Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter Public Relations Cause Campaign

COMM 3215 Public Relations Dr. Karen Hartman

Patricia Garcia Margaret Tinker Brittany Valadez

Description Approximately eight million stray and unwanted animals are sent to shelters every year (AHA 2013). Sadly, about half, almost four million animals are euthanized each year. That statistic does not include animals that are turned away from no kill or turn-away shelters. Many animals who are refused by turn away facilities are dumped on the road, in the woods, in the yard of the local cat lady, or in the custody of some other unscrupulous person (PETA 2013). When we come home, our dogs greet us with a tail wag and a lick, and our cats greet us with purr and a snuggle. Cats and dogs are parts of families everywhere (St. Louis Veterinarian, 2013) and they make houses into a home for us. So, the fact that millions of our best friends are killed every year is why we chose to join forces with the Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter in the hopes that we can help more and more pets get adopted every year. Our group has chosen to partner up with the Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter in Turlock, California. Together, we will create a campaign to raise awareness of an animals life in a shelter and the low cost of adopting a pet in the effort of increasing the number of animals adopted in the Spring 2014 semester specifically by the students on the California State University, Stanislaus campus.

Program Plan Situation Analysis: The Friends of Turlock Animal shelter is a small shelter that has been working to offer cats, kittens, and small dogs a place to stay while they find a good home for them (About Us, 2013). It is a non-profit organization based in Turlock, California. We believe that college students on the California State University, Stanislaus campus are a good place to start increasing the adoption rate of animals, because college students are renting their first apartments and then buying their first homes. By making deals with apartment complexes in the area to lower or eliminate the pet deposit, we believe that we can help students adopt a pet to make their house a home, increase the rate of adopted pets in just one semester, and decrease the number of our best friends that our dying in animal shelters every year. By creating booths on campus to raise money, create awareness, and showcase our pets available for adoption, we hope to help animals get adopted by students. Our group and the Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter hope to increase the adoption rate by an average of 30 percent. Target Audience: This campaign will target college students at California State University, Stanislaus from the age of 18-25, not including students who live in the dorms. We chose to target this audience because they are the largest group of adults that are renting or buying their first home, which makes a great home for newly adopted pets. We did not include students who live in the dorms, because the dorms do not allow pets. As of Fall 2012, there were 8,882 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at Stanislaus (CSUS Facts, 2012). However, if we exclude the 563 oncampus residents (Bautista, 2013), then we have a total of 8,319 students in our audience.

Objective #1: To raise awareness of the low cost of adopting a pet from the Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter among 1,000 Stanislaus students. Strategy: Create an informative booth on campus every Wednesday during Warriors in the Quad. Tactics: 1. Handout 1,000 flyers and hang up posters about the cost of adopting a pet to students 2. Make a visual aid poster board to present how animals live in shelters and how cheap it is to save an animal from the shelter 3. Create a 30 second commercial to air on KCSS the Stanislaus radio station and an article to be included in The Signal 4. Send mass campus e-mail and post on campus social media sites about weekly event Objective #2: To increase the number of animals adopted in the Spring 2014 semester to 125 dogs (33% increase) and 175 cats (28% increase). Strategy: Create an adoption booth (to accompany the informative booth) on campus every Wednesday during Warriors in the Quad. Tactics: 1. Bring the Friends of Turlock Animal Shelters mobile adoption center to campus to show students which pets are available for adoption 2. Lower the cost of adoption by working with nearby apartment complexes (Park Place, Boardwalk, and Briarwood) to eliminate the pet deposit for students 3. Offer incentives with each adoption including a collar, three pound bag of food, and a leash or litter box

Objective #3: To raise a total of $1,000.00 per week for fifteen weeks during the Spring 2014 semester. Strategy: Develop a fundraiser for the Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter Tactics: 1. Sell bracelets that say I Saved a Puppy/Kitten for $1.00 2. Have jars at each booth where students can donate any type of money they have 3. Sell raffle tickets for $1.00 and raffle off three Visa gift cards, one for $100, one for $50, and one for $25 Overview calendar
January M

W 1

6 Talk to ASI about having a booth on Wed. in quad. 13 Contact apartment complexes to eliminate pet rates. 20

T 2 Get in contact with the animal shelter about campaign and recruit volunteers. 9 Turn in R25

F 3

S 4

S 5

10

11

12

14

15 Buy supplies for campaign

16

17

18

19

21

27 Send out campus wide email

28 Reminder social media posts

22 Commercial airs on KCSS for the first time 29 First Warriors in the Quad booth set up

23

24

25 Hang up posters

26

30 Evaluate progress. News Release published in the Signal

31

February

3 Reminder social media posts 10 Reminder social media posts 17 Reminder social media posts 24 Reminder social media posts

4 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 11 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 18 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 25 Awareness booth. Adoption booth.

5 Evaluate our progress from Wednesday 12 Evaluate 19 Evaluate

13

14

15

16

20

21

22

23

26 Evaluate

27 Hang up posters

28

March

3 Reminder social media posts 10 Reminder social media posts 17 Reminder social media posts

4 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 11 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. Raffle prizes giveaway 18 Awareness booth. Adoption booth.

5 Evaluate

12 Evaluate

13

14

15

16

19 Evaluate

20

21

22

23

24 Reminder social media posts 31 Reminder social media posts

25 Awareness booth. Adoption booth.

26 Evaluate

27 Hang up posters

28

29

30

April

1 Reminder social media posts 7 8 Reminder social media posts 15 Reminder social media posts 22 Reminder social media posts 29 Reminder social media posts

2 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 9 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 16 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 23 Spring Break 30 Awareness booth. Adoption booth.

3 Evaluate. 10 Evaluate 17 Evaluate. 24

11

12

13

14

18 Hang up posters on campus 25

19

20

21

26

27

28

May

1 Evaluate.

6 Reminder social media posts 13 Reminder social media posts 20

7 Awareness booth. Adoption booth. 14 Last awareness day. 21

8 Evaluate. 15 Final evaluation 22

10

11

12

16

17

18

19

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Daily calendar for quad events 10:30am-11:00am Volunteers set up awareness and adoption booths Awareness Booth: -Poster board -Donation Jar Adoption Booth: -Incentive Packages -Mobile Adoption Center -Adoption Paperwork 11:00am-2:00pm Warriors in the Quad begins Hand out flyers Sell bracelets Sell raffle tickets (Until March 11) Allow students access to cats/dogs 2:00pm-2:30pm Volunteers Clean up

Budget
Price Adoption Fees - Dogs Adoption Fee Shots Spay/Neuter Pet Deposit Total Adoption Fees - Cats Adoption Fee Shots Spay/Neuter Pet Deposits Total Adoption Incentives - Dogs Dog Food Collar Leash Toy Total Adoption Incentives - Cats Cat Food Collar Litter Litter Box Total Advertisement Costs Flyers Poster Board Posters Commercial Article Student E-mail $ $ $ $ 90.00 100.00 200.00 300.00 Quantity 125 125 125 125 Cost $ 11,250.00 $ 12,500.00 $ 25,000.00 $ 37,500.00 $ 86,250.00 Donations Actual Cost $ 5,625.00 Donated Donated Eliminated $ 5,625.00

$ $ $ $

60.00 100.00 200.00 300.00

175 175 175 175

$ 10,500.00 $ 17,500.00 $ 35,000.00 $ 52,500.00 $115,500.00

$ 5,250.00 Donated Donated Eliminated $ 5,250.00

$ $ $ $

5.73 5.00 5.00 5.00

125 125 125 125

$ $ $ $

716.25 625.00 625.00 625.00

Donated $ $ $ 625.00 625.00 625.00

$ 2,591.25

$ 1,875.00

$ $ $ $

5.73 5.00 7.00 7.00

175 175 175 175

$ 1,002.75 $ 875.00 $ 1,225.00 $ 1,225.00 $ 4,327.75

Donated $ 875.00 $ 1,225.00 $ 1,225.00 $ 3,325.00

$ $ $ $ $

0.06 0.25 -

1000 1 50 1 1 15

$ $ $ $ $ $

60.00 12.50 -

$ $

60.00 12.50

Social Media Posts Total Fundraising Costs I Saved A Puppy Bracelets I Saved A Kitten Bracelets Raffle Tickets $100 Visa Gift Card $50 Visa Gift Card $25 Visa Gift Card Total Staff Costs Volunteers (60 hours/person) Total Total Contingency

15

$ $

72.50 $ 72.50

$ $ $ $ $ $

0.13 0.13 9.80 100.00 50.00 25.00

4000 4000 3 1 1 1

$ $ $ $ $ $

520.00 520.00 29.40 100.00 50.00 25.00

$ $ $ $ $ $

520.00 520.00 29.40 100.00 50.00 25.00

$ 1,244.40

$ 1,244.40

8.00/hour

10

$ 4,800.00 $ 4,800.00 $209,985.90

Volunteered 0 $ 17,391.90 13.04% $ 2,608.10

10%

Overall Budget Total Fundraise Total Out of Pocket Expenses

$ 20,000.00 $ 15,000.00 $ 5,000.00

Overall Budget
Fundraising Costs $1,244.40 Advertisement Costs $72.50 Contingency $2,608.10 (13.04%) Adoption Fees- Dogs $5,625.00 Adoption Incentives Cats $3,325.00

Adoption Incentives Dogs $1,875.00

Adoption Fees - Cats $5,250.00

Evaluation: We will do weekly evaluations the day after each weekly event. We will count all of the remaining flyers (if any) to find out how many students we reached using the flyers. We will count number of successful adoptions and compare it to the statistics from last year. We will calculate the amount of funds raised to determine if we met our $15,000.00 quota.

Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter November 29, 2013 9:06 PM Pacific Standard Time

Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter Partner With Local Stanislaus State Students
Turlock, CA Millions of animals are killed every year and that is why local Stanislaus State University students chose to join forces with the Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter in the hopes of helping more and more pets get adopted every year. January 29, 2014 is the set date for the students to go on campus and begin the animal adoption booth in the quad. Bracelets will be sold that say I Saved a Puppy/Kitten for $1.00. All proceeds go to the Friends of Turlock Animal shelter. The booth will be set up every Wednesday in the quad for the Spring 2014 semester at Stanislaus State University.

If you cant make an adoption at this time, donations help more than you can imagine.

Vice President of The Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter , Becky Rodriguez, explains If you cant make an adoption at this time, donations help more than you can imagine. The potential pets still need food, shelter, and comfort up until the time they are adopted. The Friends of Turlock Animal shelter is a small shelter that has been working to offer cats, kittens, and small dogs a place to stay while they find a good home for them. It is a non-profit organization based in Turlock, California. For more information visit www.turlockanimals@aol.com Contacts The Friends of Turlock Animal shelter Fundraising Chair Brittany Valadez , Tel: 209.324.8989

Bvaladez1@csustan.edu

Works Cited "About Us." Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter. Friends of Turlock Animal Shelter, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. "Animal Shelters." PETA.org. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. Bautista, Anabelle. Personal Interview. 25 November 2013. "California State University, Stanislaus Facts." CSU Stanislaus Office of Institutional Research. Office of Institutional Research, 29 Oct. 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. "Pet Overpopulation." American Humane Association. Convio, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. "Why Pet Adoption Is Important." St. Louis Veterinarian. Nomad Solutions, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.