Kingdom Animal Shelter - Non-Proft & Volunteer Scheduling - Case Study

Case Study: Kingdom Animal Shelter in St. Johnsbury, Vertmont, United States

Business Overview

Kingdom Animal Shelter, Inc. is an all-volunteer 501[c] 3 organization incorporated in 2003. Our goal has been to build a shelter in the St. Johnsbury area. We are a proud member of the Vermont Humane Federation, Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce, Humane Society of the United States and American Humane Association.

On November 1, 2009 we opened a cat shelter and adoption center called "Kingdom Kats". All of our cats see a veterinarian shortly after their arrival and are examined along with being vaccinated and spayed or neutered before going to their new homes. Because ours is a small shelter we are at present only able to take cats deemed as "adoptable" into our program. Therefore, we are currently a "limited-access" shelter, which means we do not euthanize to make room for incoming animals. We may have a waiting list. We can be a resource to help you locate an animal shelter, humane society or rescue in the state that may be able to assist you. We can provide general information on animal care, solving behavior issues and direct you to local resources. We believe the best way to reduce the issue of overpopulation and thus reduce the number of homeless cats and dogs, is to spay and neuter. We hold reduced cost spay and neuter clinics several times a year.

Until there are none: We will continue to raise funds with the ultimate goal of one day building a much needed shelter to house both dogs and cats but in the meantime we will also look for ways to help our local animals in need.

Scheduling Overview

Our volunteer base grew quickly over the past few months. Several months ago, we didnâ€™t have enough volunteers to provide the level of care that Kingdom Animal Shelter had dedicated itself to. There was talk of closing the shelter if we couldnâ€™t find a way to improve upon what we were doing and to have a volunteer base that would allow us to provide the community the services we have been.

Thankfully, we were able to get the word out and our community came out to support the shelter. Our volunteer base more than doubled. This provided us with quite a challenge. Organizing and tracking volunteers became very difficult with our old â€œsystemâ€�. Communication was difficult for us among so many people. Now have enough volunteers to do so, we have adoption hours 7 days a week but before we were not prepared to handle so many volunteers and to have the additional scheduling needs related to set up a work schedule. That is why we went in search of a better way to handle our scheduling.

Previous Scheduling Method

Previously because we had fewer volunteers, most with a set schedule, it wasnâ€™t really "tracked" as much as it was just "known". If someone was unable to cover a shift, or would be away, theyâ€™d send an email to our "Go To" person and she'd scramble to cover it often going in herself.

Our weekend adoption schedule changes from month to month. The person who was handling that sent out a poll via email for people to sign up for whichever Saturday or Sunday they wanted to cover for the month and it was left at that.

Since ShiftPlanning

We looked at several options and the work scheduler ShiftPlanning had everything we needed and we think it will work for us as we need it to. It admittedly took us quite some time to filter through everything and get things changed over to ShiftPlanning. We only started to actively use the work scheduler at the start of this year. So our experience with it is a bit limited but I can say that it has made things much easier and I can see where it will be very useful.

ShiftPlanning has helped manage our schedule in a more organized way. When we doubled our volunteer base, our Volunteer Coordinator started delegating scheduling duties for our various shifts. We had someone scheduling our morning cleaning volunteers. Another person was scheduling our â€œTuck Inâ€� volunteers and yet another was scheduling our Adoption Counselors. Some of our volunteers fill multiple roles and with three different people doing the scheduling in three different ways, on paper, things were either being over looked or unnecessarily complicated.

It's easy to use. - Heidi Sessions â€“ Kingdom Animal Shelter

Further

Our weekend adoption schedule can be done so easily with this work scheduler. We can create open shifts and people can schedule themselves and are put right into the schedule. ShiftPlanning lets us see where we need coverage ahead of time, instead of realizing last minute that a shift hasnâ€™t been filled.

Scheduling is easier and more organized. Volunteers are able to log in to see their schedule whenever they need to. It should help with communication as well. Itâ€™s helped Kingdom Animal Shelter manage a volunteer base that quickly doubled.