Challenge FAQ

Who can compete?
How do we get into the Challenge?
What do we win in the qualifying heat?
Is there a waiting list?
How do we win the $100,000 grand prize?
What is a live exit?
Do we have to increase adoptions, alternative placements, and RTOs?
Is the increase counted as a percentage or a number?
Why 300?
Do we have to show an increase of 100 lives each month?
How do we win one of the regional prizes?
How do you pick the regions?
Can we win more than one prize?
How do we win the Community Engagement Award?
How can our community help us win the Challenge?
What do we blog about?
Can we include photos and videos in our blogs?
Don't we give our competition an advantage by sharing our work on the blog?
What if we already have our own blog?
Why are you focused on increasing live exits rather than decreasing euthanasia?
Shouldn't the Challenge focus on improving the quality rather than quantity of adoptions?
What about Spay/Neuter?
Is the Challenge only for large shelters?
Can we enter as a team?
Can rescues compete?
Can we get help from local shelters who aren't participating in the Challenge?
The Challenge is focused on live exits, so why are you collecting euthanasia data?
What are you going to do with the data?
What if we need help entering the data?
What is an adoption affidavit?
Why does the Challenge require adoption affidavits for transferred animals?
Who gets to count the adoption if both the source and receiving shelters are in the Challenge?
How do we get a research and development grant?
What is the shelter r&d grant for Supporter Stats?
What do you do with complaints about contestants?
What if we don't get into the Challenge this year?

 WHO CAN COMPETE?
Any 501(c)3 or government agency that shelters at least 1,000 cats and dogs annually and spays/neuters all animals prior to adoption. All participating agencies must agree and adhere to all of the Challenge rules.

HOW DO WE GET INTO THE CHALLENGE?
501(c)3 and government agencies that care for a minimum of 1,000 cats and/or dogs annually and spay/neuter all animals prior to adoption can apply to be in the Qualifying Heat. Applications open at noon ET on Wednesday, March 16 and close at noon ET on Friday, March 18. Check out

WHAT DO WE WIN IN THE QUALIFYING HEAT?
With enough votes, you’ll win one of the coveted 50 spots available to compete in the ASPCA $100K Challenge! During the qualifying heat of April 4 through April 15, your community members will vote online to send you to the Challenge. The 50 agencies with the most votes will be the official contestants in the 2011 Challenge.

IS THERE A WAITING LIST?
Yes. The five shelters with the most votes that do not make it into the top 50 based on the qualifying heat will have the option of being put on a waiting list. To hold a place on the waiting list, these shelters must submit their baseline data along with the contestants who’ve been accepted. In the event that a shelter withdraws or is disqualified from the Challenge before July 1, 2011, the shelter on the waiting list that has the most votes will have the option of competing.

HOW DO WE WIN THE $100,000 GRAND PRIZE?
That’s simple. You win by having the largest increase in lives saved! To qualify for any of the prizes, you’ll have to save a minimum of 300 more cats, dogs, kittens and/or puppies August through October of 2011 than you saved in 2010. Beyond that, the winner will be the contestant that saves the most additional cats, dogs, kittens and puppies August through October of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. And the agency with the second largest increase will win the Second Place prize—a $25,000 grant. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the Challenge rules.

WHAT IS A LIVE EXIT?
Live exits are defined as animals who leave your shelter through adoption (including on-site, mobile, satellite and event adoptions), alternative placements (such as barn cat programs and placements with law enforcement) and return-to-owner (RTO) from your shelter. For more details on what counts as a live exit, see the Challenge rules.

DO WE HAVE TO INCREASE ADOPTIONS, ALTERNATIVE PLACEMENTS AND RTOS?
No, you can increase lives saved in any category—or all three!

IS THE INCREASE COUNTED AS A PERCENTAGE OR A NUMBER?
The increase is counted as a number and that number is at least 300. This is an intentional stretch goal to encourage you and your organization and community to push yourselves beyond what you might think you're capable of. In fact, after the first month of the last year’s Challenge, the comment we heard most often from shelter directors and staff was, “We didn’t know we had it in us!” By the conclusion of the 2010 Challenge, nine shelters, ranging in intake size from 1,000 to 25,000—including four animal control agencies—increased lives saved by more than 300! This year, we want all competing shelters to reach that benchmark!

WHY 300?
We wanted to set a goal that was a big stretch, but also realistic. So we turned to our ASPCA partner agencies for some answers. Our partners represent about 30 agencies in 10 communities across the country that submit very detailed data on a monthly basis. By analyzing that data over the past several years, we found that when agencies implemented new programs or practices, they achieved, on average, an increase of about 100 more live exits monthly. These agencies are large and small, public and private, and serve a variety of demographics. Their directors will likely tell you that those increases don’t come easy, but easy isn’t what this contest is about. It’s about saving more lives, a lot more lives! If every contestant this year saves at least 100 more lives every month for the three months of the Challenge, an additional 15,000 animals will be saved! Wow!

DO WE HAVE TO SHOW AN INCREASE OF 100 LIVES EACH MONTH?
No. As long as you reach 300 by the end of the contest you will be eligible for the prizes.

HOW DO WE WIN ONE OF THE REGIONAL PRIZES?
There are two opportunities to win regional prizes:

1. Each region will be allotted a $5,000 Fast Start grant. This will be awarded to the agency in the region that achieves the biggest increase in lives saved in the FIRST month (compared to the number of lives saved in the three-month, 2010 contest period).
2. The second opportunity comes at the end of the Challenge. The four regions that do not have a Grand Prize winner will have a $20,000 Best in Region grant opportunity. The shelter in each region that has the biggest increase in lives saved—above and beyond the required minimum of 300—will win a Best in Region $20,000 prize grant.

HOW DID YOU PICK THE REGIONS?
We wanted to create more opportunities for shelters to win and to leverage our communications resources to help all contestants. So we divided the country based on an even distribution of three factors: shelter participation in the 2010 Challenge, major media outlets and ASPCA supporters. Click here to find your region.

CAN WE WIN MORE THAN ONE PRIZE?
Yes! The only exception is that the Grand Prize winner will be considered the Best in Region and will not receive an additional $20,000 beyond their $100,000. See more about the prizes in rules and prizes.

HOW DO WE WIN THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AWARD?
You win this award by doing the best job of engaging your community and demonstrating how you did it on your contest blog and via other tools on your contestant page. You can start engaging your community (and documenting it) as soon as you’ve received official word that you’ve been accepted into the qualifying heat. You will want to continue engaging and documenting through October 31, 2011. And get all of your community members to vote for you (not yet—voting starts October 17 and runs through October 31), because the three contestants that get the most votes will become finalists*. The ASPCA Grants Committee will review the blog entries and contestant pages from the three finalists to ascertain what agency did the absolute best job of getting all kinds of community members directly involved in saving more lives. For more on the criteria see the Challenge rules and the Community Engagement Award.

*Finalists for the Community Engagement Award must meet the minimum of saving at least 300 more cats, kittens, dogs and puppies August through October 2011 compared to the same time period last year.

HOW CAN OUR COMMUNITY HELP US WIN THE CHALLENGE?
Your community members are your key to saving more lives. Be it getting the word out, acting as adoption agents, foster families, volunteers, adopters, lobbyists, social media mavens and more, your community members are vital! Businesses can host or sponsor events. Donors can pledge prizes for meeting your adoption goals. The driving force behind how your community members can help you save more lives is your—and their—creativity! And the best part is, once people have engaged in helping you save more lives, they are likely to continue to want to be engaged. So their involvement now will set the stage for saving more lives well beyond the Challenge.

WHAT SHOULD WE BLOG ABOUT?
Your blog is a vehicle for pumping up your staff, volunteers and community. It’s also the primary way we’ll judge your community engagement for the $25,000 Community Engagement Award. So use it to show how you and your community are working together to save more lives. Use your blog to announce your goals, recruit help for projects and events, preview upcoming promotions, recap events and promotions and report on the myriad ways that foster families, volunteers and community members are helping you save more lives during the Challenge. You can profile a person or group that’s helping you win. And you should highlight and link to all of the media coverage (including social media coverage like Facebook) you’re getting for your work in the Challenge.

CAN WE INCLUDE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS IN OUR BLOGS?
Absolutely! We encourage it! Remember, not only are we viewing your blog, but your community members and thousands of animal lovers across the nation are reading about your progress and the wonderful people and stories you encounter. So use your photos and videos to draw them in. It will help you to get even more people rooting for you.

DON’T WE GIVE OUR COMPETITION AN ADVANTAGE BY SHARING OUR WORK ON THE BLOG?
Yup, and right back at ya! Last year, one of the greatest benefits contestants reported was being able to read everybody else’s blog and getting cool ideas for themselves. It makes the competition that much more exciting—but better yet, it gives everybody (including thousands of shelters and rescues who aren’t in the Challenge) great ideas for saving more lives. Oh, and here’s a hint. You can blog about it when you see another group copy one of your ideas. Shout out to your community, “Hey, they’re copying our great work, so let’s come up with even more ideas to win this Challenge!”

WHAT IF WE ALREADY HAVE OUR OWN BLOG?
Your current blog is probably a great vehicle for talking to your supporters about your work in general. The contest blog is more about talking to your staff, active volunteers, colleagues in the field and judges for the Community Engagement Award. When you have posts on your existing blog that are great examples of your community engagement work, you can cross-post them to your contest blog. This saves you work and is great for increasing your visibility in search engines.

WHY ARE YOU FOCUSED ON INCREASING LIVE EXITS RATHER THAN DECREASING EUTHANASIA?
Guess what? When you increase live exits, euthanasia rates goes down. During the ASPCA Challenge 2010, 6,425 fewer animals were euthanized by Challenge contestants compared to the same time during the prior year. And focusing on live exits gives your community members more tangible ways to get involved. They can adopt, promote adoptions, work at adoption events, help match lost and found reports, get the word out and so much more. Check out Dr. Emily Weiss’s blog post on this topic.

SHOULDN’T THE CHALLENGE FOCUS ON IMPROVING THE QUALITY RATHER THAN THE QUANTITY OF ADOPTIONS?
Who says you only get one without the other?! Last year, contestants increased adoptions by 22% while adoption returns only went up 1%. While millions of dogs and cats are still dying in our shelters every year, we all need to stretch our goals and innovate to save more lives. The Challenge supports shelters in this innovation. By tracking data and documenting efforts, the ASPCA and Challenge shelters are working together to develop and test new ways to help the thousands of shelters and rescues across the country save more lives.

WHAT ABOUT SPAY/NEUTER?
Every animal counted as an adoption or alternative placement  for the Challenge must be altered before going home with their new family. Period. If your shelter is still working with your veterinary community to get pediatric spay/neuter into your programming, we suggest looking at the Challenge as an opportunity for a trial period. After the contest is over, you and your veterinarians can evaluate how well things worked and hopefully add pediatric surgeries to your permanent programming. The AVMA supports pediatric spay/neuter and The Humane Alliance has an excellent training video for veterinarians. (And they are always happy to provide advice on working with your veterinarians by phone or email.)

IS THE CHALLENGE ONLY FOR LARGE SHELTERS?
Definitely not! If you’ve ever worked in a shelter caring for 20,000 or more animals annually, you know only too well how hard it is to implement incremental change. To be sure, larger shelters have the advantage of large numbers to start with, but smaller shelters have the advantage of more manageable systems. We saw large, medium and small shelters do amazing things for their animals (with their communities!) in the 2010 Challenge. In fact there was absolutely no correlation between size of agency and level of success. The competitive advantage in this Challenge comes from strategy, determination and engaging a ton of community support.

CAN WE ENTER AS A TEAM?
Contestants must be individual organizations, but we welcome and encourage you to work collaboratively with other shelters and rescues. You even have the option of sharing prize money with your collaborators. See #29 in the Rules.

CAN RESCUES COMPETE?
Rescues cannot compete as contestants. The Challenge is open to nonprofits and government agencies with physical shelters because the animals in shelters are the animals most at risk of euthanasia. Our immediate goal is to save more lives this year than last, so we want to focus our resources on those animals most at risk.

However, we recognize and honor the important role that rescues play, and we encourage contestants to work with rescues to save more lives in the Challenge. Last year, 4,717 animals were transferred to other adoption agencies and rescues during the Challenge and several contestants reported that not only did their adoptions go up, but the increased buzz helped adoptions from local rescues go up, as well.

CAN WE GET HELP FROM LOCAL SHELTERS WHO AREN’T PARTICIPATING IN THE CHALLENGE?
ABSOLUTELY! One great strategy for winning the Challenge may be to work with other shelters in your area to save more lives together. While teams are not allowed in the Challenge, working together and deciding on how to share the glory is up to you! See #29 in the Rules for more details.

THE CHALLENGE IS FOCUSED ON LIVE EXITS, SO WHY ARE YOU COLLECTING EUTHANASIA DATA?
Two reasons:

1. To ensure fairness—Euthanasia numbers complete the snapshot of monthly shelter data, enabling our dashboard team to spot and investigate irregularities. It's simply about balancing. In order to check the math, we need to add who comes in and subtract who goes out. Then we can compare the data to who's left in the building.
2. To advance our collective understanding—Increasing live exits decreases euthanasia. That’s why we want to capture the full snapshot, including euthanasia data, in order for the composite data from the Challenge to provide reliable, complete information on the most effective ways to decrease euthanasia.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THE DATA?
Increases in live releases for each contestant will be published monthly on the Challenge leaderboard (scoreboard). After the Challenge, composite state, regional and national data will be compiled to provide information and insight to the field about the results of the Challenge and the state of shelter overpopulation. We may also use subsets of data internally to plan training programs and to develop resources for shelters.

No individual agency data—other than annual intake and live release numbers and increases for August through October 2011—will be published without the express permission of the agency(ies).

WHAT IF WE NEED HELP ENTERING DATA?
Each Challenge contestant will have their very own ASPCA “data buddy” to teach you how to enter and vet your data. Your data buddy will also answer any questions you may have about fitting your data into our data definitions. We have also provided a set of tools to assist you.

WHAT IS AN ADOPTION AFFIDAVIT?
An adoption affidavit is a simple form that tracks the final outcome of an animal transferred to another agency. They are intended to help you utilize your local rescue organizations, foster homes, partner shelters and adoption agencies, while helping us ensure fairness for all contestants by verifying that transfers have resulted in adoptions. Only transfers that have a corresponding affidavit will count as a live release for the Challenge. We have provided a template affidavit or you can design a custom report from your data system that includes all of the same information. Just remember, the form of any custom affidavit template must be submitted for approval to your ASPCA data buddy by June 30, 2011.

WHY DOES THE CHALLENGE REQUIRE ADOPTION AFFIDAVITS FOR TRANSFERRED ANIMALS?
This requirement is put into place so that we can be assured that there’s no cheating, that we're not inadvertently supporting hoarding and to gain valuable information for the field of what's happening to the thousands of animals who get transferred. Good news: this year we’re encouraging you to prep your partners early and we've made the paperwork easier!

WHO GETS TO COUNT THE ADOPTION IF BOTH THE SOURCE AND RECEIVING SHELTERS ARE IN THE CHALLENGE?
Both of you! We will work with you to identify these animals so that they are not double-counted in our ultimate totals, but since you’ve both worked on saving that life, you both get credit (as long as that adoption affidavit is completed).

HOW DO WE GET A RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT GRANT?
You get the R&D grant by demonstrating exceptional life-saving practices or innovating new ways to save more lives! Proposals will be considered on a rolling basis throughout the Challenge. And here’s a big hint: at the ASPCA we love data! So include clean, transparent data in your proposal. Funds for accepted proposals will be disbursed after October 31, 2011. Learn more here.

WHAT IS THE SHELTER R&D GRANT FOR SUPPORTER STATS?
This special grant opportunity is designed to help us capture the change in community support for your shelter. Contestants that choose to participate in this opportunity can receive a grant up to $600 for providing baseline and Challenge data on data points related to community support (volunteers, website traffic, donors, etc).

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH COMPLAINTS ABOUT CONTESTANTS?
We fully investigate any and all complaints about rule violations. If we deem that rules have been violated, the contestant is disqualified and their departure from the contest is announced on the contest website. Complaints about shelters that are non-contest specific are forwarded to the shelter for direct resolution.

WHAT IF WE DON’T GET INTO THE CHALLENGE THIS YEAR?
There’s always next year. In the meantime, or if you’re not eligible to compete in this year’s Challenge, check out the resources, programs and grants that the ASPCA has for rescues, shelters and animal welfare professionals at aspcapro.org.

DIDN’T FIND THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION?
Email us and we’ll get right back to you!