Response from Yvette Van Veen:
Great question. Thank you for asking it!

Personally, I am a huge believer in stealing successful business practices and incorporating them into the shelter/animal rescue environment. By this, I do not mean that we reduce animals to a commodity. But, if you can take advantage of what works to help get the work out, then it makes sense to do so! So the first thing I would recommend are two books. The first is called " The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber (http://www.e-myth.com/) and the second is titled "The Tipping Factor" by Malcolm Gladwell - http://www.gladwell.com/. They are available in the business section of most book stores. Why are these two books relevant? Because the first is about policies and procedures. You are asking what procedure would work best to get the word out. The second book is about taking an idea and tipping it into the daily social fabric of a community. And you are trying to do that also. These are business books. But the lessons can very easily be incorporated into a rescue organization without sacrificing values.

Policies are important because they allow you to present a clear and consistent message. You can pick and choose topics based on your policies and anyone coming into the program can make educated decisions about future topics. You can clearly spell out in your mission statement items such as, "Who do we want to reach? What message is critical to get out? What are our guiding principles for topics?" Even if mentally you have these ideas prepared - Put them on paper! Your organization needs clear direction when creating a program. It will save you headaches down the line. The other nice benefit of the book is that it saves time. Policies and procedures save time which means you have more time to do more and avoid burnout.

Then you can look at how to best reach your target audience. Seminars are great, but if they do not reach an audience or effect a change, then they miss their full potential. It can lead to, "Preaching to the choir." Which is why I would recommend doing a little work investigating what various organizations may want to hear about. Reading body language is a "fun" topic, but might not effect very much change. I might expect the topic would get interest, but it also has a downside. The topic usually appeals to people who already are well educated in animal care. In "The Tipping Factor" the author talks about how one woman wanted to get information to African Americans in her community relating to breast cancer. Despite having great resources and information, her program was not gaining results. Finally she realized she had been missing her target audience. Most did not attend the facilities she was reaching out to. But they often spent hours getting their hair braided. So she began targeting hair salons that did weaving and the word spread like wildfire. Small change - big results. Anyone who wants to effect a change would probably give their right arm to increase success at little to no cost.

The other topics you propose are brilliant, and what I would personally do is find a way of making the topics salient to your target audience. If you are approaching a community center and "sell" your seminar on pet responsibility as, "How to become a responsible pet owner..." chances are most people will think, "I am responsible so I do not need it."

But, if you can try something along the lines of, "New puppy owners - free housetraining advice and preventing the number one reason for serious attacks..." people have a reason to attend. Free housetraining is a nice draw and the aggression prevention leads right into backyard dogs and chaining. In other words, responsible pet ownership. You take the "preaching" out of your seminar and turn it into something that reaches the people who need it most. In a nutshell, you start to follow a very basic premise in business called, 'WIIFM." WIIFM stands for "What's in it for me?" Take some time and find out what pitch would work in Alabama. The cultural factors are likely different from the North.

To wrap up, the answer to your question is, "Both." If a facility is interested in a particular subject, then great. But as you reach out to your community be prepared to target the demographics in that place. What problem is specific to that area? What message do they need to hear? And then the big one....How are you going to make that topic appealing enough that your target population will choose to give up watching their favorite t.v. show and listen to you?

Thanks for making a difference, by the way!

NMHP messages are available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NMHP/

Posted on SHARE Yahoo group Nov. 16, 2005