If you could look at my Facebook page, you would see that is full of animals. Everything from local animal shelters to the conservation of wildlife. As I write this, my rescue dog is curled up beside me. I spent the weekend coordinating nearly a dozen volunteers to transport a rescue dog from Texas to Florida. I love animals. I always have. For many years I thought being a veterinarian was my calling.

As I scroll through my Facebook page, I am drawn in by the cute pictures of kittens and puppies, and giraffes and turtles. Through casual observation, it appears social media is an important tool for organizations that work with issues of animal welfare. As volunteers play a large part in animal rescue, I also see the many hours of hard work they put in to make things work.

It is with this background that I decided to do some more research on just how animal welfare organizations are using social media. What is working for them? What is not? How can we share this with those people in the field to help them continue doing the great work they are dedicated to? I asked my “partner-in-crime” Gayla Schaefer to join me in the research. We have already written a book chapter on how one animal welfare organization integrated social media into their communications plan, so it seemed like a perfect fit. Gayla is also an alumna of the University of Memphis MPA program, and it is great to continue working with our former students.

The research is based on a survey, so if you are involved with an animal welfare organization, I encourage you to take the survey, which can be found here: https://memphis.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1yRWzDwzGCkFoUt. Feel free to share it with other organizations you partner with. Thank you for everything you do to support animals.