A sneak peek of BTS in our transport office. Ever wonder what goes into putting a transport request together? Why does it take so long? Here is your chance to get a “Behind The Scenes” look at how the magic happens!
When a transport request arrives, long-time awesome admin Lisa will pull that request and put it in a document to be processed. All the relevant people are tagged, and a senior admin will then do a basic Google map of the route from the start city to the end city. This will give us a basic idea if this transport is do-able. We will also look at our volunteer driver data base to see if we have any drivers close to that route or if we can route it differently to areas where we do have drivers.
This is the first step in determining whether each transport is viable. If it is not, we will send a letter out to both the sender and receiver to let them know. Once the transport is viable for distance and location; the next step is screening!
We have two ladies that do all our transport screening. One admin will call the adopter’s vet and ask some questions about the client. The other admin oversees a basic screening, checking to make sure they are not on any DNA (do not adopt) list and things like that. Why do we do this? Every single action we make is in the best interest of the cats we transport. Sometimes, asking questions is enough for a potential adopter to realize they don’t actually want to adopt a cat.
This step determines whether we will be transporting to this adopter. When we are transporting to rescues, we do a check on their 501(c) statuses, check the Better Business Bureau for complaints against the rescue and check their reviews on Facebook and examine their website. If we are still unsure, we will ask for recommendations from people who have been to the rescue or that are in the area.
Once everything is checked out and this transport is approved, we begin making a route. I like to use map quest for this because it allows you to input more legs. We try to keep the legs under 2 hours. We route the legs by where we have the most drivers available or an area of high traffic like a major city or town. Once this step is done, then times are added to the legs. We then tag our “time check ladies” so that one of them can verify our times for us.
Picking dates for the transport is our next step. It may seem like this would be an easy step, but it takes more then just picking a date! You will need to know what events are in each area the transport is going near to see if we need to reroute that due to a large event or a bridge under repair. Things like the Albuquerque Balloon Festival have made transports difficult in the past!
We must also check other transports so that we are not crossing routes or following the same route as this can make filling a transport difficult. It’s happened in the past, and that’s how we learned “Don’t Do That“!
Graphics, Graphics, Graphics… The next step is to get all the graphics prepared for the event page, Imagine Home’s page and the sign-up sheet. While our wonderful graphics department is making all those graphics, another admin is writing the story (header) for this transport.
Once everything is proofread and edited, it is time to build a sign-up sheet. Sign up sheets can be tedious and time consuming. Each leg must be put into the sign-up sheet 2 times. Once for the primary spot and once for the back up spot. Event banner, story (header) and links are added and now it is live! An event is then created. There are many constantly changing rules from Facebook that dictate how we do events. There’s a brand new learning curve for every single change!
As soon as the event is created, our recruiting team gets into gear and contacts drivers in each area that the kitty on the move will visit!
So if all this fabulous information has you intrigued and you want to join in on the fun, click the link under the picture of “upclose kitty” and join our driver database today! And don’t forget to share this post. Heck, ANY post. ~Teresa