Greater Good Charities is proud to announce our newly launched program Good Home. With the support of Mars Petcare, this program connects qualified pet foster volunteers with animal shelters across the U.S. to help thousands of homeless pets.
Good Home was born out of the #StayHomeandFoster campaign, a national effort created by Greater Good Charities that registered more than 92,000 pet volunteer fosters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Good Home’s searchable database currently has more than 1,400 animal shelters across the country.
Why Are We Focusing On Fostering?
According to new PetPoint data, cat populations in shelters have returned to pre-2020 levels, and shelter dog populations have surpassed 2019 levels. Driven by a decrease in adoptions, decrease in animal transfer, and an increase in length of stay, many shelters all over the country are above capacity. Euthanasia is up 72% since February.
Fostering a pet helps free up personnel and physical resources at animal shelters while providing a shelter pet with a nurturing environment to live in, as they await a forever home. Good Home also provides in-kind grants of animal care supplies, training, and resources for shelter partners on recruitment and retention of foster volunteers, and best practices for pets in care through adoption.
How Good Home Works
Good Home allows potential pet foster volunteers to search registered animal shelters near them to be matched with a pet in need. For animal shelters that register with Good Home, the team will help find local pet foster volunteers, provide instructions on how to manage the foster list, and offer training and resources to support a successful foster program.
Once the potential pet foster signs up, the Good Home team will send the volunteer foster’s information to the selected animal shelter. At the time the animal shelter places a pet with a foster volunteer, the Good Home team is positioned to assist the organization with resources to help care for the pet from foster to adoption.
Fostering pets is a key solution to the current challenges with shelter overpopulation and finding at-risk pets forever homes. Donate today to help power this program!