National Pet Lifesaving Analysis

Redesigned a slow, reactive annual process into a coordinated, multi-channel operation — cutting the lag between data and insight, building the infrastructure for year-round communication, and turning a single annual report into a sustained narrative about what's happening in animal sheltering across the U.S. 

The Problem

Every year, Best Friends publishes what the national shelter data shows: how many animals entered shelters, how many were saved, and what the save rate looks like across the country. That work has always mattered. The process behind it didn't always match the importance of the output.

When I arrived, the cycle looked like this: data collection closed April 1st. Estimation ran. Numbers were finalized and handed to PR. Then someone on our team spent another three to four months writing a report for the network partner site. By the time that report was published, the data was six or seven months old. In an environment where timeliness drives action, that's a significant problem.             

There were other problems underneath it. The shelters we collected from weren't chosen for representativeness — we were going after the ones with the most data, which skewed toward larger, better-resourced organizations. We had no formal FOIA policy or data hierarchy. We hadn't defined which data points we'd pull before collection closed, which meant the post-collection scramble added weeks to the timeline. And the report was written sequentially — after the analysis — which meant everything moved in a single file.

What I Changed

 We rebuilt the process from the front. In November — months before data collection closes — we now know which shelters we're targeting and why. We use a shopping list approach: identifying the types of shelters we need to collect from to be representative of the full national picture, not just the ones that are easiest to reach. We have a defined data hierarchy, clear FOIA policies, and pre-specified data points so that the moment collection closes, we can move.     

We also broke the sequential dependency between analysis and communication. The network partners team now writes the report in parallel with our analysis — not after it. Every channel has defined responsibilities and knows what they're doing on launch day before launch day arrives.                                                                       

The timeline now has more moments. Before year-end, we're already publishing early predictions — what the data is likely to show, with appropriate context — so that shelters and partners don't wait until April to start thinking about what happened the previous year. Internally, we share preliminary numbers with error bands even earlier, so  communications and programmatic teams can begin developing messaging well before we have final figures.

Finding the story has become a formal part of the process. National numbers don't shift dramatically year over year anymore — which is actually a sign of progress, but makes it harder to write a compelling annual headline. We now bring subject matter experts, communications professionals, and data analysts together to identify what the real storylines are for each year: what changed, what it means, and how different audiences need to hear it.

The Result

Data that used to reach the public six or seven months after the fact now reaches them faster, in more forms, across more channels, and with better context. In 2025, we published the national report three months earlier than the prior year. That release reached 176M+ impressions across 18 media outlets.

The analysis team can focus on the analysis. Communications can focus on the narrative. And the organizations that depend on this data to make decisions — about where to focus resources, how to talk to donors, where interventions are needed — get what they need when it can still change something.