The Boks approach to achieving No-Kill focuses on comprehensive data collection, assessment, and implementation of programs targeted to meet the special requirements of human and animal populations most in need.
Funding creative and effective ways to reach these targeted populations with programs designed to encourage spay/neuter and pet retention is key to achieving and sustaining No-Kill.
The Boks approach identifies the human populations with the greatest need, the animal populations at greatest risk and then to zero in on those areas of the community where these two populations live in the greatest numbers.
Animals at Risk is determined by the local Intake and Euthanasia data. This data when properly understood reveals the pet trends and the challenges they pose to achieving No-Kill.
Human Populations Most in Need is determined by identifying the human populations with the greatest need of spay/neuter, veterinary and human/animal bonding services for their pets.
The residual populations often not met by earlier or existing programs include:
- The poor;
- The elderly on fixed income;
- Individuals with negative attitudes about spay/neuter;
- People who speak languages other than English; and
- People who live in relatively remote or under-served areas.
Targeted programs need to be directed at the nexus where the animals at greatest risk of euthanasia and the pet owners in the greatest need of services live in the greatest numbers.
Targeted programs are designed to measurably reduce the number of pets entering and dying in shelters each year. Targeted Boks Programs include:
New Hope: is a contractual program designed to maximize the limited resources of a local coalition of organizations working collaboratively to place the greatest number of shelter animals.
STAR (Special Treatment and Recovery) provides medical care to abused, neglected, injured and sick shelter animals. Lost, homeless and abandoned pets with poor medical or behavioral conditions tend to be dismissed as adoption candidates even though many of these animals are simply reacting to the trauma of an injury or the impact of a new circumstance and surroundings.
Through a STAR Program, these animals are provided the time and treatment they need to become adoptable pets. This is done with the help and support of volunteers, area veterinarians and foster families willing to accept temporary placement of an animal away from the shelter and in a loving home; local media loves to promote STAR animal stories. This program is typically funded by donations.
FELIX (Feral Education and Love Instead of X-termination) is a feral cat TNR(Trap/Neuter/Return) program. TNR is practiced in many communities across the United States and around the world with amazing results. All the feral cats in a neighborhood are trapped, sterilized and returned under the care of a Colony Manager (a trained volunteer in the neighborhood willing to feed, water, and care for the colony). TNR is the only program demonstrated to reduce the number of feral cats and it also serves as a viable rat abatement program. All other methodologies only exacerbate the vexing problems associated with feral cats. TNR solves the problem.
Safety Net helps pets and their families stay together through difficult financial times or dislocations, hospitalizations and evictions, etc. Often families in low-income neighborhoods face crises that prompt abandonment of a beloved pet, even though the crisis is likely to be temporary.
Safety Net provides foster placement, veterinary help, counseling and other remedies that can help prevent a pet losing its home and family because of a temporary crisis by helping a family weather a temporary storm.
The Big Fix provides low or no cost spay neuter services to pets of needy families;
Seniors for Seniors supports the many health benefits to seniors owning pets by providing subsidized and/or free pet adoptions;
A House is Not a Home without a Pet, partners with local landlords and real estate agents to place shelter animals in new homes;
Guardian Angel partners with local dog trainers to rehabilitate difficult to place dogs and ensures dogs receive adequate exercise and socialization while in a shelter and then features these animals on YouTube and other social mediums to help promote adoption.
Teach Love and Compassion (TLC) brings community seniors and youth together to help homeless animals. Disadvantaged youth are provided job training opportunities in animal care while seniors provide valuable mentoring to at risk kids. TLC addresses a unique combination of community needs: the paucity of employment training, mentoring, and after-school educational activity among at-risk youth and the need of pets in shelters to have contact with humans on a regular basis.
A robust Volunteer Program that includes neonate fostering and socialization programs is also critical.
There are just a few of the many programs Boks has developed over the years. Every community is unique, and after an Organizational Assessment and an Environmental Scan, the very best targeted programs can be designed, developed and implemented.
Boks’ experience and achievements include:
- Managed capital projects including six LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certified, state-of-the-art animal care centers in Los Angeles, a $160 million project, and also helped design an innovative new shelter in Phoenix and designed and managed construction of two spay/neuter clinics in Phoenix and Mesa, AZ.
- Facilitated a Strategic Planning process for each of the agencies he managed.
- Built extensive animal welfare coalitions and partnerships with businesses, corporations, and non-profits, developed fund raising and marketing strategies, and established successful 501c3 fund raising auxiliaries in each community.
- Played an instrumental role in securing multi-million dollar grants in Maricopa County and New York City and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in Los Angeles.
- Negotiated cost recovery contracts with cities and towns that ended decades of deficit based budgeting which more than doubled department revenue.
- Architect and Instructor of the Arizona State University accredited Maricopa County Management Institute which won the coveted National Association of Counties (NACo) Achievement Award for Excellence in 2004 and was cited by Governing Magazine as a significant factor for Maricopa County being selected as the best run municipality in the United States.
- Served as Chief Enforcement Officer in Maricopa County, New York City and Los Angeles and played an instrumental role in developing an Anti-animal cruelty Task Force in several communities.