Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter: Orvis Dog Enrichment Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
We used the funds to promote the "dogs for adoption" posts on our Facebook page, which has about 17,000 fans. We featured a dog for adoption and used the grant funds to "boost" the promotion of the dog with a paid boost. This way, the post moved up in newsfeeds and we were also able to reach a bigger and more targeted market/audience. UPAWS's Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/upaws
We have found that this really helps spread the word for our pets and our shelter and helps pets get adopted. We would list with each ad boost that is has been sponsored by the Orvis Operation Fund and Petfinder Foundation with a link to their pages or websites. Boosting the "dog for adoption" posts (especially harder-to-place dogs) REALLY helped them be seen, shared and adopted!
How many pets did this grant help?
The grant provided a total of 41 dogs for adoption the benefit of Facebook boosted-ad posts. I did an average of $25 per dog for an adoption-post ad boost.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
UPAWS was contacted by volunteers trying desperately to save the lives of two dogs. They were from the Roscommon Animal Shelter (about seven hours away from UPAWS). They had been there seven months and had an expiration date due to their length of stay. They were scheduled to be euthanized ASAP if they could not find a new place to go. UPAWS agreed to take them both, and we arranged to meet the volunteer drivers with a volunteer from UPAWS halfway to pick the dogs up.
Blake is an Aussie-Lab mix. He is 3 years old and he is timid with men until he gets to know them. He cannot be crated. The shelter took him from his owner because the owner kept Blake in a crate that he couldn’t even sit up in. He was terrified of the kennel and growled and barked at people when they walked by.
Tasha is a 2-year-old black-and-white bully-breed dog. She is great with dogs her size and larger. No small dogs or cats. She is a very nice dog but stressed from shelter life for so long.
Once they arrived at UPAWS, we took photos, wrote bios (we ONLY take positive photos and write positive bios). We posted them both individually on Facebook and with the grant money each post was boosted. Blake’s post reached nearly 38,000 people and had almost 300 shares and Tasha reached 40,450 people and had almost 500 shares! That is HUGE! Both dogs were adopted within days! We KNOW 100% the grant boosts helped them both get that extra reach and attention that they needed! Seven months in a downstate animal control in Roscommon and scheduled to be euthanized … one week after transferring to UPAWS and ADOPTED!! The fourth photo shows Blake in his new home.
Tasha’s Facebook ad: http://bit.ly/2hqADqY
Blake’s Facebook ad: http://bit.ly/2iodNyC
