Can animal rescue groups survive without adoption fees?

I thought I'd heard all the reasons people object to the idea of free pet adoptions -- but I was wrong.

After I wrote a post about the marketing power of free adoptions, and explained why I think charging adoption fees is an obstacle to our pet adoption mission, I started hearing from many, many rescue groups all over the U.S. that they can't possibly survive as an organization without revenue from adoption fees. Some have gone so far as to accuse larger shelters and foundations like Maddie's Fund of trying to "drive rescue groups out of business."

I'll be honest, I understand their feelings. A change in your revenue model can be a big paradigm change for a small nonprofit, especially one that doesn't have anyone on the team who is interested in marketing, fundraising, and development.

I think, however, that the benefits far outweigh the pain of change.

Let's step back and look at the big picture for a minute. Most nonprofits outside the rescue world don't have a fee-based revenue model. They raise money by cultivating relationships with individual and business supporters, with fundraising events, with retail operations such as thrift stores, and with development of grants, bequests, endowments, etc.

Of course, just thinking about that is exhausting for a small group made up of people who are mostly working in direct animal care rather than organizational work. In fact, we've created a culture where the less effort a nonprofit puts into anything other than direct services the more we praise them.

The problem is, that model is truly not sustainable. It leaves groups without a structure to rely on when market realities change.

For example, the adoption fee model might really go away as more groups realize the huge marketing benefit of fee-waived adoption promotions. Then you'll be competing with groups who adopt out pets for free or for "name your own fee" donations, and you'll be forced to change overnight instead of doing it strategically.

There are easy options to getting all or most of our revenue through adoption fees and tapping into the marketing power of fee-waived adoptions.

For example, what if you went to a local business, shopping center, nursery, big pet supply or farm store, and asked them to do a "We'll pay your adoption fees this weekend!" event in the parking lot? They get tons of customers flocking in, you get your adoptions paid for (plus donations if you play your cards right), the pets get the benefit of the marketing buzz, and everyone wins!

Additionally, you need to think outside the animal welfare bubble. I'm on the board of an animal organization that receives funding from a non-animal welfare foundation that supports charitable endeavors in our region. They give us money because we're local and meet their standards of sustainability, accountability, etc. As far as I know, we're the only animal organization they support at all!

This is why finding a volunteer with an interest in marketing and/or development is critically important for small rescue groups. You really can't survive long just caring for the animals and cramming in the bare minimum of organizational support and development while you have one hand on a kitten bottle and the other holding your eyelids open.

The whole point of finding people to help with this end of things is to free up each volunteer to focus on what she or he does best, whatever it is. After all, direct animal care is necessary! But so is organizational work such as marketing and development. Animal organizations need it all, or they won't be able to survive losing, say, their founder or core group of volunteers, or economic or market shifts.

I feel very strongly that rescue groups are mostly locked into an unsustainable model of helping animals, and I would really like to see us step back from how we are currently doing things and broaden our revenue streams and free ourselves to use the fee-waived adoption marketing model and any other innovations that come along when they're appropriate or helpful. 

The animals need our best, not just in TLC, but in organizational professionalism.

Comments

[Saving Pets]

Great post.

For me it's about mission alignment. If your mission is to 'feed the hungry', you seek out financial supporters for that goal and you give your food to those who need it.

You don't open a restaurant.

(Restaurants are already a thing, and they evidently don't meet your mission/goals. That is why you exist.)

If your mission is to 'save homeless pets and place them in homes' - then you seek out financial supporters to help you achieve that goal. Supporters should be covering the expenses of the work you do. This makes adoption fees no longer an operational requirement.

That’s not to say people can’t give you money when they adopt a pet – but this shouldn’t be a condition of the adoption. If that pet and that owner are a good match, then they should be united together.

Adoption fees are an obstacle to your goal. They are the equivalent of charging for your charity's food.

If you want people to do something, then make it easy for them to do it. Make it free for them to do it. Make it impossible for them to say no to doing it.

We continually put up obstacles up to people to doing what we want. Let’s stop doing that.

[Peggy Wildsmith]

The problem with NOT charging an adoption fee is ... free dogs can end up in the hands of abusers as they will not pay for dogs but prey on "free to a good home" dogs. A fee is a deterrent to those less than desirable people. Now, before you say, well you should look into who you are adopting a dog to, let me tell you good rescues do just that. However, these bait dog groups and animal abusers and dog brokers are smart, real smart and can go to great lengths to seem normal. Let's say you make a mistake and adopt to someone who is really a broker then they flip the free dog and get $400 to $500 for the dog by selling it to someone else. Rescues and shelters try to avoid that sort of thing but you can't stop them all. So it's not all about covering expenses. It's about making whoever adopts the dog, accountable for the dog. Bottom line, if someone pays a fee for something, in this case a rescue dog, they tend take better care of it.

[Christie]

Peggy, that was what the FIRST blog post was about. What evidence we have says that's not correct. There's no correlation between what someone pays for a pet and how much they love and value them. And after all, Michael Vick paid for his dogs, and nearly all of us in rescue have taken in a pet we didn't pay for and loved them, right?

It's very important we challenge what "everyone knows" and make sure it's accurate. In this case, it's not. Here's my first post in which I discuss why: http://www.doggedblog.com/doggedblog/2012/09/what-opponents-of-free-pet-adoptions-dont-get.html

[kristina nethercott]

This article is offensive to me as a rescue group volunteer.......we do not charge adoption fees and do NOTHING ELSE! Seriously? You have clearly never been involved in non profit rescue group on the front lines. Our group takes in sick, injured, HW+ cases, each costing thousands of dollars to fix! 13 HW+ dogs, 7 amputations and several major surgeries later (in less than one year), we frankly need all the money we can get and we run several very large fundraising events throughout the year and small ones all year long. To say we have to simply do some legwork and networking in order to make up the adoption fees is insulting. We live and breathe rescue and spend 10's of thousands of dollars doing so. And the types of people applying for a free dog is a whole other comment that I won't get into here.

[JC]

This will certainly shake out the small grassroot rescues. Allowing a consolidation of fundraising and donors, a co marketing and PR agreement with the big national pet stores and the well funded rescues.

The push is on for more offsite adoption venues and every dollar that is going to a grassroots is one less dollar for the government funded or deep pocketed orgs. whose purpose is growth of the organization (company) and can sell their widgets at a loss.

I don't believe it's about the animals at all-

[melf]

I am on the board of a rescue, so I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about your piece. However, you make a great point, most charitable organizations do not charge a fee to help those in need.

So how did we get stuck in this model and what would it take to get out? Your point about others changing and being left in the lurch as one of the few charging is one way to force people out, but I think it's more than that. I think it not only requires a paradigm shift, but making real organizational changes that scare a lot of rescue groups. I don't know about your experience, but it seems like many of the rescues in my area are managed by a few people and don't work to expand opportunities in the volunteer-sdie of the organization (including a marketing ones). As a result, many people, who might be able to really change a rescue into a free adoption one, are left on the sidelines. I have no doubt that fear plays a big part in the resistance to change.

You've given me a lot to think about.