New year, new goals? 2022 just started, and while you may find yourself still reflecting on all that your animal shelter or rescue organization accomplished last year – like the forever homes you may have found for the dogs in your care or the new volunteers you may have gained – you’re likely also already thinking about this year’s opportunities and the milestones you’d like to achieve. So, if you want to start off the new year with a structured approach to setting goals for your animal shelter or rescue, keep reading.

Setting Goals, the SMART Way

When you’re ready to set goals for your shelter or rescue, you can use the so-called SMART concept to guide you. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable (or achievable), relevant, and time-bound (or time-based). Keeping these criteria in mind during the goal-setting process can help you craft clear, actionable goals and get the most out of your efforts. Let’s take a more detailed look at the SMART framework:

Specific

If your goal is vague, it’ll be difficult to work toward it. That’s why you should make sure your goal is as clear and specific as possible and state what exactly you want to accomplish.

Measurable

When drafting your goal, you should include a metric that indicates when your goal has been reached.

Attainable (or Achievable)

Make sure the goal you’re setting is realistic by considering, for example, the time frame within which you want to achieve it and the resources you have available.

Relevant

Your goal should speak to your overall strategy.

Time-Bound (or Time-Based)

Set a date by which your goal needs to be completed.

SMART Goal Examples

• We will recruit 50 new volunteers by June 30, 2022, to help with animal care, special events, and administrative tasks.
• To educate our community on responsible pet ownership, we will launch a section on the shelter’s/rescue’s website featuring 10 educational resources for dog owners by March 31, 2022.
• To build an advertising budget, we will have quarterly fundraising events to raise at least $5,000 in 2022.
• We want to recruit 5 fosters for our rescue by January 31, 2022, to be able to take in additional shelter dogs.
• We want to grow our shelter’s rescue network to 15 rescue organizations in 2022 to reduce the chance of overcrowding.
• We will start publishing a monthly newsletter to raise awareness for the shelter/rescue within the community by February 1, 2022.

A Few Thoughts on Strategy and Resources

Before you get started, you should have an overall strategy in place that identifies your shelter’s or rescue’s mission and needs. When you then set your SMART goals, each of them should fit into that strategy as part of a bigger-picture approach to achieving the mission, addressing the needs, or solving the problems you’ve identified in your strategy.

For example, your animal shelter or rescue organization may want every dog in its community to have a forever home. How could it go about fulfilling that mission? There’s no quick and easy answer to this, but a shelter’s or rescue’s strategy would likely focus on an interplay of several broad goals and solutions, such as building a volunteer team, educating its community on responsible pet ownership, increasing adoptions, and raising funds.

When you’re ready to set goals for your shelter or rescue, be sure to consider your resources. It’s easy to get carried away in a moment of motivation and want to accomplish so many things in the new year. But how much time will you be able to dedicate to reaching your goals? How many people will be involved in working toward the goals you’ve set? Are funds needed and do you have those available? To avoid straining your resources, you may want to focus on just a few select goals or prioritize one or two goals over less pressing ones.

What are you hoping for your animal shelter or rescue organization to achieve in 2022? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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