The York County SPCA’s transformation combined technology changes, fewer adoption barriers, community-cat initiatives, and sustained communication with staff and the public. Best Friends Network reported that the shelter’s save rate rose from 53% in 2018 to 95.5% as of October 2022. Executive director Steven Martinez presents the work as a case to adapt—not a universal blueprint.
What happened at York County SPCA?
In Episode 133 of The Best Friends Podcast, published October 20, 2022, host Best Friends Network featured Steven Martinez, executive director of the York County SPCA (YCSPCA) in Pennsylvania. The episode describes an organization-wide effort to reach and sustain a 90% save rate. That 90% was the goal, not the reported result.
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A companion Best Friends Network spotlight gives the outcome as 53% in 2018 and 95.5% as of October 2022. The podcast episode page rounds the October 2022 figure to 95%. These are two reported precisions for the same historical result, not a current save rate or a national benchmark. The material does not establish that the changes caused the increase, nor does it provide a standardized evaluation or comparison with other shelters.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteMartinez became executive director in September 2019. The episode page’s biographical account describes YCSPCA at the time as having 60 employees, nearly 340 volunteers, a budget over $4 million, and a 25,000-square-foot facility. Those are historical figures from the 2022 episode page, not current organizational data.
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What were the five pillars of the change?
The companion spotlight describes five connected areas: technology, adoptions, community cats, internal communication, and external communication. They address both the shelter’s day-to-day operations and the trust needed to carry changes through.
1. Make technology support the work
YCSPCA’s technology effort involved coordinating systems and vendors across website services, shelter records, donor management, phone and video communications, accounting, and facility security. The point was to make the infrastructure work together rather than add operational friction. The sources do not identify a particular vendor or product.
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2. Review adoption barriers
Martinez recommended reviewing adoption procedures with the HSUS Adopters Welcome manual. The practical question for a shelter is whether its rules and steps help people make good matches—or create avoidable obstacles for potential adopters. The spotlight points to the manual as a resource, not as evidence that every policy should be identical across organizations.
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The transformation included community-cat initiatives, alongside shelter-based adoption work. Best Friends’ spotlight directs readers to its community-cat resources and educational material. The case does not specify a single program design that another shelter can simply copy.
4. Keep internal stakeholders informed
Staff, board members, and other internal stakeholders need to understand what is changing and why. Explaining the rationale helps people respond to operational changes with shared context instead of having to interpret decisions in isolation.
5. Communicate with the wider community
External communication means keeping community members and opinion leaders aware of the plan, progress, and reasons behind decisions. Martinez cautioned that information without context can be misread. His proposed sequence was to get control of the facts, prepare supportive stakeholders and leadership to understand them, and then share information more broadly with its context.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What can another shelter take from the case?
The useful lesson is less a fixed sequence of programs than a way to approach organizational change: connect operational systems, examine friction in adoption, account for community cats, and treat communication as part of the work—not an announcement after decisions are made.
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- Start with local conditions. Consider your shelter’s population, capacity, staffing, services, and community before adapting a practice.
- Understand the numbers before sharing them. Know what a metric includes and the context needed to interpret it; then communicate that context alongside the figure.
- Bring stakeholders along. Give staff, board members, and community voices a clear account of the problem, the plan, and progress.
- Assess changes as a whole. Technology, adoption procedures, community-cat work, and communication can affect different parts of operations; track them in ways that make sense for your organization.
Martinez put the limitation plainly: “None of what I share is meant to be a blueprint.” The reported save-rate increase is a YCSPCA-specific outcome; the spotlight does not establish that the same interventions, applied elsewhere, will produce the same result.
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Where can you hear the episode?
The episode page includes links to Martinez’s presentation at the 2022 Best Friends National Conference, a slide deck, the HSUS Adopters Welcome manual, community-cat resources, and other communications spotlights. The episode catalog lists a running time of 55 minutes and 40 seconds (My Podcast Data episode catalog).
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