Catnip

Note: The organization did not respond to this question.

Note: The organization did not respond to this question.

The Director of Lifesaving Outcomes was awarded a Feline Lifesaving Mentorship through Maddie's Fund, a leader in the animal welfare and sheltering field. The mentorship equipped her with the skills to develop and grow programs that are tailored to serve families and animals in our community and to promote diversity and inclusivity by eliminating barriers to participation in those programs. Our investment in this particular role in our organization is necessary because of the higher than usual number of animals we are working with after COVID and Hurricane Ida. We will need to grow our current programs and create new, sustainable ways to help families and pets stay together during future disasters.

Examples of external mobilization efforts by our founder and CEO include forming and leading a task force that ultimately resulted in a spay/neuter voucher program for our home parish of St. Tammany; appeals to the St. Tammany Parish Council that resulted in a new ordinance in 2021 with protections for community cats; organizing large-scale volunteer efforts to deliver medical care to big populations of free-roaming cats in remote areas; leveraging external resources to subsidize quarterly low-cost, high-volume spay days for the community; being a featured partner for our local dealership in a Subaru Loves Pets adoption campaign; and sharing information related to our mission and our goals through our website, social media, email, and earned media coverage.

The biggest external change impacting Big Sky in the last year has been the “new normal” of sustained elevated levels of need among people and pets impacted by the COVID crisis and Hurricane Ida. To better meet the needs of our underserved communities, we decided to adapt to this change by expanding our capacity to accept and house more animals in need of help. After just one year in a new location at our 6,000 sq. ft. multi-use facility, we put into motion a plan to add more room for intake and quarantine holding spaces as well as additional housing for cats and dogs in what is now excess warehouse storage space. Another major external change has been the worker shortage, which has made hiring more difficult for us. We are adapting to this change by investing in the stewardship of our volunteer program, with a staff member taking this on as 50% of her duties in addition to her roles in administrative and outcomes support. We intend to shift some responsibilities for daily routine animal care, cleaning, and maintenance to volunteers as much as is feasible. The worker shortage has also significantly slowed our plans to complete an interior build-out project that will permanently expand our capacity to accept more animals and save thousands of more lives each year. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, flooring, and building contractors are all in very high demand because of the widespread physical damage caused by Hurricane Ida. Builders and developers are paying top dollar for contractors to complete projects quickly and replace some of our lost housing stock because of the high demand. It’s difficult for us to compete for attention from contractors. We adapted to this change by engaging a supporter who is an architect with deep ties to the construction industry. Our progress is still slower than we would like, but we are making steady progress toward completing our latest expansion as we adapt to the changes in our building and construction sector.