8:30 AM

12:00 PM

Lunch

1:00 PM

Dog Behavior and Handling Workshop - Shelter Playgroup Alliance
Details coming soon!

6:00 PM

Check-In and Networking
Check-in at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel St. Louis and mingle with other attendees.

8:00 AM

8:30 AM

10:00 AM

Crisis Communications for Animal Welfare Organizations - Sarah Javier and Patrick Barry
When it comes to crisis situations for animal welfare organizations, it’s not a question of if but when. Being prepared can make all the difference in protecting both animals and an organization’s reputation. This presentation will help leaders build a strong foundation for crisis communications, ensuring they are ready to respond effectively. Presenters will share practical insights, real-world scenarios, and best practices to help organizations stay resilient, maintain public trust, and navigate challenges with confidence.

11:15 AM

12:15 PM

Lunch and Exhibit Hall
Complete the Passport in your welcome bag to be entered in a raffle to win prizes!

1:45 PM

Uncovering Bias in Animal Welfare – Promoting Fairness and Equity - Mike Wheeler
This session will shed light on the concept of Bias within the realm of animal welfare and sheltering services and its potential impact on decision-making processes. Bias, whether conscious or unconscious, can influence decision-making, resource allocation, and interactions with both animals and the communities served. By shining a light on bias, we can develop a deeper understanding of how it affects outcomes and community relationships. This session will share strategies for promoting fairness and equity and sharing best practices to counter bias and foster a more inclusive and compassionate animal welfare approach.

An Ounce of Prevention - Kim Brown
We all have heard the saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Benjamin Franklin was on to something, and this advice is something we can apply to the pets we serve. We know how illness can halt flow through, cost precious resources, and impact the number of animals we can help. The good news is there are things we can do to keep our shelter or foster animals healthy! We will discuss cleaning, sanitation, PPE, reducing stress levels, and medical care at intake.

3:00 PM

Giving and Receiving Feedback with Confidence - Elizabeth Galbreath
Feedback can be a scary word to those of us who have received harsh feedback or criticism at a challenging time. However, feedback is fuel for personal and professional growth. In this workshop, learn more about how to make giving and receiving feedback less intimidating and more effective through tangible steps applicable in your relationships at work and at home. Gain confidence and set yourself apart from your peers by having important conversations for everyone’s benefit, including your own.

De-escalation in Animal Services - Nick Walton
This session provides practical strategies for defusing tense or potentially volatile situations in the shelter and the field. It covers key techniques such as active listening, the importance of body language, and how to apply verbal and non-verbal interventions to promote safety and cooperation. This session will provide the necessary tools for officers and shelter staff to respond effectively and confidently in high-stress encounters.

4:00 PM

Building Resilience in Animal Welfare: Strategies to Combat Compassion Fatigue and Enhance Employee Retention - Alisha Vianello
With a median retention rate of just 67% and 90% of animal welfare professionals reporting moderate to severe burnout, employee turnover remains a critical challenge in the industry. However, Gateway Pet Guardians has successfully defied this trend, maintaining a 90% employee retention rate. This session will explore data-driven insights, industry research, and real-world strategies to foster a positive workplace culture that supports staff well-being, enhances job satisfaction, and ultimately retains top talent. Attendees will leave with actionable takeaways to build a resilient and engaged workforce within their own organizations.

Roundtable
Roundtable discussion with industry leaders to answer your priority questions about field services, operations, fundraising, and more!

6:00 PM

Cocktails and Awards Banquet
Join the Missouri Coalition of Animal Care Organizations for an evening of celebration as we announce the 2025 awards recipients! Cocktails will begin at 6 pm and the banquet program at 6:30 pm.

8:30 AM

At-Risk Committee - How to help support animals struggling in the shelter - Dr. Kelsey Battelle
GPG’s At-Risk Committee meets weekly to identify dogs struggling in shelter early and implement interventions to prevent them from decompensating. We strive to minimize length of stay, exhaust all options for (+) outcomes, ensure the safety of handlers and the potential community they get adopted into while responsibly using GPG’s resources. The goal of this committee is to make sure the animals in our care maintain a good QOL during their stay and ultimately prevent euthanasia. If euthanasia is needed, we then know that we exhausted all resources to prevent it.

Perfection is the Enemy of Lifesaving - Stacy Rogers
It's easy to become obsessed with perfection in your organization, your team, or your community, but this pursuit can slow or even derail your lifesaving capacity. This session explores how you can save more lives by abandoning your search for "perfect." With real life examples from animal welfare organizations, we will discuss how to get more effective results by learning to work in the grey. We'll explore how the mantra "perfection is the enemy of lifesaving" works--from a community outreach perspective and how it applies to making smart decisions as a leader.

9:30 AM

Love at First Click: The Science Behind Pet Photos & Adoption Fees - April Huntsman
This research based presentation explores the critical elements that influence the success of pet photos. We’ll explore everything from the perfect pose to the ideal setting, uncovering the secrets to capturing hearts and driving engagement. We’ll examine factors such as the inclusion of humans or children, the optimal amount of pet visibility, accessories, setting, text overlays, photo quantity/quality, variety, DEI compliance, and platform-specific nuances, to uncover actionable insights to create captivating imagery. We’ll also share insights into the public's perception of adoption fees and the impact on interest in the pets in your care!

No Barriers, Just Love: The Key to More Lifesaving Adoptions - Amanda Loellke
Every day a pet spends in a shelter can mean the difference between life and death. Yet, outdated policies and excessive adoption requirements often block them from loving homes. This session challenges traditional processes and explores how a barrier-free approach increases lifesaving, reduces shelter populations, and improves adoption experiences. Attendees will learn how to remove unnecessary restrictions without compromising animal welfare, backed by data and real-world success stories. Join us to discover how open, inclusive adoptions can save more lives.

10:30 AM

Maximizing Value from Veterinary Services - Dr. Jo Jarred
This interactive session will delve into the essential relationship between shelters and veterinarians, with a particular focus on animal sheltering organizations that have limited access to veterinary care. We will explore the ongoing veterinary shortage, discuss effective strategies for building strong veterinary partnerships, share approaches for optimizing the use of existing veterinary staff, and review how implementing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) can enhance the effectiveness of these resources.

Marketing Strategies that Boost Community Support - Tori Fugate
In this session, we’ll discuss proven marketing and communications strategies designed to elevate your organization’s visibility and engagement. Drawing from her experience leading nationally recognized brands and her current role in national shelter data storytelling, Tori will walk attendees through effective techniques in social media, newsletter marketing, branding, and community engagement. From growing a 1M+ TikTok following through storytelling to building trust with transparency and data, this presentation will offer practical, scalable ideas for any organization looking to deepen community support and drive action.

11:30 AM

From Foster to Forever: Engaging Foster Caregivers in Pet Promotion - Kelly Duer
Fosters are stepping up like never before—and that’s worth celebrating! But with more pets in foster homes, the question becomes: how do we keep them moving forward to adoption instead of bouncing back to the shelter? In this upbeat and idea-packed session, you’ll hear how progressive organizations are turning fosters into marketing MVPs. From quick and easy feedback tools to bite-sized trainings and automation hacks, we’ll show you how to make promoting pets simple, fun, and effective for every foster caregiver. Let’s keep those pets on the path to forever homes—with fosters leading the way!

Fundraising Beyond the Ask: Building Donor Relationships That Last - Rob LaRoy
Learn how to cultivate meaningful connections with donors to sustain long-term support for your mission. This interactive session will explore strategies for donor stewardship, crafting personalized thank-you messages, engaging supporters with impactful storytelling, and leveraging technology to deepen relationships. Whether you’re new to fundraising or looking to elevate your approach, you’ll leave with actionable tools to enhance donor retention and inspire increased giving. Let’s shift the focus from one-time asks to fostering lifelong partnerships!

12:30 PM

Lunch and Exhibit Hall
Complete the Passport in your welcome bag to be entered in a raffle to win prizes!

2:00 PM

Go Big and Go Home: Grow and Market Your Short-term Foster Programs to Move Big Dogs - Kelly Duer and Finnegan Dowling
With shelters experiencing unprecedented overpopulation issues, big dogs are on everyone’s mind. The kennels are full of them, rescue partners have trouble placing or transporting them, they’re more prone to behavioral decline in shelters and often overlooked. How do you deal with such a big hairy problem? Short term foster! 

Short-term foster programs encourage the public to take shelter dogs on overnights and field trips in the community. By offering low barriers to entry and minimal time commitment to participants, they encourage people who normally wouldn’t have time to volunteer to engage with their local shelter and become an advocate for the dogs they interact with. In this workshop, you’ll learn best practices for bringing in the public including cultivating relationships with local media, creating partnerships with local businesses and organizations and just plain genius marketing techniques. Whether you’re new to short-term foster care or your existing program needs a post-pandemic reboot, this workshop is for you! Get your bigs more exposure, better marketing assets and into homes by starting or rebooting your program and becoming a short-term marketing master.

Regional Collaboration for Rural Sheltering Success: Pooling Resources for Empowered Animal Welfare Impact - Brittany Gault
This interactive session explores how rural shelters and rescues can unite to overcome critical challenges through a regional, collaborative approach. Learn strategies for pooling resources, standardizing best practices, and building partnerships to reduce pet overpopulation, lower shelter intakes, boost adoptions, and enhance community education—all while addressing persistent staffing and funding shortages.

3:00 PM

Expanding Access: Building a Community-Focused Veterinary Clinic - Rob LaRoy
This session explores how to develop and expand clinic services that meet your community's unique needs while maintaining financial sustainability. Attendees will learn how to assess service gaps, engage stakeholders, and implement scalable solutions to provide affordable veterinary care.

Social Media Tips from Chaos to Clicks - Audra Brownlee
I might not be an expert, but like many others, I was unexpectedly thrown into the role of marketing the shelter's animals. Over the past five years, I've gained valuable insights from others in the field, and I hope that this presentation offers something that will be useful to you as well. I’ll walk you through how I organize, create, and schedule content for our humane society, from Google tools to Canva. Plus, I’ll share resources and content I’ve developed, including Google Docs with creative content ideas, a calendar outline, and social media content that I’ve found effective. I also hope to learn more from the audience!

4:00 PM

Keynote: Adopters Welcome: A framework for embracing community - Lindsay Hamrick
Humane World for Animals launched Adopters Welcome in 2014 in an effort to remove common barriers to adoption and move more animals into loving homes. Still critical to our work, the program helps attendees learn how to embrace conversation-based adoptions to create partnerships with community members, build cultural competency and help more animals. In this session, attendees will learn the foundations of Adopters Welcome and how to remove common barriers to adoption. They will leave with concrete ways they can open their adoption program to everyone.