Wrapping Up Our 2020-2024 Strategic Plan
Our CEO Reflects on Five Years of Progress
As we prepare to embark on the next chapter of the Edmonton Humane Society (EHS), I want to take a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come during the past five years under our 2020-2024 Strategic Plan.
These past five years have been filled with both challenges and triumphs, with the COVID-19 pandemic shaping the early days of this plan in ways none of us could have anticipated. Despite those hurdles, we adapted, reimagined our work, and achieved remarkable milestones that have made us stronger and better equipped to serve animals and our community. When we launched this plan, we were guided by five key pillars:
- Our Animals: ensuring optimal quality of life for shelter animals,
- Our Community: leading and inspiring humane action,
- Our People: being an employer of choice and the best place to volunteer locally,
- Our Supporters: cultivating resources to achieve our mission,
- Our Foundation: achieving operational excellence to support future growth.
While these objectives provided us with a roadmap, it was the dedication of our team and the support of our community that truly brought it to life, and our collective efforts have transformed our organization in meaningful ways.
Here’s just a few of the highlights we achieved – together.
Ensuring Optimal Quality of Life for Shelter Animals
At the heart of our work are the animals we serve, and I am proud of the strides we’ve made to ensure they receive the best possible care. This included:
- Refining adoptability processes to ensure clear, compassionate decision-making.
- Reviewing our practices against the Association of Shelter Veterinarian’s Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters, to ensure we’re meeting the highest standards in animal sheltering.
- Creating an Animal Flow Specialist position and implementing initiatives like population rounds and care planning meetings to better support animal flow and outcomes, especially for animals requiring extra, specialized care.
- Updating our dog behaviour evaluation process to align with current research and enhance our understanding and support of dogs in our care.
Leading and Inspiring Humane Action
Through our community-focused efforts, we’ve worked to lead and inspire positive action for companion animals. Some achievements that stand out to me include:
- Introducing the Pet Pantry and emergency boarding program to support families facing temporary challenges, and piloting options for funding emergency veterinary care.
- Deploying our Mobile PALS (Prevent Another Litter Subsidy) Unit, allowing us to bring spay and neuter services directly to the community.
- Reinventing our Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program to focus on large-scale clinics, more effectively managing the population of community cats humanely.
- Launching our HELP Tool, providing guardians with tailored resources to help prevent pet rehoming.
- Developing behaviour and pet care resources for guardians, such as a Renting with Pets guide, and updating our position statements to reflect advancements in animal welfare.
- Relaunching and developing new humane education programs to inspire the next generation of animal advocates.
- Providing support during emergencies like wildfires, demonstrating our readiness to help animals and families in times of crisis.
Being an Employer of Choice and the Best Place to Volunteer Locally
Our people—both staff and volunteers—are the backbone of our organization. Over the past five years, we have made significant strides to create a supportive and fulfilling environment. Some of the initiatives I am most excited about include:
- Being recognized as a Nonprofit Employer of Choice (NEOC) three years in a row and continuing to prioritize staff feedback through an annual employee engagement survey and ongoing pulse surveys.
- Achieving COR certification and completed our Occupational Health and Safety Manual, underscoring our commitment to safety.
- Launching programs like Not Myself Today and compassion fatigue training tailored for animal welfare professionals, addressing the mental health needs of our team.
- Strengthening our volunteer programs with the transition to role-based volunteer positions, enhanced onboarding and online training, and the introduction of a new Volunteer Advisory Committee.
- Rolling out a new staff service recognition program and volunteer recognition program to celebrate the contributions of our incredible team.
Cultivating Resources to Achieve Our Vision and Mission
To sustain our mission, we relied on the generosity of our supporters and the success of our social enterprises. I’m proud of milestones such as:
- Launching Bingo’s Online Store, a pet shop that generates social enterprise revenue to support our mission.
- Celebrating a 20-year partnership with Global Edmonton, showcasing the power of community collaboration.
- Embracing storytelling to share the transformative impact of our work with donors and supporters.
- Introducing our Animal Ambassador Program, where pets adopted from EHS and their families receive specialized training to represent our organization and share their stories together at community events and programs.
- Redirecting our focus to expand training programs by closing our Doggie Daycare, installing an agility field and developing new courses.
Achieving Operational Excellence to Support Future Growth
Behind the scenes, we’ve focused on ensuring a strong foundation for future growth. These efforts included:
- Achieving Imagine Canada accreditation, demonstrating our commitment to excellence in governance and accountability.
- Developing key frameworks such as a risk management strategy, updated organizational policies, and processes and systems to support fiscal responsibility and efficiency.
- Creating a facility plan and a succession plan for key leadership roles, ensuring the long-term stability of our organization.
- Enhancing governance with updated bylaws, a new Board orientation process, new reporting and an annual Board evaluation process.
- Responding to the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping our team and animals safe while maintaining our focus on our mission.
Looking Ahead
As we close this chapter, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has supported our mission and shared in our vision over the past five years. The progress we’ve made together is a testament to the passion and dedication of our entire EHS team and community.
While we celebrate these achievements, we know there is always more work to do. With our next strategic plan on the horizon, we’re excited to continue building on this momentum and finding new ways to serve the animals and people who need us most.
Together, we’ve made a difference. Together, we’ll continue shaping an even brighter future for animals and the community we serve.
Thank you for being part of this incredible journey.
Liza Sunley, Certified Animal Welfare Administrator (CAWA)
CEO
Edmonton Humane Society
Stay Updated on Our Next Strategic Plan
Join our mailing list to stay in the loop on what’s happening at EHS, including our next strategic plan.
Join Our Mailing List