Adōpets' Guide to Digital Foster Management

In a recent survey conducted by Adōpets and AAWA, it was discovered that three out of four shelters saw an opportunity to improve the technology they use for foster management. With an increase in fosters during the pandemic, shelters are rethinking how they use online tools to better coordinate their foster activities with automated communications, collaborative message boards, and seamless integration with online applications, scheduling, contracting, and payment. In this guide we will share Adōpets' digital foster experience and provide practical tips on improving your foster program with online tools.

Seamless Coordination is at the Heart of Digital Foster Management

While the rise of online tools have presented new technologies for shelters, the problem is that these tools are frequently not connected to each other and shelter staff, adopters, and fosters struggle with a disjointed user experience. The Adōpets Foster Management module is seamlessly integrated into Adōpets' Shelter Efficiency Platform which provides an end to end system for digital forms, scheduling, contracting, payment, and automating manual tasks. Let's look at some of the ways digital foster management is improving operational efficiency:

Foster Parents Play an Important Role—now you can assign and track those special roles in Adōpets

Up until now foster parents have received communications from online tools but they have not been engaged as system users where they can be an integral part of the adoption process. This has changed with Adōpets Foster Management module which gives shelters the ability to assign foster parents a user role in the system where fosters can now be part of the automated communications, adoption process, and scheduling. Foster parents can be assigned as a Foster Approver which gives them full access to approve adoption applications for their animals, or they can be assigned as a Foster Recommender which gives them the ability to be part of the adoption process but adopter approval remains with shelter staff. Both foster user types enable foster parents to be notified of adoption inquires and receive update notifications when adopters are approved. Importantly, foster user access to the rest of the Adōpets system is restricted.


Automating Foster Communications

Foster parent coordination is what makes foster programs successful but it takes a lot of time and technology can help manage many of the manual communications. Adōpets automated Smart Responses  are triggered based on the stage of your adoption process and enable foster communication while saving your staff time. These automated communications can notify foster parents when an adoption application is received, when it has been approved, and when the adoption contract and payment have been received and the pet is ready for pick up. Additional automations can be set to check in with the foster and prompt them to submit feedback on the animal. The foster Smart Responses are based on editable templates that you can customize to reflect your shelter processes. They also utilize Tokens to personalize the message to the foster parent and include the ability to add a button for Scheduling or other actions.

Collaboration & Messaging

With the importance of automating communications with foster parents there is also the need to provide a secure place where staff can share information with foster parents and where foster parents can share information with staff. Adōpets private message board, which is built into each animal application, makes it easy for staff and foster parents to make notes and share information in a collaborative way. With a single place for staff and foster parents to share information, your team will easily be able to receive information on animals in foster and communicate with foster parents. 

Reporting and Data Visibility

Shelter leaders are seeking more actionable insights into their operations, and with this has come increased requirements for reporting and data visibility. The changing need for actionable insights are particularly important for foster management because they present an opportunity to make it easier to match foster parents with animals. By enabling staff to tag foster parents with pet characteristics that they are a good fit with, Adōpets provides visibility across your foster network and helps staff easily identify appropriate foster parents. A combination of scheduled reports and on demand reports provides the flexibility to either automate the delivery of reports over email or to run a report when you need it.

With shelters seeking new ways to improve their foster programs and improve their operational efficiency—high on the list are automation capabilities,  collaboration tools, and enhanced reporting.

Request a demo here to learn more about how Adōpets can help improve your foster program.