The Association Blog

Is your staff facing unfair criticism from the community? Here’s a nifty idea for taking back the narrative and letting your employees know how important and appreciated they are

“We know that many shelters face criticism, name-calling and verbal abuse because of the work we do in animal welfare and some of the decisions that have to be made,” says APA Adoption Center’s CEO, Sarah Javier. And as you know, this bullying takes a toll on everyone in your organization.

In order to take back the narrative—and support your staff—Javier recommends the following idea from APA’s COO, Kim Brown. In a heartfelt blogpost addressed to the community, Brown reminded readers how hard their team works: “We appreciate our volunteers, adopters, supporters, and advocates and couldn’t do this work without them,” writes Brown. “We need more support though, and not in the way we’ve historically asked. We need kindness – it is free and doesn’t have to take extra time.”

The end of the blogpost featured a button, “Leave a Kind Message for The APA Staff,” that linked over to a nifty kudoboard, where folks could leave short personal messages and memes in appreciation of APA employees.

Check out APA’s kudoboard here.

This online platform known for fostering a culture of appreciation is, according to Javier, well worth the paid version. “We have also used it to send well wishes to volunteers who have been sick, congratulate people for accomplishments, celebrate a birthday—essentially anything you’d send a group card for,” she says. “It is such a nice way to share kind and supportive thoughts to people who are important to your organization — employees, volunteers, supporters, donors, rescue partners…”

In fact, when Sarah Neikam, CAWA, saw APA’s Kudoboard, she followed their lead and created one for the staff at SPCA Albrecht Center for Animal Welfare. “The free trial was only 3 days,” she shares, “but after I sent out the link via email to our supporters with a nice ‘ask’, the response was better than I expected.”

Wanna give it a try at your organization? Learn more about Kudoboard.