Spanish101
o cóm ro se dice ¿Pe
“pooper sco
Language Lessons
As a companion piece to our feature on outreach to Spanish-speaking communities, we offer the first class of Spanish 101, shelter-style. This material is excerpted from a new HSUS publication, Spanish Phrases for Animal Care and Control Work, which will be available for purchase in 2007.
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Veterinarian El veterinario (ehl veh-tehr-eenah-ryo) Vaccine La vacuna (lah vah-koo-nah) Vaccination La vacunación (lah vah-koo-nahsyohn) Housetraining El entrenamiento para que no haga sus necesidades en la casa (ehl ehn-treh-nah-meeehn-toh pah-rah keh noh ahgah soos neh-seh-see-dahdehs ehn lah kah-sah) A leash, collar, and tag Una correa, un collar, y una placa de identificación (oo-nah kohr-reh-ah, oon koh-yahr, ee oon-ah plah-kah deh ee-dehntee-fee-kah-see-ohn) Litter box La caja de arena (lah kah-hah deh ah-reh-nah) Grooming El corte de pelo (ehl kohr-teh deh peh-loh)
Basic animal-related words and phrases
The shelter El refugio (ehl reh-foo-hyo) The shelter opens at ___________. El refugio abre a las ___________. (ehl reh-foo-hyo ah-breh ah lahs___________) I am from the Humane Society. Soy de la Humane Society. (soy deh lah) Animal control officer El oficial de animales (ehl oh-fee-see-ahl deh ah-neemah-lehs) Owner El dueño (ehl dweh-nyo) Police La policía (lah poh-lee-see-ah) Kennel La caseta para perros (lah kahseh-tah pah-rah pehr-rohs) La jaula (lah hah-oo-lah) La perrera (lah pehr-rehr-rah) Local animal control authority La autoridad local de control de animales (lah ah-oo-toh-reedahd loh-kahl deh kohn-trohl deh ah-nee-mah-lehs) Animals Los animales (lohs ah-nee-mahlehs) Animal El animal (ehl ah-nee-mahl) Pet La mascota (lah mah-skoh-tah)
Bird El pájaro (ehl pah-hah-roh) Cat El gato (ehl gah-toh) Kitten El gatito (ehl gah-tee-toh) Dog El perro (ehl pehr-roh) Puppy El perrito (ehl pehr-ree-toh) El cachorro (ehl kah-chohr-roh) Breed La raza (lah rah-sah) La casta (lah kahs-tah)
The animal needs:
Food La comida (lah koh-mee-dah) Medicine La medicina (lah meh-dee-seenah) Shelter El albergue (ehl ahl-behr-geh) La protección (lah proh-tehksyohn) El refugio (ehl reh-foo-hyo) Water El agua (ehl ah-gwah) Spaying/neutering Spaying/neutralizar (spaying/neh-oo-trah-lee-sahr) Esterilizar/castrar (eh-steh-reelee-sahr/kah-strahr) Adoption La adopción (lah ah-dohp-syohn)
The animal is:
Injured Herido (eh-ree-doh) Friendly Amistoso (ah-mee-stoh-soh) Sick Enfermo (ehn-fehr-moh) Dangerous Peligroso (peh-lee-groh-soh) Pregnant Embarazada (ehm-bahr-ah-sahdah)
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Abriendo Pu ertas
ol? pañ ” es abla inglés “¿H ablo No h
a los Refugios
If you can’t decipher that headline, consider the challenges your community’s Spanish speakers face when they try to read your signs, fill out your paperwork, and communicate with your front-desk staff. It’s so challenging, in fact, that many don’t even come to the shelter at all. And that’s a shame, especially during a time when the United States is home to one of the largest Spanish-speaking populations in the world. But you don’t have to speak Spanish yourself to learn how to extend your outreach programs to the Latino community. Read on to find out how others have started “opening doors to animal shelters.”
BY N A N C Y L A W S O N
When the staff of the SPCA Tampa Bay rescued Tramp during the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, her kidneys were failing and her prognosis was grave. Director of Operations Connie Brooks and her colleagues feared the little terrier mix with the huge ears would die. A few weeks spent in the loving care of shelter workers breathed new life into Tramp as her kidney function slowly returned. But one problem remained: the dog from Miami was in low spirits, almost unresponsive. A fixture at the shelter by that point, she would run down the hall with her ears pinned back against her head—“sort of fearful,” says Brooks. Whenever anyone tried to speak
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to her, she’d stare and tilt her head in a way that seemed to ask, “What in the world are you saying, and why are you saying it to me?” Brooks and her colleagues concluded that Tramp was deaf, and Tramp did little dispel that notion—that is, until the morning that Brooks saw her walking up the kennel and called out absentmindedly, “¿Oye, cómo estás?” Suddenly, Tramp was all ears. “I will never forget that day,” says Brooks. “She just turned around and her ears went up.” The daughter of native Spanish speakers, Brooks was accustomed to uttering Spanish phrases to her children in the morning and thought nothing of tossing
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“El me perr o jor es a hom migo el br e del .”
them around in the kennels. And so it was purely by accident that Tramp’s new friends discovered she wasn’t deaf at all— she just didn’t speak their language. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh, maybe she speaks Spanish!’ And as soon as I saw her ears pop up,” recalls Brooks, “I said, ‘Qué paaaasa?’ And she looked up again, and she started running towards me.” “You get so busy in sheltering, you don’t even think about it,” says Brooks. “We were going through the recovery phase of Andrew and all the stress and the animals and everything else, and it never even dawned on us that the dog ‘spoke’ Spanish.” Trampecito died nine years after her 1992 rescue, but her lesson lives on. Staff no longer make assumptions about their animals’ native tongues and even hold impromptu tutorials for dogs with an ear for Spanish or birds tuned in to Vietnamese. And as the Spanishspeaking population around the country soars, Trampecito’s legacy serves as a reminder to the animal welfare community to recognize an important fact about public outreach: The world might be full of potentially loyal supporters, but they’ll never respond to your messages if they can’t understand what you’re saying.
[Translation: Dog is man's best friend.]
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SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE?
Given the number of people in the United States who consider Spanish their primary language—28 million and counting—programs that cater to nonEnglish-speaking citizens are surprisingly rare. While other countries home to multilingual populations provide translations in everything from directions to signage to menus, attempts to accommodate Spanish speakers are still in their infancy in most U.S. cities. A dearth of resources has long precluded many animal welfare organizations—which are often even more financially strapped than other nonprofits— from expanding their basic programs beyond English. When Animal Sheltering solicited sources for a story on outreach to Spanish-speaking communities a few years ago, response was so light that the editors decided to postpone the article until they could find more information. Slowly but surely, though, the dynamic is beginning to change. Sources for this article couldn’t wait to share their success stories—and provide tips for developing programs tailored to people of other cultures. You don’t even have to speak the language to get started, says Michael Rodriguez, animal services manager for the City of Rancho Cordova in California. Born to Mexican parents, Rodriguez does not speak Spanish himself; as a child, he heard the language most often when he was being scolded, he jokes. But his lack of fluency did not hinder the outreach programs he launched four years ago as director of Stanislaus County Animal Services in Modesto. After all, he says, many of the other 40 million people of Hispanic origin in this country don’t speak Spanish either, and it’s easy to find help from those who do— volunteers, community leaders, Hispanic media, and church officials. “You go into the Chamber of Commerce—not everybody speaks Spanish,” says Rodriguez. “They have to communicate with government, politicians, religious leaders. … Not everybody in the Catholic Church speaks Spanish. Not everybody speaks
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English either. They have a variety of people, and having a relationship with them— saying, ‘I want to work with you’—is very important. You do that with other groups, don’t you? You’ve just got to get used to this.” Comparing the first-time experience of entering a new culture to a nerve-wracking holiday dinner with a relative who makes you uncomfortable, Rodriguez says, “Doing this is easy. If you can do Thanksgiving, you can do this.”
MAPPING OUT THE PROBLEM
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odriguez knows as well as anyone that “easy” is a relative term. A 28-year veteran of animal care and control, he didn’t start reaching out to Spanish-speaking populations in earnest until 2002. In a profession where everyone is stretched thin and full-time humane education positions are often a luxury, the prospect of starting programs in such uncharted territory can be overwhelming, he says. Now in his job in Rancho Cordova, Rodriguez faces another challenge: reaching the area’s large Russian community. But he’s modeling his efforts on the programs he developed in Stanislaus County, where he’d engaged in some painful selfanalysis to try to pinpoint the origins of his owner-surrendered animals, strays, and reclaims. “I got tired of not doing the right thing. I’d been in it so long,” he says. “When you get in a position of overseeing a shelter and you start seeing the same animals coming in over and over, month after month after month … you start thinking, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ ” With the help of mapping software, Rodriguez found that two-thirds of the problems his agency faced were originating in low-income communities with large Spanish-speaking populations. And everything the shelter was doing in response to those problems was reactive, he says. “And then you start saying, ‘Wow, I’m throwing 66 percent of our budget into that area, and I’ve got nothing going on there.’ That’s a big eye-opener,” Rodriguez
says. “And so you’re starting to say, ‘Huh, this is crazy. I’ve got an ad in the paper that these people will never even see, I’m doing ads on television that they’ll never be able to watch.’ When I started realizing what a horrible job I was doing, I started wanting to do it better.” To tap into the tightly knit network of native Spanish speakers in his area, Rodriguez first turned to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. It was the right decision; the support and influence of the organization’s leaders had a domino effect on shelter outreach efforts. With their guidance, Rodriguez was soon preaching his low-cost spay/neuter initiative at a barbecue for religious leaders, who then carried the message to their congregations the following weekend. He also began working with nonprofits focused on human needs— arrangements that allowed shelter staff to reach segments of the community too often forgotten. Through one of those partnerships, staff canvassed neighborhoods to distribute information to both pet owners and mothers-to-be in need of assistance; the partnering organization, in turn, helped the shelter out by passing along pet advice to its client base. Under another arrangement orchestrated by the chamber of commerce, shelter staff visited Spanishspeaking farm laborers to promote programs for pets while also helping the workers learn how to protect themselves from the mosquito-transmitted West Nile virus; the shelter received free printing and paper to develop its own fliers in exchange for its efforts. By working with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, churches, and other organizations, the Stanislaus County shelter increased its volunteer corps from 13 people to 260—all of them active participants who helped control the lines at spay/neuter clinics and assisted with clicker training. After sending staff through The HSUS’s Pets for Life behavior training program, the agency began attracting Spanish-speaking volunteers in their late teens and early 20s to help out in the shelter.
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“Spanish-speaking communities are looking for opportunities themselves. They’re looking for career fields, they’re looking for areas where they can get involved. But often that connection is never made,” says Rodriguez. “It could be that it’s very hard to get through on your phone system; it could be that they didn’t know there was a volunteer program. It could be no one even thought of looking for their dog at the animal shelter.”
ASK NOT WHAT THEY CAN DO FOR YOU
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raditionally, shelters pitching humane messages to the community tend to turn to the same resources: schools, senior centers, the mainstream media, says Rodriguez. But visiting each venue multiple times can be a drain on time and resources—and doesn’t necessarily guarantee delivery to audiences most in need of hearing your spiel. While humane education materials and newspaper articles are helpful, the written word alone is not enough, says Rodriguez. No one knows the face or voice behind the random and unsolicited marketing pieces tucked into front
doorways, but they will come to recognize and trust your organization if you participate in potlucks, attend community celebrations, and get yourself invited to quinceañera parties. “If you’re just doing media and pamphlet drives and stuff like that, forget it,” Rodriguez says. “You’ve got to go to their brunches, you’ve got to go to their picnics, you’ve got to get involved with their stuff. You’ve got to support them as well as they’re going to support you. … Do whatever you have to do to get involved in their community. It’s not you first. It’s them first.” At its core, the best advice for reaching out to any community is to simply get to know the needs of the audience. But that’s easier said than done, especially when language barriers stand in the way. “You have to go out and talk to people,” says Ann Reisner, an associate professor in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois. “Part of the reason why people don’t do that is it’s scary. [If] you go out and talk to your audience, you can get rejected.” But the consequences of never risking that rejection are much worse. Failure to understand your constituency results in a lot of wasted effort—and risks having your message fall on, for all intents and purposes, deaf ears like those of Trampecito. Reisner tells the story of researchers who’d added lysine to corn and tried to market the product in Mexico as more nutritional. What they’d failed to recognize in the testing stages was what ultimately sent them back to the drawing board, Reisner says: “It made lousy tortillas.” Approaching church leaders and civic organizers with more questions than answers is a good way to avoid cooking up a message that no one wants to take a bite of—and to building a bridge from your organization into the community. Reisner recommends assessing the needs of your target audience before pitching solutions to the problem you’re trying to solve. “If they say, ‘No, this is just not a problem for us,’ then I would try to ask the
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person, ‘Why not? What’s going on?’… I wouldn’t try to argue with them that my problem is important; I would try to find out why their problem makes mine not important.”
OVERCOMING CULTURAL BARRIERS
s the public information officer for the Arizona Humane Society, Angela Stringfellow understands the urgent needs of the shelter and its animals. The summer of 2006 was an unusually overwhelming season for the organization, which by July was being flooded with 200 animals a day—an extraordinary intake rate that staff attributed largely to lack of spaying and neutering. But as an immigrant who once lived in Central and South America, Stringfellow has also witnessed firsthand the daily challenges that many people face in just meeting the needs of their human families. When she was young, she used to wonder why she saw so many dirty, hurt, injured animals wandering the streets, uncared for and unloved. No animal protection laws existed where she lived, and by the same token, humans were afforded far fewer resources and opportunities than they are in this country. “I understand the cultural differences. In a country where you can barely make ends meet and provide food on the table for your family, your dog is going to be your last priority,” Stringfellow says. “So I have to understand that, and I’m very careful every time I talk to radio stations, TV stations—any Hispanic outlet here. But what I also keep in mind is that, well, I understand that perhaps pets are not their number-one priority; however, once you come to this country, you cannot pretend that it’s Mexico or South America. There are rules that you need to follow.” For Stringfellow, the problem is largely due to a lack of awareness—not a lack of affection for animals. People who come to this country to find a better life might not know that a better life for pets is not only possible but actually required by law, she says.
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“They might not be aware that hey, if you leave Pancho outside in the middle of 115-degree weather like we have here in Arizona—and you don’t provide any shelter or food or water—you may face some charges,” she says. “I’ve kind of approached it that way—‘Look … you may end up in jail if you are not a responsible pet owner, so this is why this is important.’ ” Stringfellow’s messages are resonating in the community. Her half-hour weekly show on Spanish-language radio has generated feedback from people surprised to learn that services for animals even exist. One woman called to relay the story of a dogfight being held at the home of
Stringfellow has only been on the job since October 2005—and is the first staffer to conduct formal outreach efforts to the Hispanic community—the Arizona Humane Society is already seeing an increase in native Spanish speakers adopting animals and seeking spay/neuter surgeries and vaccinations for their pets.
A SENSE OF BELONGING
t the SPCA Tampa Bay, the phone rings off the hook in public relations coordinator Marissa Weeks’s office—“quite a bit more” than it did when she first took the job, she says. Through translations of the shelter’s pet-
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“I’ve learned the more Spanish I try and speak, the more English they try and speak, so we kind of meet in the middle,” says animal control officer Kathy Franck.
her friend’s neighbor; she wanted to report the activities but didn’t know who to turn to. “People find it repulsive, and they want to end it, too. They just don’t know who to call or how to reach someone,” says Stringfellow. “Or language becomes a problem, too. And I have to remind them, ‘Hey, we speak Spanish, we can talk to you, we’re here to help.’ ” By working with Spanish-language newspapers, Hispanic radio shows, and local affiliates of Univision and Telemundo, Stringfellow has garnered increased participation from the Hispanic community—“to the point now that we are seeking bilingual personnel more than anything,” she says. Though
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of-the-week ads in Spanish-language newspapers, interviews on Spanish radio, and participation in local events and Hispanic Chamber of Commerce activities, the Spanish-speaking Weeks has garnered an SPCA following in the Hispanic community. “Everything she has done has created an atmosphere in our community where the people feel very welcome coming here,” says Brooks, the operations director. “You have to remember the community we come from is [made up of] the farmers, the tomato pickers, and the orange pickers … and construction workers and things like that. They’re making ends meet, but now they feel like they have a shelter they belong to.” tion has relationships with three Latino veterinarians whose offices provide services in Spanish as well. “And we’re trying to teach our employees how to understand broken English,” says Brooks. “They can learn because the Latinos want to learn English. … They want help. They don’t want to come here and not be able to fill out the forms in English.” Communication is a two-way street, especially when you’re communicating in two languages. Many native English speakers may never be fluent in Spanish, but that doesn’t mean they can’t speak Spanglish. At Loudoun County Animal Services in Waterford, Virginia, animal control officer Kathy Franck has found that her communications in broken Spanish help her bond with the public. “I’ve learned the more Spanish I try and speak, the more English they try and speak, so we kind of meet in the middle usually,” she says. “And it’s been wonderful because they see you trying, and they try. I don’t think they feel as embarrassed to try—because I’m struggling.
Expanded outreach, if successful, requires infrastructure to handle all those people responding positively to shelter messages, Weeks points out. If more people are showing up to adopt and relinquish—and the public is calling in reports of sick and injured animals in Spanish—having one person on staff who just happens to be bilingual won’t be sufficient. Outreach to the Latino community is important, but so are the resources to back up your organization’s welcoming messages. More bilingual staff work at the SPCA Tampa Bay now, and one of the officers responding to reports of sick and injured animals speaks Spanish. The organiza-
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I’m by no means perfect, but I can get through a little conversation.” Franck owes her language skills to a 16-week crash course conducted at the shelter last year. Through a countywide program, a Spanish teacher from a contracted language school delivers the course to different agencies throughout the year. Last fall, it was the animal care and control department’s turn, and
officers, dispatchers, and customer service staff were immersed in Spanish twice a week for two hours a day. Franck gained more practical knowledge in those classes than she had in four semesters of college-level Spanish. “Our teacher gave us specific language for our jobs, which was incredibly helpful because a lot of your basic Spanish speaking is ‘How are you? Nice day,’ ” she says.
“We don’t really want to know that; we want to know about your pets, animal breeds, that kind of thing.”
SPEAK SPANGLISH— BUT DON’T WRITE IT
T
t
¿Qu é bes haría ara s si mis ahor te a mo ?
he immediate effects of Franck’s newfound linguistic prowess are obvious: though she still calls the county’s language line to get help from translators in handling complicated cases, she can now handle license and rabies issues on the spot. Franck is also noticing longer-term changes in community perception of her shelter’s services. “Once you start trying to speak to [Spanish speakers], they feel more empowered to either get something done for their pets because they know now what to do, or they see something going on that they didn’t know was a problem before,” Franck says. “Maybe not in their country would dogs running at large be a problem, but here they understand that it is, so then they don’t feel so bad calling in because they can speak to somebody [in Spanish].” Loudoun County shelter managers hope to cycle more people through future courses, says public and community relations coordinator Laura Danis. Previously a rural farming community, the county is one of the fastest-growing in the country. Escalating housing prices in Washington, D.C., and its immediate suburbs—combined with the presence of employers like AOL and Dulles International Airport—have sent thousands of people to far-flung communities like Loudoun, and many of those
[Translation: What would you do if I kissed you right now?]
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No típi soy u co, n soy perr Ped o r o!
Outreach programs targeted toward Latino communities should take into account the culture’s focus on family, say public relations experts. Pictured here are children visiting with a dog at the SPCA Tampa Bay. Opposite page: The SPCA Tampa Bay works with Spanish-language media to promote responsible pet ownership and the benefits of adopting a pet. Local newspapers run features about shelter services as well as “mascota de la semana,” or “pet of the week,” ads; SPCA public relations coordinator Marissa Weeks (shown holding the kittens in the article at top right) also appears on radio shows. Even the local Spanish telephone directory features full-page SPCA ads with pet disaster preparedness tips.
[Translation: I’m not just any dog, I’m Pedro!]
people speak other languages. Recent census figures show that, in 2005, one in five people in the Washington metropolitan area were immigrants, compared with one in six in 2000. All that new growth presents new challenges for shelters like Loudon County’s. Before the in-shelter Spanish training, the staff had to improvise whenever a Spanish-speaking adopter arrived. “We had a few people who, just by chance of their previous experience, were able to speak to them,” says Danis. “So it was kind of like, ‘Okay, is Amy here?’ And if it was her day off, you were kind of in trouble.” While Spanish-speaking staff and volunteers should be part of any long-term outreach strategy, agencies that don’t have those language skills at their fingertips can still get help from other resources in the community. Reporters at local Hispanic newspapers are often willing to translate small blurbs or do whatever else they can to help, says Michelle Strickland, bilingual humane educator for Animal Samaritans SPCA in Thousand Palms, California. But animal welfare organizations should proceed with caution when translating basic materials, Strickland says. There are as many nuances to the Spanish language as there are countries that speak it. And while some Spanish speakers in this country are migrant farm and factory workers who have had little opportunity to learn to read and write, many others are highly educated. Distributing materials that are translated in a sloppy or condescending manner can alienate both audiences. “At times it can be insulting to somebody if they’re reading something that has been translated and it has not been done appropriately,” says Strickland, “because [they think], ‘Okay, maybe this organization doesn’t care enough to do it right.’ ” Certified translators are the best option, but their prices can be prohibitive for nonprofits, Strickland says. Before Strickland started her job in April and took on the task herself, Animal
!
PHOTO COURTESY SPCA TAMPA BAY
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Samaritans found volunteer translators and subjected translated materials to multiple reviews—especially for important documents such as surgery authorization forms or post-operative instruction sheets. One reviewer was a college Spanish professor. “I think that by the quality of our publications, we show that we really care and we’re committed,” says Strickland, “and that we intend to do this for them as long as we’re around.”
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FOR THE LONG HAUL
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any organizations receive shortlived grants to conduct outreach to Spanish-speaking communities on a piecemeal basis— something that tends to cause suspicion, says Strickland. “Sometimes people are cautious when all of the sudden an organization is trying to reach out to them if it’s something that’s just going to last two or three months,” she says. “[They think], ‘Are they really serious about it? Do they really care?’ ” Sustained efforts tend to bring better results. When Rodriguez was the director of the municipal shelter in Stanislaus County, he sent employees into the Spanishspeaking community year-round to promote a program called “Stanislaus County Alternative to Euthanasia,” or SCATE. Though some in the community dislike the idea of sterilization—because they don’t support birth control, fear emasculating their pets, or are simply not familiar enough with the concept— there’s something that most people dislike even more, says Rodriguez: euthanasia. By spinning the SCATE campaign as a way to prevent the deaths of homeless animals, Rodriguez and his staff were able to attract so many pet owners to the program that the shelter’s intake of dogs dropped from 13,400 to 8,800 in three years. And a large number of the surger-
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At a local festival held in honor of the “Day of the Dead” holiday, the Marin Humane Society staff created an altar to animals they have loved and lost. When festivalgoers were invited to record their thoughts about their own deceased pets, many submitted notes about animals they’d left behind in their native countries.
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ies, Rodriguez says, were performed on pets of Hispanic owners. Offering the community a good deal was also key to getting support for the program. For $50, a resident could get her pet rabies and distemper/parvo vaccinations, a license, a microchip, and a certificate for a spay/neuter surgery. Subsidies for the program came from public and private partnerships. Ads on the front and back pages of a Hispanic weekly cost Rodriguez only $600 a year, so he kept his messages about low-cost sterilization in the forefront. “I don’t care what language you speak— you get a bargain going, and you’re something else,” Rodriguez says. Appeals to the pocketbook have also been effective for Animal Samaritans, which serves a population that’s about 49 percent Hispanic and expects to increase the number of sterilization surgeries conducted at its clinic from about 6,800 in 2005 to 7,800 this year, says executive director Fred Saunders. “We’re saying that [uncontrolled breeding] is not good economically—for the community, for you,” he says. “And that it’s much better to be able to control that new animal population so that you don’t have strays, you don’t have a financial burden, you don’t get fined, and your animals don’t get picked up.” To help spread the message, Animal Samaritans is signing up bilingual volunteers, particularly those who are entrenched in the community. A popular band manager and concert promoter is being recruited to help coordinate shelter-friendly family events in the Coachella Valley, and the couple in charge of the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has featured shelter services on its Spanish-language TV show, “Opening Doors to the Community.” “It’s important to use local mayors or council members or business owners— anybody that’s looked on with respect,” says Strickland. “That’s really critical.” It’s easier for people to understand humane messages delivered by people who share their background, says Darlene Schwartz, manager of humane
education programs for Pet Orphans of Southern California. When she started a program early this year for at-risk students who are primarily Latin American, she was lucky to find a Spanish-speaking presenter who is also a volunteer at Los Angeles Animal Services. The presenter understands where the teenagers came from and what they saw in their own countries. Her own national origins also give her some leeway in criticizing the way animals are treated in Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and other Latin American countries—without appearing condescending or unsympathetic, says Schwartz. “In our area we have a huge Hispanic population, but it’s hard to tell people from another culture what they do in their country is ‘bad,’ ” she says. “But … she lived her whole life and grew up in Mexico and was educated in Mexico and has compassion and … the same sensibility that we have [in the shelter]. And she kind of comes off as like a grandma because she’s an older woman.” Often former gang members in hiding, the students in the program have no families and are usually headed into foster homes. They show up at the shelter hesitant and afraid to touch the animals— but are sometimes petting them by the end of their visit.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
hile many cultural, religious, and ideological differences exist among Spanish speakers from different countries, an emphasis on the importance of family is one of the “unifying characteristics” shared by all segments of the Hispanic American demographic, wrote University of Oklahoma professor Linda Morton in the September 2002 issue of Public Relations Quarterly (“Targeting Hispanic Americans”). The strength of those family ties was surprising to the Marin Humane Society’s Morgan Lance, who worked with two trainers and another local nonprofit to conduct a four-week, after-school dog training course for at-risk kids at a local
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The translation quality of brochures and other written materials can affect a shelter’s reputation in the Latino community, says Michelle Strickland of Animal Samaritans SPCA (shown here at right with Jennifer Nathan, the organization’s director of humane education).
community center. Not only did the kids come, but the moms began showing up, and then the grandpas right behind them. “They all started telling stories about their dog, and little by little I could offer them some advice,” says Lance, the shelter’s community education coordinator. “But I didn’t try to do it right off the bat— I didn’t try to come in selling anything. I just wanted to make friends.” Lance also applied her soft-sell approach to participation in a local Day of the Dead festival—another effective venue, according to public relations experts, who describe the desire to retain ethnicity through holidays, rituals, and festivals as a common feature among Latinos from all walks of life. During the mostly Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead celebrants try to attract the souls of deceased family members by setting up altars in their homes, complete with offerings of food, flowers, and other items that may have been important to their loved ones. For a two-week period several years in a row, the Marin Humane Society kept a Day of the Dead altar in the Canal District of San Rafael that was dedicated to homeless animals euthanized in shelters. Shelter staff included photographs of animals who had passed through their doors, and they placed a water bowl, tennis ball, and leash next to the altar. Staff wrote notes to animals they had worked with in the shelter or animals they had lost in their own lives. Baskets full of paper were provided so members of the public could record thoughts about their own pets. “We thought we’d get a handful of people writing notes,” says Lance. “And I came back two days after the altar went up, and I think there were over a hundred notes. And many, many, many of them were in Spanish, and many were about animals that had to have been left behind in Mexico or South America when families moved here.”
Participation in the festival—as well as the after-school program—garnered greater acceptance for the shelter. “When we went into that community to do other programs, people, especially children, just sort of knew who we were and were excited to see us,” says Lance, “whereas in the past there had seemed to be a lot of fear because … we are a nonprofit, but we’re also animal care and control, and we have officers in uniform. And that had always been a little bit scary in that community.” Gradually, says Lance, “we were seen as somebody who wasn’t going to come in and preach but was rather going to come in and participate in a festival that was really important to us and to everyone who lived in that community.” Lance had tried in the past to promote the Marin Humane Society’s services to Spanish-speaking residents, hoping to bring children into the shelter but quickly learning that many of their parents were working two or three jobs and did not have cars. So when the Canal Community Alliance invited Marin to participate in the Day of the Dead, Lance jumped at the chance. “I think it’s something that we as shelters don’t really think about,” she says, “but it makes so much sense that if we want to get into those communities, let’s go in through the door that’s already open to us.” ❂
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counting
An analysis of per-capita donations can help shelters assess their effectiveness in raising funds and awareness in their communities
the contributions
Benchmarking for Your Organization and Your State
BY A N DR E W R O W A N , P h . D .
In the 20 years that I’ve been collecting data on shelter demographics, the animal welfare field has witnessed dramatic declines in the number of unwanted pets. By now most shelter workers have seen the statistics: 13.5 million dogs and cats, or about 22 percent of those in U.S. homes, were euthanized in shelters in 1973, compared with 3 to 4 million—or less than 3 percent of the nation’s household pet population—today. But despite the success in measuring the effectiveness of the ’70s-era “LES” (legislation, education, sterilization) approach to addressing animal homelessness, attempts to gather other basic data have lagged far behind. I continue to be amazed that no one (not even the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy) has developed an accurate count of the number of shelters in this country. To date, we still rely on the flawed lists kept by American Humane and my own organization, The Humane Society of the United States. About three years ago, former HSUS Vice President Martha Armstrong and I tasked two graduates of Tufts University’s Center for Animals and Public Policy—Colin Berry and Bryn Conklin—with developing a comprehensive shelter list. Thanks to their hard work, The HSUS now has a nationwide list of animal organizations, including shelters.
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By collecting information from tax forms posted on GuideStar.org, Berry and Conklin also compiled financial data on individual nonprofits and summarized it by state. These figures were then divided by state population totals to arrive at a per-capita donation figure. The resulting figures help us assess the level of support for animal protection in each state. The benchmarks presented in the tables on the following pages are intended to serve only as a guide for further study and debate. While we’ve attempted to gather as much information as possible, a few precautions should be noted when interpreting the results. First, not all duplicates have been found and removed in current state lists. Second, existing organizations have undoubtedly been omitted, albeit inadvertently, and there may be some errors in classification of shel-
more than $25,000 in annual income.) Fourth, municipal shelters do not normally report their income and expenses on 990s, so we have financial information for only a few of these entities. Since municipal entities account for almost 45 percent of all shelters, we are missing data on a substantial amount of income devoted to sheltering dogs and cats. Despite these caveats, I believe it is important to publish the data if only to serve as a baseline for further refinement. Useful benchmarks can help advance the shelter profession while also highlighting those states and operations that are most in need of help.
The Head Count, State by State
Table 1 on page 38 breaks down by state the number of people, animal groups, and shelters, both pub-
That figure climbs to $4.33 per year when the revenue of national organizations is accounted for. The amount varies considerably from one state to the next, however, and can be affected by geography. For instance, animal organizations in Washington, D.C., appear to raise more than $18 per capita. But because of the cohesion of the Washington metropolitan region and the loyalties many suburbanites feel toward the nation’s capital, Washington’s per-capita figure most likely includes donations from Marylanders and Virginians to the Washington Humane Society and the Washington Animal Rescue League, two D.C. shelters included in the survey. Of the 50 states, the most successful in terms of donations per capita are Massachusetts ($9.06), Vermont ($7.28), Colorado ($6.10), and Montana ($5.90). When
Those familiar with shelter work probably won’t be surprised by the list of low-income states. It has long been recognized that some southern states have few shelters—and that many of those shelters are poorly supported.
ters and non-sheltered groups (such as fostering organizations that operate out of homes). Third, the financial information on GuideStar is incomplete, either because an organization is not yet listed (as is the case even with some of the larger groups) or because it does not make enough money in a year to file “Form 990” with the IRS. (Form 990 is an annual reporting return filed by most federally tax-exempt organizations that earn 36
ANIMAL SHELTERING NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2006
lic and private. Of the 9,512 animal organizations accounted for, 3,353 are shelters, including 1,554 municipal facilities and 1,809 private entities that may or may not be involved in animal control. Financial information listed in this table may help shed some light on local and regional funding situations. When income of national organizations is excluded, the average donation per capita for the country as a whole is $3.48 per year.
income from national organizations is included, New York, Utah, and Virginia also climb the list of top donation-getters. When those incomes are excluded, the latter three states fall down closer to the national average. States with animal welfare-related donations falling below $2 per capita include Alabama ($1.48), Arkansas ($1.56), Georgia ($1.83), Idaho ($1.26), Kentucky ($1.55), Louisiana ($1.39), Mississippi ($1.13),
Table 1: Number of Entities and Per-Capita Donations by State
rs te el Sh te iva Pr rs te el Sh al ip ic un rs M lte he lS ta To g in ud cl s) In up s ( ro ie G tit ed En ter l # el ta Sh To onN ry ma um rs lte he es at St 00 ,0 00 r1 pe rs te el Sh
l$ ta To
$
n tio la pu Po
n so er rp pe
d ise Ra
Alabama
4,557,808 663,661 5,939,292 2,779,154 36,132,147 4,665,177 3,510,297 843,524 550,521 17,789,864 9,072,576 1,275,194 1,429,096 12,763,371 6,271,973 2,966,334 2,744,687 4,173,405 4,523,628 1,321,505 5,600,388 6,398,743 10,120,860 5,132,799 2,921,088 5,800,310 935,670 1,758,787 2,414,807 1,309,940 8,717,925 1,928,384 19,254,630 8,683,242 636,677 11,464,042 3,547,884 3,641,056 12,429,616 1,076,189 4,255,083 775,933 5,962,959 22,859,968 2,469,585 623,050 7,567,465 6,287,759 1,816,856 5,536,201 509,294 296,410,404
164 38 162 161 891 229 208 21 12 473 189 26 74 362 211 117 121 102 102 120 118 207 390 156 73 203 71 45 48 58 298 93 406 325 19 475 139 144 274 51 124 32 190 748 134 69 348 176 133 232 69 9512
74 18 47 97 213 70 63 4 3 125 65 9 19 145 119 60 62 42 37 51 32 65 193 71 40 81 30 17 15 22 72 39 119 132 11 119 62 63 82 28 53 14 64 234 45 47 106 53 34 59 28 3353
35 9 20 42 100 31 48 0 1 39 23 0 11 89 53 27 36 13 23 19 9 22 140 21 21 53 11 8 6 3 39 15 21 66 4 34 36 29 5 22 15 10 31 141 40 32 51 16 11 5 18 1554
39 9 27 55 113 39 15 4 2 86 42 9 8 66 66 33 26 29 14 32 23 43 53 50 19 28 19 9 9 19 33 24 98 66 7 85 26 34 77 6 38 4 33 93 5 15 55 37 23 54 10 1809
$6,731,396 $1,591,089 $26,993,093 $4,327,426 $170,927,494 $28,445,147 $13,392,685 $3,617,586 $9,970,023 $69,985,398 $16,561,977 $6,062,219 $1,796,118 $36,337,793 $17,482,843 $7,526,048 $7,559,319 $6,452,075 $6,277,155 $7,272,916 $16,430,464 $57,985,916 $34,137,675 $14,744,350 $3,307,920 $17,220,219 $5,516,073 $7,279,846 $2,851,037 $5,332,348 $38,069,895 $6,893,864 $70,270,408 $15,697,759 $1,168,909 $42,455,719 $6,890,743 $11,486,294 $44,252,989 $3,052,680 $9,583,664 $1,358,154 $9,938,990 $54,403,866 $6,077,558 $4,538,245 $30,518,758 $32,437,437 $4,042,100 $22,819,867 $2,391,253 $1,032,464,800
$1.48 $2.40 $4.55 $1.56 $4.73 $6.10 $3.82 $4.29 $18.11 $3.93 $1.83 $4.75 $1.26 $2.85 $2.79 $2.54 $2.75 $1.55 $1.39 $5.50 $2.93 $9.06 $3.37 $2.87 $1.13 $2.97 $5.90 $4.14 $1.18 $4.07 $4.37 $3.58 $3.65 $1.81 $1.84 $3.70 $1.94 $3.16 $3.56 $2.84 $2.25 $1.75 $1.67 $2.38 $2.46 $7.28 $4.03 $5.16 $2.23 $4.12 $4.70 $3.48
1.62 2.71 0.79 3.49 0.59 1.50 1.79 0.47 0.54 0.70 0.72 0.71 1.33 1.14 1.90 2.02 2.26 1.01 0.82 3.86 0.57 1.02 1.91 1.38 1.37 1.40 3.21 0.97 0.62 1.68 0.83 2.02 0.62 1.52 1.73 1.04 1.75 1.73 0.66 2.60 1.25 1.80 1.07 1.02 1.82 7.54 1.40 0.84 1.87 1.07 5.50 1.13
Accounting for Revenue of National Organizations
Income generated by national organizations was excluded from Table 1. A combined $252,072,483 in revenue was generated by the following organizations in 2004: American Humane, the American AntiVivisection Society, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Best Friends, the Foundation for Animal Protection, Friends of Animals, The Humane Society of the United States, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the National Humane Education Society, North Shore Animal League America, PETA, and the World Society for the Protection of Animals. When this income is added to total and per-capita income figures in Table 1, the total amount donated to local and national animal welfare organizations in this country climbs to $1,284,537,283, or $4.33 per person.
Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Total
We want to hear from you! Our efforts to compile a comprehensive national shelter database can only be completed with your help. If you see discrepancies between our charts and your own statewide statistics, or if you have more information you’d like to share, please send an email to arowan@hsus.org or asm@hsus.org.
Nevada ($1.18), North Carolina ($1.81), North Dakota ($1.84), Oklahoma ($1.94), South Dakota ($1.75), and Tennessee ($1.67). Those familiar with shelter work probably won’t be surprised by the list of low-income states. It has long been recognized that some southern states have few shelters—and
that many of those shelters are poorly supported. What is not clear is whether the lack of support is a function of culture or of a lack of opportunity. For example, the Louisiana SPCA and other New Orleans animal organizations were raising more than $4 per capita— higher than the national average— from the population of New Orleans and its surroundings even before Hurricane Katrina. Low funding for animal protection in parts of the South and Southwest may simply arise from a scarcity of groups accepting donations rather than hostility toward animal protection. The northern plains states and northern Rocky Mountain states are also in the bottom of the pack in terms of per-capita donations—with the exceptions of Montana ($5.90) and Wyoming ($4.70)—indicating that state cul-
ture probably has less to do with the rankings than the effectiveness and presence of local shelters. The last column in Table 1 reports on the number of shelters per 100,000 residents. The average is 1.13 shelters, but some states— including Arkansas (3.49), Maine (3.86), Montana (3.21), Vermont (7.54), and Wyoming (5.50)—are well above the national average. Interestingly, Maine, Montana, Vermont, and Wyoming also rank high in per-capita donations. Perhaps the high density of shelters in these states also maximizes the potential donation income. Using the benchmarking information presented in Table 1, individual organizations can assess their fundraising success and judge which states are doing well and which are doing poorly in terms of public support. Because local and
MAKING CENTS FROM THE PACKAGE DEAL
While the state-by-state data is helpful, it would be even more useful to have data on individual organizations and on the details of their fundraising success. For example, Table 2 shows how six randomly selected animal shelters of roughly the same size raise their funds. Each has a different pattern of income generation. Organization 2 appears to have a successful merchandising operation while Organization 3 has a successful events program. By “packaging” the more successful activities into a comprehensive fund-raising model that could be emulated by multiple organizations, the income of all shelters could likely be increased, perhaps by a substantial amount.
Table 2: Distribution of income sources from six randomly selected shelters
Shelter Events Publications Tag Sale Donations Canister Program Bequests Interest/dividends Trusts/Foundations Grants Municipal Contract Merchandise Catalogue sales Adoption fees Service fees Direct Mail Member fees Total 437,000 396,000 125,000 50,000 30,000 5,000 387,000 10,000 552,000 45,000 485,000 556,000 15,000 15,000 75,000 41,000 60,000 12,000 175,000 12,000 70,000 1,000 11,000 40,000 62,000 250,000 140,000 20,000 1,000 2,000 10,000 15,000 4,000 245,000 140,000 500,000 150,000 200,000 1 $12,000 2 $20,000 3 $195,000 4 $20,000 5 $10,000 6 $25,000
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THE MONEY TRAIL BY DECADE
Since 1950, the number of animal welfare organizations has grown from about 100 to more than 3,000, as shown in Table 3. The majority of shelters have been established in the last 30 years; in the early 1960s, then-HSUS president Robert Chenowyth estimated the number of shelters in the country at 600. An examination of all entities currently classified as D20 (animal protection groups) in the IRS database shows that the vast majority of animal organizations (74%) were founded after 1990. While it is probable that the founding dates of shelters are not quite as skewed toward the recent past, it is likely that at least half the shelters in existence today were founded after 1980.
Table 3: Number and Size of Organization According to Decade of Founding*
Approximate Decade Founded Before 1950 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Unknown TOTAL # of Nonprofits 109 113 194 469 596 1,803 2,564 18 5,866 % of Total Nonprofits 1.9 1.9 3.3 8.0 10.2 30.7 43.7 0.3 100 # Filing 990 (% filing) 104 (95) 108 (96) 188 (97) 423 (90) 521 (79) 1,074 (60) 726 (28) 17 (94) 3,161 (54) Current Total Annual Income ($millions)** $701.2 343.7 190.8 234.0 161.2 276.5 46.7 7.4 1,961.5
* Figures for this table were pulled from the IRS database and include animal NGOs (D20NTEEC Classification) categorized by their IRS ruling dates, which are approximately the same as founding dates. ** The numbers in this column represent the current annual income for private nonprofit organizations founded in each decade. For example, the current annual income for organizations founded in the 1980s is $161.2 million. The figures exclude municipal agencies because they do not typically file 990 forms with the IRS.
national private animal welfare organizations whose income is reported via GuideStar raise an average of $4.33 per person, a community of 100,000 people should be donating about $433,000 per year to animal causes just to keep up with the national average. This figure would no doubt be affected by the median household income
in a given community as well as by community traditions and support for animal protection over the years. Competition from other animal protection groups in the area might also reduce an organization’s income. Nonetheless, the $4.33 per capita figure provides a useful baseline for shelter managers to examine their performance in raising funds.
The Cost of Animal Control?
Finally, an analysis of information gathered by the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA) adds some further questions for shelter directors. Not all the data was usable; the following analysis is based on reports submitted by 47 private entities, 14 municipal animal control entities, and 18 pri-
The sample size is small, and those who submit data to the SAWA annual report are no doubt heavily self-selected. Nonetheless, these numbers call into question the trend for private sheltering organizations to jettison animal control in their communities.
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vate entities with animal control contracts. The 47 private entities raised an average of $2.30 per person in their communities and brought in a further $1.02 in service fees and retail operations. The range was wide: the most successful organization raised $6.45 per person, while 13 of the shelters raised less than $1.50 per person. In terms of service fees and retail operations, it appears that anything above $2 per person in the community represents a very healthy program. An approximate breakdown of income showed that about 20 percent came from fees for service (adoption and veterinary programs), 16 percent from planned giving, 12 percent from direct mail, 10 percent from events, 5 percent from retail, 5 percent from interest, 4 percent from grants, and 28 per-
cent from miscellaneous sources. The 14 animal control agencies received about $4.79 per person in local government funding. By contrast, the 18 private entities with animal control contracts received only $2.60 per person from local government, indicating that private entities with these arrangements are subsidizing animal control. By the same token, however, those entities raised an average of $4.16 per person and brought in an additional $1.41 in service fees and retail income—for a total income of $8.17 per person. This is more than double the income of the 47 private entities without animal control contracts. In other words, there may be real compensations for taking on animal control (although of course the benefits would have to be weighed against the costs of pro-
viding the services). While agencies may end up subsidizing municipalities, it is possible that the visibility leads to a significant increase in public donations. The sample size is small, and those who submit data to the SAWA annual report are no doubt heavily self-selected. Nonetheless, these numbers call into question the trend for private sheltering organizations to jettison animal control in their communities. The data presented here is not by any means watertight, but perhaps this article will prompt others to do a more rigorous job of benchmarking. ❂
Andrew Rowan is the executive vice president of operations for The Humane Society of the United States and CEO of Humane Society International.
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