Atlanta Humane Society & Society For Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Georgia
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The Atlanta Humane Society is working to reduce pet homelessness and overpopulation in the Southeast by prioritizing preventative and community-based solutions.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Animal Adoption Services
A core part of our focus has always been to find loving homes for animals in our care. AHS does not euthanize healthy, adoptable animals, and there is no expiration date for any animal because of time or space.
In fiscal year 2020, we helped find homes for 10,886 animals, who came into our care through transport partners, from owners who could no longer care for them, and from emergency or rescue situations. We also opened a new adoption center in Duluth to encourage more of our community to choose adoption. This facility was strategically placed after merging with Georgia SPCA and designed to increase the number of animals we can find homes for by 1,000 animals each year. We now have the capacity to care for approximately 600 animals at full occupancy between three campuses.
Maintaining over 10,000 adoptions each year results from a variety of innovative adoption promotions as well as collaboration with local rescue organizations and local businesses through adoption events. AHS offers fee-waived or reduced-cost adoptions when we have animals at the shelter for longer than 30 days. We also have promotions periodically with free adoptions for Veterans and lower fees for harder to adopt large dogs, senior animals, and animals with medical conditions.
Spay and Neuter Services
Our strategic vision as an organization is to reduce and eventually eliminate companion animal homelessness in Georgia and the Southeast. Atlanta Humane Society (AHS) is dedicated to reducing the number of unwanted and homeless animals in Georgia through prevention services including spaying and neutering all shelter animals and as many publicly owned companion animals as possible. Our Low-Cost Spay and Neuter Program is one of the resources we provide to our local metro Atlanta community. In FY2019, AHS performed 12,715 spay or neuter surgeries.
Shelter Medicine
Our Shelter Medicine Program plays a strategic role in our plan to increase direct services to animals and save more lives. Over the past year, we treated more medical cases than we’ve treated before, and we expanded the care provided to animals in need. We are partnering more frequently with external hospitals to ensure our animals receive access to specialized medical care, and animals with conditions like heart defects, MRSA, and brain disorders – all cases we treated last year– are receiving the expert care they deserve. In 2019, our Shelter Medicine Team treated a total of 1,900 animals with medical conditions, including 163 dogs suffering from heartworm disease and 85 dogs with the often-deadly parvovirus.
Our Shelter Medicine Program also serves as a critical resource for our partner animal welfare organizations. We not only have the capacity but also the expertise to treat medical cases that many times other animal welfare organizations cannot take on. We have two Shelter Medicine Veterinarians on staff to support animals with medical needs at our Howell Mill and Mansell campuses.
Animal Protection and Response
AHS’ Animal Protection and Response Team is often called upon by our partners across the state to take on large-scale natural disaster relief efforts, hoarding cases and animal rescue efforts that local animal control facilities often don’t have the capacity to handle. In 2018, AHS added a dedicated Director of Cruelty Investigation. This department works closely with law enforcement, prosecutors, and other animal welfare organizations across Georgia to bring justice and hope to animals in need.
Community Outreach
We are seeing more pet owners in our community who are falling on hard times and need support to care for their animal, especially in the midst of the economic climate surrounding COVID-19. Our Community Outreach Team provides support to these families and their pets though affordable veterinary care and free resources to help keep pets healthy, safe, and in their homes. In 2019, we provided 4,705 low-cost spay and neuter surgeries and held monthly clinics to provide free vaccines to 1,770 owned animals in our community. Additionally, we provided affordable behavior and training classes to 1,531 animals last year to support healthy pet communities.
Often serving as a first point of contact for community members in need, the AHS Call Center is an important aspect of our community outreach programming and directly supports animal welfare needs in our community. Our team of three full-time personnel field an average of 7,500 calls per month. In addition to handling calls related to our vet center and other programs, they receive calls related to lost animals and strays, and they provide education and advice. Call center personnel are specifically trained in conflict resolution as well as in the delivery of high-quality customer service.
Community members look to us as a leader in animal welfare to provide important and accurate information and to support them when it’s needed most. We will continue to evolve our outreach programs to appropriately respond to the needs of our community’s animals as we all navigate these uncertain times.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
Society of Animal Welfare Administrators 2015
Society of Animal Welfare Administrators 2016
Society of Animal Welfare Administrators 2017
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of animal adoptions
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Animal Adoption Services
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We are focusing on adoptions, but we have also been striving to keeps pets in their loving homes. In order to do so, we have increased our community outreach services to support pet owners.
Number of Spay and Neuter Surgeries Performed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
COVID temporarily impacted our ability to perform spay and neuter surgeries as we developed and implemented safety protocols for in-shelter services and services to the public.
Number of community outreach services provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Community Outreach
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This year, we significantly grew our community outreach program, offering thousands of animals with free pet food, affordable veterinary care, and other resources to support vulnerable pet owners.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The mission of the Atlanta Humane Society is to improve animal welfare in the southeastern United States by providing quality animal services including preventative initiatives, education, advocacy and adoption of animals into permanent loving homes.
The vision of the Atlanta Humane Society is to be the premier leader and organizational resource for the welfare and protection of companion animals in the southeastern United States.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
AHS is now initiating a new, board-approved strategic plan with four major goals to inform organizational decision-making. The first goal calls to provide comprehensive and compassionate care to the animals in our facilities, promote meaningful relationships between people and pets through adoptions and innovative placement programs, and keep more pets in homes. The second goal is to make veterinary care accessible and affordable by expanding a multifaceted, scalable, non-profit practice model. The third goal is improving the health and well-being of animals across the Southeast through leadership, direct services, and partnerships. The fourth goal is to maintain financial health and increase funding opportunities with both individual donors and institutions while
building governance models across the organization.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Atlanta Humane Society has a long history as an animal welfare leader in the Southeastern United States. With buy-in from our Board of Directors, Leadership Team, and President and CEO, AHS is positioned to meet the goals of our strategic plan. Our leadership team has put into place competent Directors and leaders across the organization who carry out each department's objectives and goals each year. These goals tie back to our strategic plan.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
AHS has a progressive vision for Atlanta’s animals and an ambitious goal to double the number of direct services provided to animals from 50,000 to 100,000 by 2023 to save more animal lives. Over the past year, we have already provided more than 70,000 direct animal services and impacted over 20,000 animals through sheltering and adoption, affordable veterinary care, and community outreach.
To continue to increase services provided to animals, AHS is expanding our facilities. By the year 2023, AHS will complete a master facilities plan with a capital facilities investment inside the City of Atlanta. To align with this goal, AHS closed on a property approximately two miles from our current Howell Mill location, which will be our new headquarters and animal adoption center.
To deliver on our third goal of creating a plan for the health and well-being of all animals in the City of Atlanta by 2023, we have accomplished the following:
- Consolidate public veterinary care under the Vet Center to improve customer experience and operational efficiency
- increase support for individuals and organizations in need of pet food
- conclude 3rd party research assessment to evaluate service gaps and needs in underserved communities.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Atlanta Humane Society & Society For Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Georgia
Board of directorsas of 12/20/2023
Mr. Samir Salem
Janice Bracken Wright
David S. Covell
Samuel Franklin
Raj Nichani
Cindy Voyles
Samir Salem
Virginia Phillip
Melissa Richards
Cindy Batey
Lisa D. Brown
Marsha Holcomb
Simon Chio
Claire Jackson
Dr. Todd Lavender
Raj Nichani
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
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Gender identity
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Transgender Identity
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Sexual orientation
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Disability
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