Mike Arms –President
of the Helen Woodward Animal Center
http://www.animalcenter.org/
It’s a teary-eyed, emotional, and inspirational morning with
Mike Arms – but I don’t think we could expect otherwise! As he recounts his
first blush in animal welfare he reminds us all how we are dedicating our lives
to be advocates for innocent, unselfish animals. They, the animals, will give us everything they can – when do
we step up and make a difference in their lives? We’ve been doing it, but we
need to challenge ourselves to be better at it.
“We are in the business of saving lives” says Mike. And we
MUST use the best business practices to help these animals. We better be good
at it – the animal’s lives depend on it after all.
To put it in his words “We need to promise these animals our
minds. They already have our hearts.” Arms is talking about strategic planning.
Start by doing a written assessment of your organization – ask yourself, what is your mission?
What are your strengths & weaknesses? Get a written action plan down on
paper for the next 2-3 years of your organization. Start by talking to everyone
who’s a part of your organization, from board members to volunteers. All this
input will be invaluable for planning success. Have a statement of vision (the future you would like to
build for your org) and have a clear set of core values. Get a plan down for the animals.
Put your mission statement on your business card—it’s more
important than your name and even your organization’s name. Let people know
what you stand for.
Arms diverts from the strategic planning to tell us about
some highly creative projects he is working on.... for example, he is going to
Puerto Rico in December to start education programs to teach the children
humane practices. Then, in turn, the children will pay it forward to their
parents. Another… there is a Meals on Wheels program in San Diego that delivers
food not just for people, but for the people’s pets, too. How does it work? Pet food donations are
obtained from the community in grocery stores, and volunteers collect the food,
sort it, and deliver the meals (enough for a week) to Meals on Wheels, who then
deliver it to the homes.
Here’s another tidbit Mike reminds us of… animal control
started over 50 years ago when we had a rabies epidemic in this country. Point made: we need to start changing
the way we are doing things – and devote our minds to doing this. The animals
have our hearts already.
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