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Since the Association is in the beginning stages, our member services will grow over time. The offerings will be based on what our members find most useful and helpful.
Volunteers from our member rescue orgs have and will continue to contribute significantly to the quality and breadth of services offered. We are continually looking to our members to contribute ideas, suggestions, sample material, and time. Please contact us at any time!
Our volunteer project list provides details of currently needed assistance focused on encouraging member involvement and expanding our member benefits.
Member Services
- Networking – Rescues helping rescues with advice, contacts, home checks, …
- New Rescue Assistance – Issues in starting a new rescue, how-to materials, mentoring program, …
- Certification – Trusted by shelters and veterinarians, certification process, …
- Policies & Practices – Operations manual, board approval of policies, modifying the manuals for your use, …
- Standard Forms – Time-tested and comprehensive forms, all phases of the rescue cycle, Microsoft Word formats easy to modify for your needs, …
- Liability Insurance – When insurance is needed, carriers offering animal rescue specific policies, discounted rates, …
- Mediation – When conflicts arise the Association can help, types of service offered, …
- Tracking Software – Animal management systems – benefits, web-based, special offers for member rescues, manual tracking requirements, …
- Newsletter – Keeping updated on current rescue news, awards, success stories, tips, Association growth/new members, …
- Recognition – Through certification, annual awards by category, success story recognition, …
- Future Programs – Animal abuser’s hotline and locator, monitor abuser’s animal activities, spay/neuter coordination efforts, …
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Bringing animal rescue organizations together to support each other through networking is a key goal of the Association. Mentoring by larger, established Certified Rescue Organizations (C.R.O.'s) will help the newer, growing rescues achieve their goals quicker and more effectively.
Active collaboration can make a big difference. For example, performing an adoption home check at a distant location can be quite a burden. What if a local member rescue could help out?
As more and more rescues join the Association, the frequency and value of networking increases dramatically.
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Rescue is a work of passion. Passion for the animals you save. Becoming a member of the Animal Rescue Association of America is your first step to success! We are here as a resource for those interested in starting a rescue organization as well as supporting established rescue organizations. Often the best way to learn about rescue operations is by volunteering in an established rescue organization. Please contact a member organization in your area to volunteer or contact us for help.
To better understand what a rescue organization does, click here. This diagram and recap covers the individuals and organizations involved from intake of the animal, medical care, housing/foster care, and through to the ultimate adoption.
Topics to be added soon:
- Background article
- As a Rescue Grows
- Forms of Organization
- Non-Profit/Tax Deductible
- The Rescue Cycle
Please contact us if you are interested in mentoring assistance from an established rescue. We will do our best to connect you to an appropriate mentor. Words of advice from those of have “been there, done that” can help you move from start-up to productive and quality rescues in short order.
Links to other articles or books about animal rescue
Coming soon!
Animal Rescue: The Best Job There Is
(Amazon.com link, paperback by Susan E. Goodman)
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A Certified Rescue Organization (C.R.O.) has been shown to adhere to the highest standards in quality rescue operations. Shelters, veterinarians, and others can work with a C.R.O. with full confidence and trust.
Once certified, newer or smaller member rescue orgs can use the C.R.O. credential to quickly and effectively work with shelters and service providers. Larger established rescues join the certified ranks as role models for the industry and newer rescue orgs and in support of the animal rescue industry.
Certification fees are on a sliding scale and are discounted during our northwest rollout. Please see membership for additional information.
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The material below contains a compilation of “best practices” in animal rescue. The terminology has been kept species neutral as best as possible so the material can be used with little modification. The topics covered are quite comprehensive for canine and feline species. Details specific to other species should be added as needed by those rescues until our offering become more comprehensive. Please contribute your ideas and examples!
Policies and Practices Downloads
- Policy Statements
- Animal Rescue Operations Manual
- Foster Care Manual
- Adoption Kit
The policy statements download contains example policies that can be adopted by most animal rescues. The policies address the key tenets of the Animal Rescue Code of Ethics. The operations manual contains material important to the practice of an animal rescue. The foster care manual and adoption kit are packets that are delivered to new foster care individuals and adopters, respectively.
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The following outline lists standard forms organized by the rescue cycle steps. Those in blue and underlined are completed. The others plus new ones suggested by members will be completed soon. Please feel free to email us forms that you use (electronic files please), enhancement ideas, or suggestions for additional format.
The forms below are all in Microsoft Word format and have intentionally been kept simple so you may modify them for your needs. The top section of the forms has reserved space for your logo or other rescue-specific information. Click here for a document on how to easily modify these forms to be used in your rescue operations.
Animal Intake
- Admission (Intake: Animal Profile)
- Owner Release
- Shelter Release
- Veterinary Release
Medical Care
- Veterinary Service Order
- Veterinary Release of Information Request
- Medical History / Log
Housing/Foster Program
- Foster Application
Adoption
- Adoption Application
- Non-Transferable Adoption Agreement
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Accidents happen, especially when multiple animals are involved. Liability insurance becomes more important as a rescue grows in size. Larger organizations tend to become involved in events such as pet fairs and fund raisers. The opportunity for things to go wrong increase dramatically with these public-facing events. Many event sponsors require liability insurance coverage.
When soliciting coverage, many insurance companies are uneasy with the extent of animal involvement. They may not be familiar with animal rescue activities. This makes finding coverage difficult and perhaps more costly than necessary.
The Association is working with several large insurance carriers to encourage them to provide pre-packaged and streamlined animal rescue policies. Each of the carriers listed below provide animal rescue-specific policies for Association members. Some offer additional discounts for certified members.
Liability Insurance Companies
Negotiations in progress
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The Association can assist its members with conflict resolution as well as education and persuasion.
Conflict Resolution
The Association is available to assist parties involved in animal rescue disputes or difficulties via structured mediation services. Issues are addressed by a mediation team of at least three experienced animal rescue members. Dispute or conflict information will be evaluated using the Animal Rescue Code of Ethics as the standard for quality rescue operations and activities. The mediation team will render an opinion and will work with all parties to achieve an amicable and appropriate resolution. In most cases, there will be no charge for Association mediation services.
Education and Persuasion
A shelter or veterinarian may at times be reluctant to work with a member rescue. The Association can often assist by providing key educational information directly to the shelter or veterinarian. In addition, the Association can directly contact the shelter or veterinarian on behalf of any Certified Rescue Organization (C.R.O.) to ensure complete understanding of our certification process and to build trust in the C.R.O.’s rescue activities.
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The information that should be tracked for each animal is quite extensive. When only a few dozen animals are adopted per year, manual record keeping may be quite adequate. Several of the “standard forms” can assist in this process. In addition, the operations manual contains examples and ideas for how to organize your animal records.
When activity increases, an automated animal management system can be a great time saver. In addition, web-based systems allow distributed individuals to all help maintain records. Users can be restricted to only specific inputs and notes (e.g., a foster might include information on diet changes or behavior notes).
One such web-based animal management system that we have reviewed and can recommend is provide by iShelters (www.ishelters.com). Their fees are based on the number of new animals added each month. We are in negotiations with iShelters to provide discounted rates to Association members.
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Our newsletter will provide a forum for communication of current topics, new members, special member activities, and other Association news. We anticipate quarterly newsletters initially with more frequent distributions as our contributor pool and staff increases. If you have a topic or article of interest or you wish to assist with newsletter development, please contact us.
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Animal rescuers are passionate people. Many spend significant time and personal funds to help animals. The Association wishes to recognize those members that go beyond the call of duty or in other ways further the animal rescue industry.
Recognition will be provided in many forums including:
- Success stories on our web site (please contact us to submit your success story)
- Media promotion by the Association highlighting exemplary member activities
- Member news in our newsletter
- Annual awards by category – initially based on submitted candidates and member voting
- Animal Rescue Conference – Regional or national conferences may be developed with focus on education, networking opportunities, and recognition. Sponsorship by large animal providers (e.g., pet food manufacturers) will hopefully defray some of the cost of holding a conference.
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In addition to developing animal related programs that foster the rescue industry, the Association is also interested in programs of general animal benefit. Two such future programs deal with animal abusers and spay/neuter coordination. Please contact us if you are interested in assisting us in these or other future programs.
A small group of individuals are known to abuse animals on a significant scale (tens of animals at a time). Often the abuse stems from too many animals in terrible living conditions. These individuals are difficult to prosecute. Even if they are punished, they inevitably return to public life where they usually abuse again. The abused animals are often assisted by animal rescue organizations.
Often these individuals have a strong tendency to be repeat offenders and their effects on such large numbers of animals warrant our special attention. We are proposing to dedicate a portion of our attention and web site to a hotline and locator for these animal abusers.
Hotline
The hotline (phone number and/or web form) will allow anyone observing possible abuse to communicate with us while being assured of anonymity (if requested) and action. Our response will include communications and follow-up with appropriate local agencies as well as a log or history of any similar or related communications.
Locator
Once convicted, animal abusers often move to new locations (e.g., out of state). The Animal Abuser’s Locator will attempt to track the locations of known animal abusers and provide notification to neighbors, local animal rescue organizations, and local enforcement agencies. Appropriate though casual monitoring will either deter the animal abuser or provide early notification of a repeat offense.
We can be a strong catalyst for monitoring known animal abusers – all within legal bounds. In addition, we can work with state or federal legislators to build awareness and legal foundation for official monitoring of animal abusers. In the meantime, we can use common locator techniques and technologies to find and track know abusers. Simple notification and updates to interested parties is certainly better than no exposure at all.
One of the best opportunities to reduce animal overpopulation is to encourage and facilitate spay/neuter practices. This program would provide a focused effort around spay/neuter activities. Great strides can be made in regards to education and out-bound communication with animal owners. Providing comprehensive yet concise educational materials as well as procedures and marketing materials (e.g., brochures in PDF format) to the multitude of organizations promoting spay/neuter practices is just the start. A centralized organization with a charter to push these practices can be very effective. Knowing of spay/neuter opportunities is the first step in increasing this practice.
In addition, the coordination of organizations currently providing free or discounted spay/neuter services will help them maximize their capacity and utilization. One promising idea to assist in this coordination is a “Hosted Appointment Service”. This automated service would be available from our web site. Anyone wishing to set up a spay/neuter clinic or event could create an “appointment book” which event sponsors and animal owners could use to efficiently schedule procedures. This appointment service could include directions, logistical information, post-procedure care instructions, etc. Once a large portion of providers begin to use this service more animal owners will come to this “one-stop-shop” for an optimal experience. Animal owners could easily “search” for a spay/neuter service that is available near by, for the price they are willing to pay, and on the date they desire. “Customer Satisfaction” will lower the barriers to spay/neuter activity.
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