, are you essentially trying to get segments on the news?

Wisconsin Humane: Our TV and radio presence has grown a lot in the last decade, and helps build awareness of our work. We’re very fortunate in the Milwaukee market to have awesome relationships with the four major networks, as well as many radio stations. Between TV and radio in the Milwaukee area, we have about 40 to 45 donated segments every month where we take a featured animal to the station and talk about a topic to raise awareness of programs and services we offer. We also have segments in the Green Bay TV and radio market (Go Packers), too. We also serve as a resource for reporters doing animal-related stories. For example, last week we were doing tips about hot weather. We also work with reporters on individual animal stories, tips for pet owners, etc.

Kuranda: So do you hire a veterinarian as an outside consultant or as a full-time employee?

Wisconsin Humane: We are lucky to have 10 fantastic full-time veterinarians on staff. Some of them are doing 30 spay/neuter surgeries a day and treating everything from amputations to ingestion of foreign bodies. We just had a little dog in our care who had 50 bladder stones removed. Sometimes in the summer I feel like we're the Walter Reed Hospital for animals! A lot of life-saving medical intervention happens here. And of course we address more common shelter diseases like upper respiratory infections, skin issues, and right now, parvovirus. Parvovirus spread is the worst during the summer. We're unfortunately seeing an increase this summer of dogs and puppies with parvovirus.

Kuranda: How do they get parvo?

Wisconsin Humane: They get it mostly through fecal matter. It’s a hardy virus. It is not susceptible to extremes of heat or cold and can survive months and months through all sorts of temperature changes in the environment. If your dog is unvaccinated and contracts parvovirus, it's one of the most lethal viruses out there. We can only provide supportive care as there is no cure. The vaccine is very affordable, but unfortunately, once it's out in the community, it's really hard to kill the virus itself and we see community spread during the warmer months.

Kuranda: You would think you'd be terrified of getting it in the shelters themselves.

Wisconsin Humane: Parvovirus is a terrible illness, but we do have excellent protocols to identify it, isolate sick dogs, and support animals to ensure that it doesn’t spread. You can't cure it, but you can treat it with supportive care, like IV fluids. We have a strong success rate with treating parvo, but every summer we have dogs, unvaccinated puppies especially, who die from parvovirus.. We work hard to raise awareness that WHS offers low-cost vaccines at our public vaccine clinics to combat infectious diseases like parvovirus. As far as cats, our veterinary team supports everything from unweaned orphaned neonates to respiratory illness to ringworm in cats. Compared to a person’s personal veterinarian for their pet, our veterinary staff really specialize in shelter medicine, which focuses on areas like herd health management, spay/neuter surgery, limiting disease transmission, community services, etc.

Kuranda: So there's actually a subset of veterinarians that have expertise in shelter or boarding kennel medicine, where you have a high concentration of animals?

Wisconsin Humane: Yes. Many veterinary schools offer a track dedicated to shelter medicine and the care of domestic animals in shelter settings, in addition to public veterinary services offered by many animal shelters. Due to having a large number of animals housed in close proximity, it’s a unique discipline that focuses on everything from preventing disease transmission, identifying infectious disease and subsequent treatment in shelter settings, decreasing the length-of-stay of animals in-shelter, public pet health of underserved animals, etc.

Kuranda: Is there anything any new program or initiative or project that you'd like to talk about?

Wisconsin Humane: Shelters are in the middle of peak intake across the country, and the Wisconsin Humane Society is no exception. We’re experiencing more animals in need of medical and behavioral intervention at a time where inflation and the veterinary shortage is impacting people’s abilities to support their animals. We’d like the public to know that they can make a huge difference for animals and their families in a myriad of ways. If you’re on the fence about adopting, now is the time! If you can’t adopt, consider fostering to make more room at a shelter for the next animal in need. If you can’t foster, consider making a donation to your local shelter. Even $10 goes a long way in vaccinating animals. If that’s not feasible for you, simply sharing social media posts to reach more people makes a difference. Our community support is our biggest asset, and we rely on individuals who love animals to provide lifesaving services to so many animals and families.

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For more information visit the Wisconsin Humane Society website.

You can donate a Kuranda Shelter Bed to the Wisconsin Humane Society.