March 2018 by Ann Lindholm and Kelly Duer

Audience: Executive Leadership, Public, Shelter/Rescue Staff & Volunteers

Video Length: 1 Hour 26 Minutes

Creating and Growing a Dog Foster Network

With a viable foster program it's possible to begin saving lives and transforming your community to no-kill, even if you don't have a shelter. Learn how to build a successful foster program that can grow with your organization by developing teams of volunteers. You will be able to expand your capacity to save more animals.

This presentation was recorded at the 2018 American Pets Alive! Conference.

About Ann Lindholm

Austin Pets Alive! Dog Foster Program Co-Manager Ann Lindholm began volunteering with Austin Pets Alive! in July 2008, shortly after the organization pulled its first dog from the city animal shelter. Ann quickly took on the management of the dog foster program, growing it from a one-person operation to a team of more than 35 volunteers.

In less than 3 years this team was supporting a network of more than 1200 approved foster parents, fostering more than 3,300 dogs. The success of the Austin Pets Alive! foster program was instrumental in making Austin a no-kill community. In August of 2014 Ann returned to Co-manage the Dog Foster program with Nicole Aguilar.

Ann has presented workshops on foster program development for several Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS) annual conferences as well as BFAS Idea Exchanges for the No-Kill LA and No-Kill Utah Coalitions. She has also presented at the Houston Pets Alive! conference in Houston, TX. and provided on-site foster program consultation.


About Kelly Duer

Kelly Duer is Maddie's Fund's Foster Care Specialist and Foster Expansion Coordinator for a national study of foster care for medium and large dogs with long shelter stays. She also co-coordinates the Medium and Large Adult Dog Foster Apprenticeships, which bring shelter leaders from across the country together to learn how to implement foster programs for adult dogs.

Her work has been featured in many national publications, websites and networks, including Animal Sheltering magazine, the Huffington Post, Best Friends magazine, BarkPost, iheartdogs.com, HuffPost Live and Fox News. Kelly has presented at various conferences including the Best Friends National Conference, American Pets Alive! and HSUS Animal Care Expo.