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Michigan Pet Fund Alliance's 2018 No Kill conference,  Getting to the Goal will be held September 27-28 in  Kalamazoo at the Radisson Plaza Hotel.

Early registration runs through August 7. The Shelter/City Tour and Animal CPR & First Aid are filling fast! 

Best Friends beige
Best Friends Animals Society, a Miracle Maker level sponsor, will be holding their Midwest Regional Leadership  Summit as well. 

Best Friends, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, operates the nation's largest sanctuary for homeless animals; provides adoption, spay/neuter, and educational programs.  

Sessions conducted by Best Friends are open to all registered conference attendeesTwo of the sessions  are: 

How to Powerfully and Effectively Leverage Volunte ers, presented by José Ocáño and Pat Guerrero

Learn how to build your organization capacity by leveraging volunteers at every level of your organization. This session will introduce Points of Light's Service Enterprise, a framework that helps transform organizations and build effective, sustainable, and comprehensive volunteer engagement strategies. Take volunteer engagement from simply a program to a strategy to help achieve your social mission.

Progressive Animal Services as a Community Ethic, presented by José Ocáño and  Lee Ann Shenefiel

Today, killing homeless pets as a form of population control has become socially unacceptable and more communities are working to transform their animal shelters from 'pound' models to community resource centers focused on returning lost pets to their families and achieving lifesaving outcomes. A progressive lifesaving animal services department is a community expectation, value and ethic. Animal services departments are moving away from a strictly transactional experience to more of a collaborative approach to saving pet's lives. Not only can municipalities save precious financial resources moving away from merely impounding pets and punishing people, but they can save more pet's lives by having policies, programs and laws in place with the sole purpose of creating a safe, pet-valuing and humane community.

Speakers for these sessions are: 

José Ocáño
Pacific Region Director, Best Friends Animal Society

Tucson native José Ocáño spent the first decade of his career working for Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) in Tucson, Arizona. He started as a shelter technician at the open-admission shelter, which took in more than 30,000 pets each year. After he spent his first day on the job euthanizing dozens of saveable pets, José considered leaving animal welfare, but he decided to stay and work for change at the county facility.
During his tenure, José focused on community engagement and implementing progressive, lifesaving adoption, rescue and volunteer programs to increase live outcomes and decrease intake, which has declined to 18,000 pets per year. In his last role at PACC, as Executive Director, José helped launch a Pet Support Center and overhaul the shelter's medical operations which pushed the open-admission shelter's save rate to the 90 percent it is today.
Last year, José joined Best Friends Animal Society as its new Pacific Regional Director. In this role, he will oversee the NKLA initiative and work with shelters in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii to help them achieve no-kill by 2025.


Pat Guerrero
Senior Manager, Volunteer Engagement & Programs, Best Friends Animal Society

Pat Guerrero is senior manager of volunteer engagement and programs for Best Friends Animal Society. She is responsible for executing Best Friends strategy of deepening and broadening the engagement of volunteers with the mission and programs across the United States. Pat also leads consultation with Best Friends Network Partners, i.e. animal shelters and rescue groups around the country, to amplify their impact through volunteer engagement. She is a certified Service Enterprise trainer and manages the Best Friends hub for the Points of Light Service Enterprise initiative, through which Best Friends Partners are able to participate in the Service Enterprise program. She lives in Kanab, Utah, home of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, with a variety of feline and canine family members, and loves to spend time outdoors kayaking and hiking in the high desert of beautiful southern Utah.

Lee Ann Shenefiel
Interim Chief Animal Services Officer, Austin Animal Services
Lee Ann Shenefiel is the Interim Chief Animal Services Officer for the Austin Animal Center, a nationally recognized leader in animal sheltering that saves more than 95 percent of the nearly 17,000 animals it takes in each year. Lee Ann has more than 14 years of leadership experience in public service. In Austin, she previously served as Deputy Chief Animal Services Officer and managed Animal Protection, Outreach and Prevention Programming, and the center's Volunteer Program. Before moving to Texas, Lee Ann, a Virginia native and graduate of the College of William and Mary, was an assistant director for the Fairfax County Animal Shelter where she oversaw intake, adoptions and business services and helped to develop policies and programs that helped the shelter achieve a more than 90 percent lifesaving rate for the first time.

Full conference information including schedule, speakers, sessions, sponsors and accommodations can be found here

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MPFA renews for State Employees Charitable Campaign 



SECC Logo
Michigan Pet Fund Alliance  has been renewed as the only animal welfare-focused umbrella in the  Michigan State Employees Charitable Campaign (SECC) for 2018-19. The program provides State of Michigan employees the opportunity for charitable giving via payroll deduction.

MPFA has defined the following criteria for inclusion: 
Congratulations to the following organizations that have been approved for the 2018-2019 Michigan State Employees Charitable Campaign under the U522 Michigan Pet Fund Alliance umbrella: 

Al-Van Humane Society
All About Animals Rescue
Canine Companions Rescue Center
Cascades Humane Society
Copper Country Humane Society
Eva Burrell Animal Shelter
Furry Friends Rescue
Gratiot Animals in Need (G.A.I.N.)
Humane Society of Huron Valley
Humane Society of Livingston County
Humane Society of West Michigan
Leuk's Landing, Inc
Michigan Orphan Kitten Rescue
NBS Animal Rescue
PapAdopters & Placement Services
Paws for Life Rescue
Shelter To Home
SPCA of Southwest Michigan
Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter

About Michigan Pet Fund Alliance 
The single mission of Michigan Pet Fund Alliance is to stop the killing of healthy and treatable homeless cats and dogs in Michigan shelters. 
 
MPFA is an all-volunteer organization collaborating with shelter and rescue organizations to achieve No Kill through training, technical  assistance,
 education and advocacy.
 
For more information: 
877-FUR-PALS  (877-387-7257)
 
Michigan Pet Fund Alliance is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization as defined by the IRS (EIN 20-0399162) and is a  Guidestar Exchange Gold Participant.

Guidestar Gold

 Contributions are tax deductible. 

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