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Seattle Humane

Workshop Facilitation for an Animal Welfare Summit

Seattle Humane renewed relationships with local partners, setting the stage for ongoing collaboration.

The Challenge

Founded in 1897, Washington state’s Seattle Humane has long cared for pets and the people who love them. Today, their measure of success is more than just the number of animals saved and adopted. How they keep pets in loving homes is now part of the equation.

Seattle Humane wanted to understand where animal and pet-owner needs were going unmet across King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties. That meant bringing pet-focused government and private agencies together to define those needs, prioritize what to tackle together, and explore what they could change to amplify their impact.

During the pandemic, relationships across the region had grown stale, so Seattle Humane was also looking for a way to reconnect with service providers and identify opportunities to work together.

smiling woman holding a puppy

When they connected with CauseMic, they needed answers to four broad questions:

  • How do we structure a facilitated session to engage with a broad group of animal welfare organizations in the tri-county area?
  • How do we make sure Seattle Humane’s voice doesn’t dominate discussions about service gaps?
  • How do we work together to identify unmet needs for pets and pet owners in the region?
  • How do we gather input on what working together or partnering could look like for each organization?

 

Our Solutions

CauseMic hosted a summit to bring Seattle Humane and local service providers together in an open, collaborative, and solution-oriented space to set a neutral stage for a big conversation.

Multi-Organization Summit Facilitation

  • Our team facilitated conversations as a neutral third party, using a structured approach designed to bring every voice forward without letting one dominate.
  • Using CauseMic’s problem-solving framework, we identified the most pressing issues that should be addressed with the group’s limited time.

Reframing Challenges as Solutions

  • Using CauseMic’s How Might We approach, we reframed challenges as potential solutions and prioritized the best candidates for follow-up.
  • We balanced structured problem-solving with space for participants to connect through breaks, breakout sessions, and strategic seating. This enabled a balanced approach between relationship building and working on potential issues and solutions with diverse perspectives.

The Results

Powerful Connection and Shared Goals

  • Participants described the one-day facilitation as hopeful, inspiring, energizing, and a source of connection, shared goals, and community.
  • Fifteen organizations subsequently gathered for a second summit, building on the first. Ongoing periodic meetings are planned.

Fresh Collaboration

  • Participants identified existing community resources that could support better referrals and complementary partnerships.
  • The summit created a foundation for future collaboration across the three counties.

We so appreciate your joining us and helping facilitate this event. It was such a benefit for our team members to be able to focus on participating and really invest in the outputs of the day. We could not have pulled this off without all your partnership and expertise.