Is Your Shelter Healthy?

Does the staff at your shelter feel their work is valued? Do they enjoy being at work? Are they proud of their contribution to animal welfare? The answers to these questions have a huge impact on how your shelter operates and on the animals you work to protect.

Unsure of where your shelter stands? That’s where the Shelter Diagnostic System comes in. Through this service, shelter managers, directors, and boards can gain a better understanding of the healthy, successful aspects of their shelter programs and operations and the less healthy places that need some attention.

What is the Shelter Diagnostic System (SDS)?

SDS is an assessment tool designed to help private and public animal shelters run better by surveying employees and making specific recommendations based on survey results. Developed in partnership between the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte and The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), this system evaluates aspects of the organization central to employee attitudes, perceptions, and opinions that have direct implications for organizational effectiveness and well-being.

Specific issues the SDS addresses:

• Organizational trust
• Communication effectiveness
• Supervision
• Teamwork
• Peer support
• Euthanasia practices
• Employee morale
• Job stress
• Training

The SDS Process

• The process starts with an initial phone call to discuss your organization.
• You will provide input into how you would like your data reported (e.g., by department).
• We will send you surveys and business reply envelopes to distribute to your employees.
• We will send you information on how to administer the survey and communicate with your employees throughout the process.
• To protect anonymity, employees will send their surveys directly to UNC Charlotte for data analysis and interpretation.
• The survey results will be used to generate a summary report, which defines what your organization is doing well and where improvements can be made.
• You will receive a feedback guide that will assist you in determining specific actions to improve your organization.
• Typically, the data report should be received within 1 to 2 months after distributing the surveys to employees, although this depends on the promptness of employee responses.
• A trained professional from UNC Charlotte is available to answer questions you may have about your results.
• Ideally, the survey process should be repeated every 12 months to monitor progress.

Why should your organization use SDS services?

• Effective and healthy organizations have long recognized the conventional wisdom that “the people make the place”; if we do not take care of our people, we cannot take care of our organizations or the animals. The Shelter Diagnostic System attempts to capitalize on this wisdom.
• Animal welfare, organizational welfare, and employee welfare are all tied together.
• SDS provides specific employee feedback on the strengths and development areas of the organization so that it can better fulfill its animal welfare mission.

Clients Include:

• Animal Humane Association of New Mexico
• Animal Humane Society (Minneapolis)
• John Ancrum SPCA (South Carolina)
• Richmond SPCA
• San Diego SPCA and Humane Society
• Sacramento Animal Care Services
• SPCA of Texas

SDS Pricing

Pricing is based on the size of the organization (i.e., number of employees). Because the development costs of the SDS were subsidized by The Humane Society of the United States and UNC Charlotte, you only pay the direct expenses associated with implementing the system in your organization. To assist you in estimating your cost, use these guidelines:

• 25 employees, approx. $600
• 50 employees, approx. $900
• 75 employees, approx. $1,100
• 100 employees, approx. $1,200

Additional Services

Open-Ended Survey Questions: Allows you to ask employees about specific issues of your choice (e.g., How valuable do you find our staff meetings? What suggestions do you have for how our organization could run better?).

Norms: Allows your organization to compare your data with data collected from other shelters across the country.