How one nonprofit overcame obstacles to create a sustainable, community-focused animal rescue system.
During my time fostering and volunteering at a few rescues, I saw things that didn’t work but persisted: animals getting sick (even dying) for preventable reasons as well as exploited foster families who quit after not being provided with any support. Simply put, it was an unsustainable system—perhaps the same way many of the systems nonprofits work to fight against rely on ultimately unsustainable strategies.

When we founded Motley Zoo Animal Rescue in 2009, we set out to do something different. With a handful of like-minded people, we wanted to improve the animal foster system, refusing to be imprisoned in the box of tradition.

Specifically, we wanted to base these improvements in a holistic approach to community engagement. The animal welfare world often focuses on what happens before the animal goes home, but once the animal goes home, connection ceases. We began right off by thinking about how to stay connected, build deeper connections, and keep people engaged around animals. At the heart of it, we wanted to get away from exploiting the community, instead developing a deeper understanding of what our community actually needed.

The following represents our eight tenets of holistic community engagement.

  1. Know the problems faced by your community.
  2. Innovate for the community.
  3.  Know your place in the community.
  4. Understand your community is not monolithic.
  5. Respect that everyone has something to contribute.
  6.  Be open to change.
  7. Recognize that people are not the problem; the system is the problem.
  8. Consider how you measure success, and know when to pivot.

Read the full article about community engagement for nonprofits by jme Thomas at Blue Avocado.