Friends of the Burlington County Animal Shelter

Our Main Goals Are:

1) Helping Burlington County Animal Shelter reach no-kill status (save rate 90% or more) by year 2025

2) Helping the animals be happy and healthy in the shelter.

3) Helping the animals move from the shelter into forever homes, foster homes and
no-kill animal rescues.

4) Reducing the number of animals arriving at the shelter through our low-cost spay/neuter
program and our Return-to-Field program for feral cats.

- Fund advanced medical care for cats & dogs who may otherwise face euthanasia

- Subsidize low-cost spay/neuter for community cats and pit-bull type dogs

- Assist Burlington County residents Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) community cats.

- Advocate for Trap-Neuter-Return program throughout the county.

- Fund behavior training for dogs who may need some extra help to find a home

- Handle and socialize cats to release stress, which keeps them as healthy as possible, and also makes them more adoptable

- Walk the dogs and teach them basic commands, such as sit, down and paw. Regular walking allows dogs to release stress (many of them show much better outside their kennels) and also release energy, which makes them calmer and less reactive -- all of which makes them more adoptable

- Fostering both cats and dogs: In conjunction with the shelter, the Friends of BCAS foster programs essentially expand the capacity of the shelter by placing animals that are older, mildly ill or have behavioral issues in foster homes. A calmer home environment allows ill animals to recover faster and is much less stressful for senior animals. Animals with behavioral issues, mainly dogs, are placed with experienced fosters who work with the animals and get them ready for adoption

• Posting animals online. Shelter staff members post animals to one site, Petango. Volunteers handle the duties of posting the animals to Petfinder and Adopt-A-Pet, as well as on social media. Having the animals listed on as many sites as possible increases their adoption chances

For the year ending 12/31/2022, The Friends of BCAS had 360 volunteers who participate in the programs noted above. We use Volgistics to track volunteer hours - in 2022 our volunteers have contributed more than 38,289 hours to the shelter.

Our Board Chairman oversee all programs. Each program's coordinator manages their budget. We started a sponsorship program in 2015 and have increased and met our fundraising goals each year since the organization was founded.

We communicate monthly with our volunteers through an email newsletter and on an as-needed basis. We send email and text blasts to donors on a regular basis about upcoming events, statistics and fundraising. We also feature information about our programs on the Friends of BCAS website.

Board members meet bi-monthly. We have 6 active committees who meet bi-monthly:

- Fundraising
- Finance
- Governance
- Marketing and Communications
- Shelter Operations
- Volunteer

Board Chairman meets with Burlington County Animal Shelter Shelter management to talk about any problems or new programs, as well as discussing ways to improve shelter infrastructure.

Since the founding of the Friends of the Burlington County Animal Shelter, the save rate of cats and dogs at our county shelter has increased dramatically. In 2011 the save rate for cats was 27.9%. In 2015 it was 60.8%, 2019 72%, 2020 78%, 2021 82% and in 2022 71%. In 2011 the save rates for dogs was 86.8%. In 2015 it was 95.4%, 2019 93%, 2020 94%, 2021 96% and in 2022 94%.

Friends of BCAS is committed to continually increase save rates for cats and dogs at our county shelter. Our goal is for our County shelter to reach a no-kill status by year 2025 (save rate of 90% or more). The critical unresolved issue preventing no-kill is the lack of trap-neuter-return (TNR) or return-to-field of community cats who enter the shelter. We are working with the County and local towns to pass ordinances to allow TNR in the County. We are also revamping our cat foster program to attract more fosters, which is a critical part of saving friendly cats.

To help increase the dog save rate, a new program in 2022 was funded by Friends, offering a month of free, in-home training for select dogs. In 2023 we are expanding this program, focusing on increasing dog kennel enrichment and providing more support post adoption.