5 Best Practices for Animal Shelter Data Collection and Reporting
If I asked you to list the top priorities in an animal shelter, what’s the first thing you’d think of? Likely, things like fundraising, volunteer acquisition, behavior programs, and adoptions popped into your head. I’d wager a guess that very few people, when faced with this question, would think “data collection!”
What if I told you that data is the beating heart of a successful animal shelter? Data collection might not seem like a top priority, but the truth is that all of the priorities listed above are driven by data. Data helps shelters to make informed decisions on everything from the success of behavioral interventions to budget allocations, but data collection is often overlooked in the needs-driven environment of a shelter. Let’s demystify data with these 5 best practices so your shelter can start reaping the benefits of good collection and reporting today.
Our Top 5 Data Collection Best Practices
We’ve talked about the importance of data collection in other blogs, but we’ve devoted very little time to talking about how to collect and report data in an animal shelter environment. Luxuries like data collection often fall to the wayside for shelter directors, and who can blame them? Between ever-changing intake rates, hiring staff, planning enrichment programs, developing playgroups, and facilitating adoptions, it can be hard to keep track of the small stuff.
However, a little work on the front end can have big payoffs. Follow these best practices to start making data collection a habit in your shelter:
Create Standard Operating Procedures
Probably the biggest issue for animal shelter data collection is a lack of standardization. Industry-wide data standardization is in its infancy, which can make it difficult to draw meaningful insights from data at a local and national level. Put simply: when there aren’t standard procedures for what data you collect, how it’s collected, and when it’s collected, your data will be too inconsistent to be useful. Standardize your data collection by:
Utilizing industry resources: Efforts to standardize shelter data collection are relatively new, but they’re not non-existent. Shelter Animals Count (SAC) has made great strides in standardizing data collection, and their Animal Welfare Glossary is a great resource for industry-wide definitions and calculations.
Deciding what to collect: The most useful data is collected intentionally. Sit down with leadership to discuss your shelter’s goals and what data should be collected to achieve them.
Defining roles clearly: When roles aren’t clearly defined, it’s easy for wires to get crossed. Ensure that your data is as consistent as possible by assigning only one staff member with data collection responsibilities. A limited number of staff should also be assigned data entry responsibilities, and they should be trained thoroughly (more on that later).
Documenting your SOPs: Your standard operating procedures should be clearly outlined, documented, and made available to all staff.
All field staff and volunteers should be trained in data collection, and this training should be built into your on-boarding process.
2. Train Staff and Volunteers
Like I mentioned above, your SOPs should be clearly documented and made available to all staff. But it’s not enough to simply draft a document and leave it up to staff to figure it out. Ensure all staff and volunteers are equipped by providing thorough training in data collection and reporting.
Train all existing staff in your new data protocols, and include data training in your new staff and volunteer on-boarding process. This will ensure that all staff and volunteers are aware of the importance of your data initiatives and are competent at collection and reporting.
3. Clean Data Regularly
It’s not enough to just collect data. You’ve also got to store and clean it regularly. Data should be stored using a management software or dedicated spreadsheet. Some common management software systems include:
Capacity for Care (C4C): A management tool to ensure that shelters are operating within their capacity to provide the Five Freedoms and Five Domains of Welfare to the animals in their care.
Customer Relationship management Systems (CRMs): These are software systems that collect, organize, and analyze data from clients, which shelters use to manage their client relationships.
Data Dashboards: Visual dashboards to store, organize, and visualize the data you’ve collected.
No matter how much planning, organization, and training you do, data can still get messy. That’s why it’s also important to review and clean your data on a consistent basis. Cleaning your data also gives you opportunities to assess the effectiveness of your current SOPs and make changes where necessary.
4. Utilize Data for Decision Making
Too often, shelters pour resources into data collection, but they neglect to take that extra step of actually doing something with it. Utilize the data you collect by:
Sharing data with staff: Share your data insights with staff on a regular basis. This can look like a monthly staff meeting to review data insights or posting graphs and figures that illustrate your data in common spaces. This will help staff to understand the importance of your data collection efforts and allow them to utilize data insights in their day-to-day work with shelter animals.
Sharing data with your board: Data is an objective tool to be utilized during conversations with your board of directors. Your data insights can help you and your board to make important decisions about programming goals, new initiatives, and reallocation of resources.
Evaluating your programming: Data can be used to track the success of new or existing programming, giving you valuable insights into their actual impact on your shelter’s population.
5. Be Transparent
Finally, it’s important to be honest and transparent about the data you collect. Regularly sharing your data with the public can help to build public trust in your shelter, illustrate your shelter’s needs, and drive fundraising.
When sharing data with the public, don’t just provide figures without context. It’s important to tell a story with your data. Let the public know what you’ve learned, the context behind your data, and what you plan to do moving forward.
Laurie Lawless offers hands-on support with remote– and in-person services.
Get Hands-On Support With Shelter Behavior Integrations
Still struggling to build data collection into your shelter? Let Laurie take the reins. Laurie Lawless, founder of Shelter Behavior Integrations (SBI), offers a number of services designed to lighten the load of overwhelmed shelter directors. Laurie’s remote services, namely her Shelter Projects service, are designed to give shelters the boost they need to integrate new initiatives (like data collection). If you’re looking for more hands-on support, Laurie offers a number of in-person services where she’ll travel to you and offer direct support to your staff. Check out the SBI website to learn more about Laurie, access educational resources, and read our blog!
