RescueGroups.org

Pet Appearing on eBay Classifieds Website

We recently started to receive complaints regarding adoptable pets appearing on the classifieds website eBay. Please understand that RescueGroups.org is not responsible for uploading to eBay, or any other classified or auction websites.

Many organizations do not want their adoptable pets listed on websites along side pet stores, breeders and "free to a good home" listings. This is a decision that each organization needs to make on their own.

Although we are not uploading eBay, we can point you in the right direction if you'd like to disable the upload to eBay or other websites. Please contact us if this is the case for your organization.

We also posted to our blog about eBay, and a few months ago about classifieds websites in general, so you might want to check out those posts as well.

Upcoming Maintenance

We have an upcoming maintenance scheduled for early this Monday morning (4/12/2010) from 3-6 AM eastern. The following services will be generally unavailable during the maintenance: Pet Adoption Toolkit, Website service, Data Management service, Pet Adoption Portal service, the new Manage website and the API.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about the maintenance.

We've heard from some organizations that pet adoption listings are showing up on eBay Classifieds.

Please understand that RescueGroups.org is not responsible for uploading to eBay.  However, we can point you in the right direction for disabling the upload to that website.  Also, please be sure to read this blog post about recent classified postings: The Classless Side of Adoption Listings?

Please contact us if you'd like help tracking down the source of the listings.

NOTE: An earlier post mentioned that the adoptable pets were appearing on eBay the auction website, which isn't entirely true.  The pets are actually appearing on ebayclassifieds.com, not ebay.com.

- Richard

I can remember my Friday nights when I was an adoption coordinator with a local Humane Society.  I would spend about 3 hours creating a flyer or poster for each adoptable pet for the Saturday and Sunday adoption events that weekend.  It was a lot of copying & pasting, and printing and reprinting.

More recently it seems like everyone is printing a kennel card from one of the adoption listing websites, or even the Print Summary from RescueGroups.org.  It may be tough to find a format that works well for you, and it still involves a lot of copying & pasting.

Once you find a format you like (or create one yourself), you still have to pay for the paper and toner and printer maintenance to print a page for each animal for each event.

It seems like a big waste with disappointing results.

That's where the Pet Adoption Kiosk can help.  The Kiosk is a new, complete free service that is available to all RescueGroups.org users.  The Kiosk is a desktop application that can be installed on any PC or Mac (typically a laptop that you take to your offsite events) that provides a list of your adoptable pets, along with their information and pictures.

The Kiosk installs in minutes, downloads all of your pet information and pictures with the click of a button, and doesn't include any advertisements or "powered by" logos.  It's just another service that we provide for the sole purpose of helping you work effectively to save pets.

We just started the Kiosk project a couple of days ago, so there's a lot of work that still needs to be done.  However, we wanted to get it to you as soon as possible!

To download and install the Kiosk, login to your RescueGroups.org account through the Manage website and go to More > Pet Adoption Kiosk.  The instructions on that page will step you through installing the application and getting setup.

We'd appreciate it if you would try it out, and let us know what you think.  We need your suggestions and ideas on how to make it work for you!

- Richard

Adoptable Pet Printouts

Do you print a page for each adoptable pet before you attend an adoption event so potential adopters can browse all of your adoptable pets? Looking for a technology solution that will help your potential adopters, and save time and paper? Please contact us for a unique opportunity.

More Control Over Your Email Subscriptions

We've added two new ways you can control the email you receive from RescueGroups.org! You can now opt-out of the weekly Tracker emails, and opt-in to receive information about Beta testing opportunities.

To control your email subscriptions, login to your RescueGroups.org service through our new Management website and go to your Options page:

• Go to https://manage.rescuegroups.org
• Login with your RescueGroups.org account
• Click "my settings" from the upper-right menu
• Click "Alerts & Email"
• Change your email subscription settings

RescueGroups.org Users,

We've added two new ways you can control the email you receive from RescueGroups.org!  You can now opt-out of the weekly Tracker emails, and opt-in to receive information about Beta testing opportunities.

To control your email subscriptions, login to your RescueGroups.org service through our new Management website and go to your Options page:

• Go to https://manage.rescuegroups.org
• Login with your RescueGroups.org account
• Click more... My Settings from the upper-right menu
• Change your email subscription settings in the Alerts and Email Settings section

The first new option is to disable the weekly Pet Adoption Tracker emails.  If you do not want to receive these emails change the option Email me this organization's weekly tracker report.

The second option is to receive emails concerning Beta testing opportunities with RescueGroups.org. If you want to receive information about new features you can test yourself, change the option Email me RescueGroups.org Beta test opportunities.

We're working hard behind the scenes to improve our services and provide as much value as possible to the animal welfare community.

Be sure to keep up with the latest news and information about RescueGroups.org and our services by visiting our blog. We post to the blog on a regular basis. Visit our blog here: RescueGroups.org Blog

We have some information about two ways we are helping you work more effectively. Read below for details!

Animal Data Imports Coming Soon!

We're currently working on adding the ability to upload your own animal data file to RescueGroups.org. We're almost ready to make it available to everyone, but we need a few people who are willing to beta test for us. Please email us if you are interested.

Community Forums

We're excited to start providing community forums to help the animal welfare community discuss the use of best practices and tools to work more effectively.

One of the first forums we have created is meant to help feral cat colony caretakers find new ways to manage their colonies through the use of best practices and technology. You can access the colony management forum here: RescueGroups.org Forums

We'll be creating additional community forums and blogs in the near future. The community forums are moderated by members of the community -- people like you! If you have an idea of how we could use the forums and blogs to help the community, please email us.

Partners,

Over the past couple weeks, we've been invited to several animal welfare conferences.  We've never attended any conferences primarily because of the cost and time involved -- the cost of the flight and lodging is the major expense, and since we are mostly volunteers we'd have to take time off from our "real jobs" as well.

We're starting to think that this year might be the right time to start attending!  So, we'd like to to know what conference(s) you would recommend?

Use the comment button below to make your recommendations!

A couple weeks ago we upgraded our RescueGroups.org website!

The RescueGroups.org website is the place to go for information and help concerning the RescueGroups.org services. This update doesn't change the website you have been using to manage your RescueGroups.org services.

The upgraded website has the following additional features:

• We have moved our blog from WordPress to our website.
• We have also moved our forums to our website.
• Our User Guide is now available directly on our website.
• Our Knowledge Base is also available on our website.

Support tickets are still managed using our support website.

We're hope this helps you find what you need faster. Everything on our website including the User Guide and Knowledge Base are searchable! Let us know what you think!

We want to highlight the work you are doing

Has technology really helped your organization work more effectively? Have you been able to engage more volunteers or save more pets by using the RescueGroups.org services?

We'd love to hear your story. Would you consider writing a short testimonial? We're going to be highlighting organizations and how they have benefited by integrating technology into their organization. We plan to highlight a testimonial on our website, in our blog and in our newsletter on a regular basis.

If you're interested you can email info@rescuegroups.org or post your testimonial to our Testimonials forum.