Baypath Humane Society of Hopkinton Inc.

BAYPATH HUMANE SOCIETY OF HOPKINTON IS DEDICATED TO PROVIDING SHELTER, CARE, HUMANE TREATMENT AND LOVING HOMES FOR STRAY OR UNWANTED COMPANION ANIMALS. THEY SEEK TO SERVE THEIR COMMUNITY BY FOSTERING RELATIONSHIPS, PROMOTING EDUCATION, AND MAKING A POSITIVE IMPACT ON PET OVERPOPULATION.

By our 50th anniversary (2027), Baypath Humane Society of Hopkinton will endeavor to serve over 5,00

Goal One: Design, fund, & construct a new, state of the art facility for Baypath Humane Society of Hopkinton.

Goal Two: Serve as a critical member of the community, an expert resource for animal welfare and a “go to” source for animal-related services

Goal Three: Deliver or partner with others to deliver a rich set of services to animals in the community – to make a material difference in their lives.

Last year, our Board of Directors and Executive Director engaged a consultant to hold a Board Governance and Fiduciary Duty training, including reading and interpreting financial statements. The entire Board of Directors and Executive Director invested in and were trained on a board management software for an efficient, secure and centralized platform to keep records, hold meetings and discussions and retain best practices. Furthermore, our board strongly believes in term limits, which means we may have board members roll off during a given year. To ensure business continuity and maintain a broad spectrum of talent, our Nominating Committee is largely focused on succession planning. In the last 18 months, this committee has recruited and retained 7 new board members with a diverse and robust skill set. At the shelter, our Shelter Manager completed her ongoing training requirements to maintain her certification as a Veterinary Technician.

We began last year hopeful about our ability to restart our community outreach and education, resume our in-person events, finalize our land lease with the town of Hopkinton, and welcome visitors into the shelter. The fits and starts of the year let us accomplish some but not all of what we had envisioned, simply because conditions did not allow for it. Two of our Signature events, the Fur Ball and the Fore Paws Golf Tournament, couldn’t take place in person, but a spectacular online auction, supported by generous donors, helped fill the fundraising void in March. In October, we were able to successfully host the 12th annual Paws & Claws 5k road race at Hopkinton State Park – our first in-person event in over two years! And, as it turned out, it was one of our most successful. We have continued working with the town of Hopkinton to finalize the land lease for our new shelter, and look forward to the successful completion of these negotiations soon. We also updated our Web site and deployed a new animal management and adoption platform. While the improved Web site supports better presentation of each adoptable animal, including videos, the new platform supports better tracking of each dog or cat and their medical records, adoption contracts, and foster information. Our board of directors has grown in the past year, gaining more talent and expertise in events, human resources, accounting and financial investments, development, and more. Our staff and volunteers continued to learn new behavioral and training skills, including through an in-shelter mentor program. The influx we saw of pets needing to be rehomed in 2020 continued and even accelerated in 2021. The COVID-revised adoption program put in place in early 2020 facilitated the safe adoption of hundreds of cats and dogs through 2021. And our partnerships with community nonprofits, such as Project Just Because, ensured we could meet the needs of our neighbors in a way that was convenient and safe for them.