Christie Lagally

Following is a news release from Maddie’s Fund:

NEWS RELEASE:    MADDIE’S FUND® RELEASES FIRST COMPARATIVE DATABASE OF SHELTER STATISTICS

Intake, adoption, and euthanasia numbers from 474 animal shelters and 56 communities reveal status, trends and progress of US animal sheltering

(Alameda, CA-July, 2011). For the first time in animal sheltering history, reliable data from a large sampling of shelters and communities across the United States has been compiled into a single, searchable database. The Maddie’s Fund Database provides two years of intake, adoption and euthanasia statistics from 474 shelters and 56 communities using Asilomar Accords reporting methods and formulas.  The database allows lifesaving to be measured within a community and to be compared to others. Search categories include geographic region, median income, size of human population, total intake, total adoptions, total euthanasia, live release rate, and deaths per 1000.

Data of this kind has never before been available, leaving elected officials, shelter managers, universities, statisticians, investigative reporters, contributors and animal loving citizens in the dark about how well their community is doing in its lifesaving work and how it stacks up against other communities of comparable populations (human and animal).

“I can’t overstate the importance of this information,” says Maddie’s Fund President, Rich Avanzino. “Without hard numbers, it’s impossible to know where we’ve been, where we are at and where we are going. Maddie’s® Database not only gives us a handle on this, but also inspires communities that are below the norm to catch up with the lifesaving gains being made in progressive communities, and gives them the information they need to convince their elected officials, donors and community members to get on board and help them move forward.”

Information for the database was submitted by Maddie’s community collaborative project participants, special giving grantees and Maddie’s® Community Shelter Data Grant recipients who were given $10,000 to $40,000 to provide statistics for two previous years and three years going forward. All data has been carefully reviewed by Maddie’s Fund staff.

About Maddie’s Fund

Maddie’s Fund®, The Pet Rescue Foundation, (www.maddiesfund.org) is a family foundation which is funded by the founder of Workday and PeopleSoft, Dave Duffield and his wife, Cheryl. Maddie’s Fund is helping to create a no-kill nation where all healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats are guaranteed a loving home.  Maddie’s Fund is named after the family’s beloved Miniature Schnauzer who passed away in 1997.