ASPCA
Two web applications for the ASPCA: a parvo outbreak protocol generator for shelters and a digital Meet Your Match adoption survey.
Founded in 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was the first humane society to be established in North America and today is one of the largest in the world. The nonprofit was founded on the belief that animals are entitled to kind and respectful treatment at the hands of humans and must be protected under the law. Headquartered in New York City, the ASPCA maintains a strong local presence and has programs that extend its anti-cruelty mission across the country.
Animal shelters hit by a parvovirus outbreak face a crisis that is hard to recover from on limited budgets and staff, and many had no standard procedure ready. Separately, the ASPCA's Meet Your Match adoption program still relied on color-coded paper surveys with no digital equivalent, at a time when adopters move pets quickly across long distances with little background on the animals.
A parvo protocol generator
We started with the people under the most pressure: shelter administrators facing an outbreak. We built a responsive web app that asks a short series of questions about a shelter's current policies and resources, then produces a formal, customized parvo protocol as a PDF they can put to work right away.
Watching early use, we noticed many shelters were reaching for the tool in the middle of an outbreak, not before one. So we added a question up front. Shelters in crisis are offered a consultation with an ASPCA veterinarian on the spot. We also built a closing survey that asks which diseases shelters want protocols for next, giving the ASPCA a roadmap for the pilot.
Meet Your Match, online
To understand how adoptions really worked, our team toured the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland and watched staff hand out color-coded paper surveys. We translated that process into an online survey about an adopter's lifestyle, resources and expectations, and wrote a weighted matching algorithm that pairs each adopter with a pet persona. Adopters can now arrive with results in hand, or take the survey on their phones at the shelter, and a staff member walks them through the match.
- A responsive web app that walks shelter administrators through their policies and resources and generates a customized parvo protocol as a PDF.
- A direct path to an ASPCA on-staff veterinarian for shelters already in an outbreak.
- A pilot survey capturing which other outbreak protocols shelters want next, with highly rated user experience.
- A digital Meet Your Match survey and weighted matching algorithm adopters can take at home or on their phones at the shelter.
Our work with the ASPCA centered on developing innovative tools to serve animal shelters that ultimately save lives and ensure more animals are matched with loving forever homes.
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