Join us for a seminar by Dr. Roger Haston, President of the Institute for Animals. With nearly 20 years’ experience in animal welfare, including his roles as Executive Director at the Animal Assistance Foundation and Chief Analytics Officer at PetSmart Charities, Dr. Haston has become an internationally recognized leader in data, trends, metrics and analytics conveyed through impactful and approachable storytelling.

Animal welfare is changing rapidly, as the types and complexity of problems we now face have less to do with sheltering and more to do with people, pets and the communities they live in. Many of the metrics and constructs that we have used in the past no longer reflect the work being done. Further, animal welfare has struggled to engage and incentivize governmental agencies to spend money on animal-related issues. This is in part due to a narrative that is narrow in perspective and lacking more holistic aspects of community development.

The concept of social capital was developed by Robert Putman in 1969 to understand how to improve and strengthen democracy in Italy. Since then, the field has been expanded into economics, community development and many social issues. In this talk we will re-examine animal welfare through a social capital perspective to understand how this framework might allow a more robust pathway and understanding for the future of animal welfare and how to create a broader community model around pets and people.