Quarterly Report April 2021
Official / General
2020 Statistics posted to web site. https://www.rabbitnetwork.org/info/hrn-rabbit-statistics/
Financials
Documents through Feb have been sent to the board.
Adoptions
As of Apr 26 we have had 177 adoptions this year. We have taken in 169 rabbits.
Fundraisers/Development Committee Update
Flatbread scheduled for June 15. Started soliciting for donations, created facebook event. Website page is up.
Bingo 4/23 – raised $1063, down from January’s event but still successful. People were not interested in the designer bags.
Poorly-Drawn Pets starts 5/1. Teaser marketing has already begun.
Spa Day- next one to be held May 8. We are already sold out with a waiting list- we need to be doing these every 6 weeks and ideally include South Shore and Worcester- locations? We also need additional volunteers to run this often.
A Plush is Enough
- Raised about $2400
- Next year goal – 250 stuffies (200 were sold this year)
- Will be easier next year now that we have a reliable supplier and an idea about how many and what kind we can sell
Virtual 5k scheduled for October
- Goal of 150 registrants
- Same registration fee ($25)
- More print-on-demand merchandise for anyone, not just registrants (shirts, water bottles, decals)
- Medals will still be pre-order so we don’t over-order; plan to use same manufacturer
Hop Up Market- raised $3083! Lots of items sold. We should improve what inventory we have as this time we had too many figurines. We need to not have people clean out their house and donate.
Development Committee has expressed that the Hop-Up Shop is extremely tedious and time-consuming for what it makes and wants to put on hold until at least December. What is the board’s opinion on this?
Calendar- Sent out request for pictures, which are due by April 30th. Liz is on board to create the calendar again and Dawn is going to be working with Suzanne as project manager. Last year we sold out of 225 calendars by the first week of December. Suggesting we purchased with 250 or 275 this year.
Yoga is still not feasible due to covid. Will monitor and reevaluate in the fall.
Development Committee is working on putting firm fundraising goals in place and will discuss this at our next meeting on 5/4/2021.
Grants
Submitted annual report to Petco. (which allows us to apply for grants)
We received a $5000 grant from the Petco Foundation from the grant submitted last fall.
Gillian submitted for a grant through Whole Foods, looking into Walmart.
MAC is offering emergency grants due to covid, with applications due Jan 31. HRN’s has been submitted. Grants will be announced April 2021. We received an email that we are getting a grant but do not know what the dollar amount is yet.
Still no word on how MAC is reformatting their spay/neuter grants going forward or when we would need to apply.
Holiday Wishes has changed to Love Stories and is already open for submissions. Any update on this?
Shelter
-Shelter is open at half capacity and with no mid shift currently
-Jenna currently running schedule and looking for another person to assist, Deb running adoption appointments, Fabiane to start holding orientation April 30 to start training new volunteers.
-Looking to onboard new volunteers to train ASAP (from the lists Palestina & Lesley gave at the last meeting, thank you!)
-Looking for better ways to make cleaning schedule easier for volunteers
Donation Management
Monthly Donors-(Bun of the Month Club) first article went out and was well received.
22 Monthly donors so far.
Foster Homes:
Interest in fostering has slowed down quite a bit although the number of foster homes we have at this point is probably ok. With the shelter open we don’t have many buns for the foster homes that can’t travel.
Foster Committee is meeting weekly to every other week to discuss surrenders, foster homes and surgery schedules. Franny McKeever has stepped down from her volunteer role and Pam Weir has joined the Committee. Our surrender request form is still busy and Lindsay Franklin has taken over managing those requests.
Hotline:
Three new hotline volunteers – Sadie, Ali, and Cristina. We were getting complaints about people not hearing back but that’s been resolved, it was miscommunication with one of the new volunteers who didn’t realize she was responsible for all applicants on her day.
On average applications per month have slowed down – 153 for 2020Q3, 228 for 2020Q4, and 121 2021Q1
Adoption contracts have been handed over to Sara Christensen, who will hopefully fully own this part of the procedure soon.
Sadly, I will be needing to give up hotline duties and am looking for a new volunteer to take over with training over several months.
Spay/Neuter Van / Surgical Space:
Van concept is not cost efficient so being tabled for now.
Looking into our own surgical space. Do we have an update on pricing for supplies?
–Receiving a used but efficient flat surgical table from LBVH
-Should be able to stay under $10k, biggest purchase will be anesthesia machine + scavenger (between $3000-$5000)
-Need a DVM associated with HRN to make medical account associated with HRN to be able to purchase medical supplies when everything is finalized
-Will need to start finding vets + techs willing to volunteer time to do sx or start making a plan to hire scheduled veterinary staff? Is the plan to run sx on a specific day of the week every week- like Saturday or Sunday? How often are we looking to run sx? Shelter has space that we could feasibly do it once a week every day for a full day worth of sx, but would likely need to find a separate space if we planned on doing it multiple days of the week (unless we moved some stuff out of the back storage room).
Outreach
On Hold due to covid.