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Mike Arms is a remarkable man. He is president and CEO of the Helen Woodward Animal Center (HWAC) in San Diego, but that only tells part of the story. He has the nuts-and-bolts intelligence of an accountant, the creativity of a marketing genius, the risk-taking of an entrepreneur, and the heart of an animal lover. He’s also gifted as a fund-raiser and as a motivational speaker. The ideas and suggestions he offered to the audience at the Kentucky Theater October 7th were both realistic and powerful. Many were challenging for small organizations, but still possible. You will want to read the story of how this native Kentuckian got into the animal welfare business at the link below.
As a speaker, he made us cry, laugh, and think twice about whether we’re running animal organizations with our hearts or with our brains. In his career he has saved one million animals’ lives. He says he has another million in him.
I thought it was amazing that the homeless animal situation in San Diego allows him to take 80% of the animals at his center from OTHER shelters.
Email him at mikea@animalcenter.org
MAJOR POINTS:
The pet industry is a $64 billion industry. We are the dinosaurs of the nonprofit sector. Hospitals, universities, and zoos market themselves and convince others what they do is worth paying for. We work for free because we love the animals. I get paid a substantial amount and I still love animals. The community KNOWS and LIKES what we do and some of them are willing to pay for that.
You must run your organization like a business. You may be able to succeed on the backs of your volunteers for a short period of time but you will not solve the underlying problems. You will not be successful in the long run without a strong 1-, 3-, and 5-year business plan. Must have an advertising budget. Putting these principles into place, he took HWAC from $300K in debt to a nice endowment, four times the adoptions; they went from 85 to 135 employees and 700 volunteers.
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