Disinterested President of our rescue group (vet, adopt, shelters, breed)

[Squirl]

I volunteer for several different rescue groups. One of the groups has such weak management! They have a board of directors that has never had a meeting and every attempt to do so has resulted in no one who even will agree to meet. I perform in my role, responding to applications and coordinating with foster parents. I put in 1-3 hours daily helping foster parents and applicants connect with each other and getting applicants approved for adoption by checking references and doing home visits. Our VP is responsible for responding to both shelters and owners who want to surrender dogs. She sporatically performs in that role, but very often just goes for a couple of weeks without even paying attention to emails or phone messages. Our volunteer responsible for vet needs makes appointments with the vets but has no interest beyond that scope of volunteering. Our president should make policy decisions, synch Petfinder (I can update, but not synch to publish), do the finances and fundraising. She has been burnt out for a long time but no one else wants her job! She simply does the least amount as possible and very poorly. As said, none of us wants her job either! But there are plenty of applicants to adopt our breed of dog and plenty of dogs needing homes. It frustrates me that people email and phone in and no one answers the calls or emails. It kills me when I list new dogs and remove adopted dogs to the Petfinder website but that info isn't published for 2 weeks because our Pressy can't even take the 10 seconds to synch the info, ignoring my text messages and emails!! I really don't want to assume any larger a scope than I do because I work with other rescue groups, too. Do you think I should simply resign this rescue because they do such an awful job? I am embarrassed to be associated with them, but love the breed of dog.

[no kudzu]

Is it possible to find more volunteers? or to find a volunteer with another group who would be willing to do basically the same job with this group? Seems like a duplication of effort if all that is different is the breed.

There has to be someone above the pres who can be made aware of her/his ineffectiveness. Isn't anybody else in charge?

Are you afraid if you complain to this person they will tell you to try to do a better job? Is there a national rescue of this breed who needs to know what is going on?

what's the point of having a rescue if nothing is being done except by you and not by leadership? i feel your pain. seems like there ought to be something you can do like write a letter to the entire board telling them the organization is going to hell in a handbasket unless somebody steps up.

How did this person get the job? is there a term limit? anybody amoung your friends you think you could work with who might be interested in co-president with you? could you offer to help this person out temporarily until they get back up to par? maybe they are worn out. Good luck.

[Squirl]

I have written to the board and talked to board members. Only 2 members even responded & asked if I would like the job. I have talked to the President; she offered me the job. I have also talked to the president of another rescue group I volunteer for and she said she will not extend to another group. I honestly don't want to do anymore beyond my present scope of work. Its a local group, not sponsored or affiliated with a national group. So, I guess the question is, do I quit or limp on being affiliated with such an awful group.....

[no kudzu]

sounds to me like this group would fold without your efforts. I say double up your efforts with a group which does not ignore its responsibilities and you would feel better about the work you are doing and let this other group go. maybe when they see their dedicated volunteer is tired of working alone, they will get their act together.

[zugor]

This is a tough call. Clearly the BOD is not fulfilling their job at all. It's obvious that you need to grow your active volunteer numbers, which I know is not an easy task at all. The small group I belong to has the same problem, not enough people and so we all wear multiple hats, get exasperated and exhausted and then remember why we are doing this in the first place.

Since you are in or near DFW might you be able to reach out to other larger, all breed groups and see if they can help you find new members, perhaps they have a few volunteers who are in your area who would be interested in also doing some work for your group.

Sometimes all it takes is for a few more new people to help re-energize the whole thing. Are you doing OK on funding? It's hard to get $$ from individuals or foundations if they don't perceive you to be doing a decent job.

You might also see if other types of non profit organizations in your area have any ideas on how to go about growing your numbers, what did they do that worked well and what didn't work.

I hope that this group can survive and grow and that you are able to continue with them as they do so.

[steelstress]

Address it head on with the entire board. State that the organization is not performing in an effective way, and that it seems to be a bit apathetic, and that perhaps it's time to dissolve it if no one wants to take an active responsible roll. They can stop taking in dogs and just concentrate on adopting out the ones you have, or ask other rescues to take them.

Then OP, you can align yourself with a group that agrees with you.