Meet the Team
Click on our teams below to learn more about their work and their team members.
- Best Friends Network Team
- Regional Teams
- Pacific (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington)
- Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming)
- Great Plains (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota)
- South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas)
- Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Wisconsin)
- Northeast (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont)
- Mid-Atlantic (D.C. Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia)
- Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina)
- National Embed Program Team
- National Shelter Medicine Team
- National Shelter Support Team
- Shelter Collaborative Program Team
The Best Friends Network team is your lifeline to support for your organization, collaboration with other network partners and connection with Best Friends experts, resources, funding opportunities and so much more. These are the folks on the other side of Best Friends LinkedIn, Instagram, the network partners Facebook group, the email inbox, welcoming you as a new network partner, running webinars, industry events, and keeping you up-to-date with exciting new resources on our website. We'd love to hear from you!
Regional Teams
The regional team members are dedicated to helping the Network partners in their region be successful. These experts are your contact should you need assistance locally.
mountainwest@bestfriends.org
greatplains@bestfriends.org
northeast@bestfriends.org
midatlantic@bestfriends.org
The National Shelter Embed Program originated in 2011 when Best Friends partnered with PetSmart Charities to pilot Community Cat Projects. Through the programs, we placed Best Friends staff members in shelters to lead these lifesaving efforts that increased cat save rates dramatically. Today, the National Embed Program continues this same concept, placing Best Friends staff members in agencies across the country to work side-by-side implementing proven lifesaving strategies that will guide them to achieve no-kill status.
Agencies with the highest lifesaving gaps qualify to have leadership staff embedded at their agency for up to one year in order to lead systemic change and coach the agency in how to sustain new ways of working. These short-term, program-specific embeds are backed by a diverse array of subject matter experts and are designed to help partner organizations accomplish lifesaving outcomes that would normally take years in just months.
If you are interested in one of these programs for your organization, please contact your regional team.
The Best Friends Animal Society National Shelter Medicine program provides customized medical support for animal welfare agencies across the country to increase their lifesaving. With a team of experienced veterinarians and veterinary technicians, this team brings years of shelter medicine and operations expertise to the movement. Opportunities include comprehensive shelter medical consults, comprehensive shelter high-quality high-volume spay neuter (HQHVSN) consults, assistance managing disease outbreaks, and trainings and mentorship for shelter staff to help improve the efficiency of current medical programming. No matter the size of the organization or current veterinary capacity, this group can help shelter teams save more lives! If you are interested in learning more, please contact your regional team.
Best Friends Animal Society provides proven lifesaving support and training for animal control agencies through the national shelter support program. We help create and sustain successful animal welfare operations for all types and sizes of communities throughout the country. The national shelter support team offers several opportunities for agencies looking to improve their animal control and shelter operations, create an ideal balance between public safety and animal protection, and improve their agency's reputation through community programs. If you are interested in learning more about assessment, mentorship, training, or emergency response for your organization, please contact your regional team.
To expand our reach and increase our lifesaving impact, we strive to empower animal welfare groups to share their expertise. The shelter collaborative program matches shelters that are leaders in animal welfare (peer mentors) with shelters that are working to achieve a 90% save rate (fellows). Best Friends helps to facilitate these matches between shelters, works with peer mentors to create proposals, provides funding, and offers ongoing coaching to peer mentors, while they work with their fellow shelter partner to increase lifesaving in another community.
If you are interested in learning more about this program, please contact the shelter collaborative team at sheltercollaborative@bestfriends.org.
