Austin Humane Society

As the longest-standing no-kill, nonprofit pet adoption center in Austin, Texas, the Austin Humane Society is dedicated to: saving Austin's homeless cats and dogs; educating our community about responsible pet ownership; and reducing pet over-population. Our shelter offers comprehensive, humane, life-saving animal services, transforming the lives of animals and those who love them. AHS' approach to addressing animal homelessness includes both finding animals homes through adoption as well as preventing future homelessness through spay/neuter programs.

Since first opening in 1952, the Austin Humane Society (AHS) has gone through many phases, always growing and taking on new goals and responsibilities to meet the needs of the animals and people in our community. In the 1950s, the community came together to build what was then a state-of-the-art animal shelter. In the 1990s, the community came together once again to move AHS into our current building, where we've created an advanced space for the temporary shelter of homeless cats and dogs. We look to the future where through a capital campaign we can grow our organization to serve even more animals and host even more programs to spread our mission of compassion to all animals and people.

In 2021, AHS served over 11,000 animals and people through intake, community outreach and prevention. We continue to collaborate with ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, and 100+ local and regional area shelters and groups. Considering Austin's tremendous growth and its constantly changing animal welfare landscape, AHS is prepared to make adjustments to our strategies to continue to maintain the strength and success of our programs. AHS will stand ready to serve animals and people in disaster situations.

AHS has created a diverse, active, and sustainable fundraising strategy that promises significant growth in the coming years. Roughly half of our income depends on small-to-medium-sized gifts from individuals. We ask all participants of our feral cat program, as well as adopters and owners who surrender their pets, to donate to our organization. We send out direct mail donor mailings per year, direct mail acquisition mailings, and newsletters, and weekly emails to our donor base. Both our Director of Development & Marketing and Development Manager are focused on cultivating donor relationships.

AHS hosts two major fundraising events each year, in addition to over 50 third-party fundraisers. AHS staff regularly attend workplace giving events to solicit donations from employees of corporations and government agencies who are able to support AHS through a payroll donation.

AHS regularly applies for funding from private, family, and corporate foundations and will continue to seek a diversified stream of grant funding.

Our partnership with area animal shelters plays a huge role in the success of our organization. By partnering with other animal advocacy organizations focused on specific areas of need, we help provide a comprehensive safety net for at-risk dogs and cats, while addressing the larger problems that create animal homelessness and unnecessary euthanasia.

As stated previously, AHS has grown from 258 adoptions in 1953 to over 4,000 adoptions each year. The goal is to ensure that our dogs and cats not only find loving homes, but permanent ones. When an animal enters our Adoption Program, we make a commitment to provide them quality care for both their medical health as well as their behavioral needs. Each and every animal receives spay/neuter surgery, vaccinations, microchips, warm beds, quality food and toys, and exercise. Our adoption program has continued to grow over the years, just as our city has grown.

The AHS Community Cat Program provides free sterilization and vaccinations for feral cats. Our humane Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) approach provides ordinary citizens with a free trap rental, education on how to use the trap, free spay/neuter surgeries for feral cats by appointment, rabies vaccinations, ear-tipping, de-worming, and pain medication. The feral cats are then released back to the original trapper who returns them to their colony. The program has had a significant impact on our city-run animal shelter, the Austin Animal Center (AAC). Since the inception of the program in 2007, AHS has served over 74,000 free-roaming cats. We look forward to continuing this successful program and reaching out to more potential volunteer trappers who can help us expand the number of surgeries we perform.

AHS has 800 active volunteers who annually donate over 100,000 hours of volunteer time. Foster volunteers provide care in their homes for animals that are not yet ready for our Adoption Program, primarily young kittens and puppies. In addition, AHS provides humane education through dog obedience and puppy classes, workshops for school children, educational tours, pet loss support groups, and counseling and education through our adoption center. We have the experience and capacity to organize large scale emergency animal rescue operations including providing shelter and re-homing during times of crisis (i.e. animal hoarder rescues, puppy mill rescues and natural disasters.) Funding large-scale rescues is a challenge, yet we have learned to craft effective online fundraising campaigns and solicit media attention to raise money to save animals in need.