The Dallas City of Commerce

1
8300 Douglas Ave. Suite 800
Dallas, TX 75225
Phone: 214-576-9352
Fax: 214-576-9350
Email: support@match.com
April 25, 2017
The Dallas Chamber of Commerce
500 N Akard St. #2600
Dallas, TX 75225
Dear Dallas Chamber of Commerce,
We represent the social outreach team of Match.com and we have a proposal to help
solve the massive overcrowding of animal shelters within Dallas. We want to create a more
humane and safe Dallas that euthanizes less pets.
It is estimated there are over nine thousand stray dogs in South Dallas (Gerber, 2016).
Two thousand were taken in by the city just in January of 2016, and over 400 were euthanized in
the same month. Residents of some South Dallas neighbourhoods often carry golf clubs and
baseball bats to protect themselves from the packs of strays. This is obviously an untenable
situation for the people of Dallas and they have a desperate need for solutions.
Introduction:
Historically, Dallas has underspent on animal services, resulting in a rapidly growing
stray population. According to Dallas News, “Funding has more than doubled in the last decade
and is now on par with similarly sized cities. But Dallas started from behind and had further to
go” (McClure, 2016). The rapid population growth has posed a problem for the Dallas area, and
the most effective solution seems to be to stop the population growth through the effective
spaying and neutering of pets and through shelter adoption. A major issue is that lower income
communities, the communities worst affected by the stray problem, are not willing to spend the
extra money for spaying/neutering and the practice in general is not accepted in those
communities. What is needed in that regard is lower priced spaying and neutering as well as
efforts to educate residents of the communities suffering from large stray populations about the
benefits of spaying and neutering.
In addition, efforts to improve adoption rates can significantly aid overcrowding animal
shelters all over Dallas with housing pets, as there is not even remotely enough room for all the
animals taken in. As a result, euthanasia rates are still quite high despite efforts to curb them.
Educating and advertising animal adoption as a superior alternative to breeder animals will
greatly help in that respect.
Background:

The Dallas Chamber of Commerce Page 2 April 25, 2017
The homeless animal epidemic in Dallas is increasing steadily, and at a rapid rate; the
increasing number of stray animals is posing a problem for Dallas shelters, who do not have the
capacity to take them in. As a result, many of these stray animals are malnourished and
neglected, which in turn leads to these strays taking to the streets of Dallas in an attempt to fend
for themselves. This need to survive also turns these strays aggressive and more prone to
attacking humans, making them a threat the residents of Dallas.
According to Dallas Animal Services’ (2016) Daily Fact Sheet, there were 399
aggressive activity calls in January 2016, as opposed to 0 the year before. Upon retrieval, these
animals were then brought into the city’s shelters in hopes of being trained and reintegrated back
into society. Those that were unable to be rehabilitated and adopted out were ultimately
euthanized, however. Currently Dallas has been successful in its reduction of euthanasia and is
currently operating at a 22% euthanasia rate according to Dallas Animal Services, as seen in
figure 1 below.
Figure 1
Source: Shelter Animal Euthanization Report | Dallas OpenData. (2017, April 24). Retrieved
April 25, 2017, from https://www.dallasopendata.com/City-Services/Shelter-Animal-
Euthanization-Report/ej6w-wj9m
The decreasing euthanasia rates but increasing shelter population numbers raises a large
question: if there has been a decrease in the euthanasia rate, but adoption rates are also
decreasing, what is happening to the animals of Dallas? The animals are still in streets; according
to the Dallas Animal Shelter report (2016), the city's intake levels have peaked multiple times
each month during the 2016-2017 fiscal year. As a result, the city does not have the resources to
hold animals for prolonged periods of time, which puts the burden of finding temporary homes
for these animals on Dallas Animal Services.
Additionally, due to lack of shelter space and reduced patrolling in areas with high stray
concentrations, such as South Dallas, many animals are left in the streets or displaced from
Dallas shelters. According to the Dallas Open Data Final Disposition Report (2017) shelter

report on animal disposition, 23% of all animals brought into the Dallas Animal Services system
are relocated. Dallas Animal Services have not been able to provide its animals with permanent
living situations, but rather, they have reallocated their resources to create the perception of
decreasing euthanasia rates. Dallas Animal Services has failed to keep Dallas’s animals’ best
interest in mind.
With this in mind, Dallas Animal Services has been scrutinized due to poor procedures
within their facilities. According to Dallas Morning News ( Hallman 2016), Dallas Animal
services has been recently audited by Boston Consulting Group. The firm's audit brought to light
some of the many shortcoming of Dallas Animal Services, such as failure to handle drugs
properly, improper security, lack of proper software, lack of veterinary inspection and
improperly following state procedures regarding dangerous dogs (Hallman 2016). This blatant
mistreatment of animals within the city is inexcusable. Dallas Animal Services has the duty and
the ability to bring their rehabilitation and adoption rates to the nation’s highest. This will not
only clean the streets of Dallas and provide its resident with safer living conditions, but also
allow animals to find homes that they will thrive in.
Plan:
We will work closely with all the Dallas county shelters to help promote our three month
adoption campaign, ending with a 1-day adoption festival at Robert E. Lee Park in Dallas. The
primary campaign is focused on the safe adoption of dogs throughout the Dallas county
metroplex to alleviate the load on shelters, prevent unnecessary euthanization, and to raise funds
to mitigate costs for Dallas shelters. We will also partner with other adoption organizations such
as Petfinder and the SPCA of Texas to further encourage pet adoption. The program will not
only work ensure a clean bill of health for the animals, but also help cover all necessary
vaccinations, spay or neuter surgery, and an optional microchip upon request (Adopt - SPCA
FAQ).
We will implement a multi-prong approach to solicit donations for our pet adoption
program in the Dallas county area off our match.com website. There will be a full-blown
campaign launched on our Match.com website soliciting donations from our active members in
the Dallas county area, starting with an email blast. The email will be asking all our active pet
loving members to donate to, and share, our cause using the power of social media to support the
animals shelters in the Dallas area. Secondly, we will post a landing page on the front page of the
Match.com website asking for any members outside of the Dallas county area to donate and help
our cause.
In the event that someone decides to complete an adoption during the three month
period, they can go to this landing page and print a voucher, that they will then have to present to
the animal shelter to help us keep track of how successful this program is. Additionally, should a
donation be made, the donor will be offered a discount on adoption costs in the event that they
choose to adopt an animal.We also intend on making use of digital marketing tactics, such that
when anyone searches dog and/or pet adoption in the Dallas area, will be directed to our website,
which would not only inform them of our three month campaign to help the successful adoption
of dogs, but also give them the opportunity to donate to our cause and help animals that would
otherwise be euthanized or left on the street.

We will also promote our three month adoption campaign, and ultimately our 1-day
festival at the park by reaching out to our local news networks such Channel 4 FOX (KDFW),
Channel 5 NBC (KXAS), Channel 8 ABC (WFAA), Channel 11 CBS (KTVT), and Channel 13
KERA along with local newspapers. This effort will be two-fold, in that it will not only draw
non-Match.com patrons that have an interest in pet adoption to the event, but it will also drive
traffic to our website, where they will be allowed to make donations and take advantage of the
discounted adoption rates.
K-9 companionship has proven to be successful therapy in a multitude of areas not only
for college students dealing with separation anxiety, i.e. being away from home, but also with
veterans of war who are suffering from PTSD as well as those suffering from the numerous
maladies of aging. We will launch a separate effort to reach out to these certain students, and
veterans, as well as the elderly in hopes of further promoting the idea of pet adoption and shelter
support. This will be done on college campuses by posting bulletins in campus building lobbies
and reaching out to local veteran administration offices as well as the Department of Health and
Human Services to enlighten them of our campaign to help establish companionship between
humans and dogs in need.
To fully support this venture, not only are we targeting the citizens of Dallas and our
Match.com members, but also Dallas business owners who are willing to open their hearts and
donate to a good cause. This will be addressed by a separate email blast targeting both local
Dallas business owners and other large Dallas based corporations asking them for financial
sponsorship of the adoption festival as well as volunteers to help on the day of the event itself.
Sponsors will in turn be allocated space to set up a booth on festival day, allowing them to
promote their brand while still supporting Match.com’s initiative.
The festival itself will take place at Robert E. Lee Park in Dallas and will consist of a
trick show, in which pet owners can bring their animals and have them perform tricks they have
learned, with the potential to win a medal, a costume parade, in which the animals will be
dressed in Halloween costumes and the best three costumes will win a medal, as well as various
vendor and sponsor booths set up throughout the park for patron perusal. The vendors at this
event will pay an entry fee in the form of a donation to Match.com, and the proceeds from both
sponsorships as well as fees collected will all be donated to Dallas shelter.
Purpose:
At Match.com, our main focus is to help people find their life-long companion, and with
the number of mistreated animals in the DFW Metroplex, we believe it is our duty to help these
animals find their lifelong companions as well. Our goal is to provide a voice for the animals left
forgotten in the shelters throughout the Dallas area, and increase the rate of shelter adoption as a
result.
Dallas is one the largest cities in Texas, and a huge commercial center, but despite that,
land is still incredibly cheap, making it easy for families to afford space to house animals
comfortably, and many do, but they purchase their animals through breeders rather than
adopting. We aim to change that. There are thousands of animals surrendered to shelters all
throughout the metroplex every year, most of whom would make exceptional companions

according to Dallas Animal Services’ Department Fact Sheet (2016). But due to lack of shelter
space, many of these animals end up euthanized or left out on the street in favor of newer,
younger dogs.
A part of providing adequate support to Dallas Animal Services is also raising funds to
donate to shelters and provide them the capital they need to provide more services for their
animals and potential owners. The money would go to paying for vaccinations, spaying and
neutering, an integral part of animal control, as well as mitigating overall adoption costs.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Dallas spends an average of $7.29 per animal, an
amount insufficient to cover the costs of holding a large number of these animals, particularly the
neutering/spaying required (McClure, 2016). As a result of the the lack of funding, Dallas also
falls behind in the total number of animals neutered and spayed, especially compared to the
national average, as seen in Figure 2. This poses a problem as there is already a lack of shelter
space, and the birth of new animals just contributes to the overcrowding.
Figure 2
Source: McClure, J., Oxford, T., & Mervosh, S. (2016, May 26). These 6 charts explain why
Dallas’ dog problem is so messed up. Retrieved from http://interactives.dallasnews.com
/2016/stray-dogs/
By putting on this adoption festival, Match.com would allow numerous suitable animals
to interact with people and truly allow their personalities to shine through. It is much easier to
adopt a pet when it is right in front of you than it is through a computer screen, and by holding
this event, we hope to do just that. By bringing all sorts of animals together, we want to expedite
the adoption process and make it easier to find the perfect pet for as many people as possible.

Beyond increasing adoption and reducing euthanization, we also plan to use this
endeavor as a long term way of getting dogs off the streets of Dallas. As it stands, there are packs
of stray dogs roaming free, particularly in South Dallas, which poses a danger to citizens and
pets alike. The more money that gets raised, the more money that gets made available to help
handle this problem; the number of bite incidences in Dallas has risen greatly in the past few
years, many of which were deemed critical (Gerber, 2016). The number of intakes has drastically
increased, but even so, there are still countless dangerous animals roaming the streets of Dallas
(Shine, 2016). Decreasing these numbers is a task we feel very strongly about and are willing to
help where we can, both for the safety of the people of Dallas as well as the potential for these
dogs.
Goals:
More specifically, we would like to increase the number of adoptions by 5% by the end
of 2017. We will be promoting adoption through various means, from our website to flyers up
around the DFW area promoting the adoption festival. We want to show people the benefits of
adoption as much as possible and convince them of the benefits of having an animal in their
home.
We also want to find corporate sponsors for the adoption festival and charge them fees to
set up booths at the festival. All the proceeds from these sponsors will be donated to the animal
shelters throughout Dallas. $150,000 is the goal amount we want to collect from sponsors,
including numerous pet retail stores like Petco and Petsmart as well as other major businesses in
the area like Toyota and Frito-Lay. The more major names we have in attendance, the more
people are likely to turn out, and the more likely the animals are to find homes.
Currently, there are approximately 11,000 animals in shelters in Dallas (Dallas Animal
Services, February 2017). Of these 11,000 we would like to see hundreds adopted through
interest shown at the parade. The initial number may be small, especially in a relative sense, but
the more important aspect of this parade is sparking interest in adoption. We want to be able to
provide funds to pay for spaying or neutering these animals, a surgery that costs about $100 per
animal as well as pay for vaccines (Dog Spay/Neuter).
Staffing:
For the main event of our adoption initiative, we require a large amount of volunteers
and vendors. It is incredibly important to include safety precautions for the adoption festival,
which includes hiring police to make sure there is no misconduct, both on the part of patrons as
well as volunteers. We intend to hire 5 police members for the day to patrol the event and make
sure everyone is abiding by city ordinances. This may include having the dogs on leashes at all
times, picking up their trash, cleaning up after their animals, and other matters of public conduct
and behavior, especially in regards to the animals available for adoption. We will also have the
police direct traffic and make sure that the flow of the traffic to the event is orderly.
Next we need to get at least 5 sponsors, excluding Match.com, who will help us by
donating food, money or even employees who can help volunteer. These sponsors can include

Nulo, a company that makes beds, a company that makes homemade shirts for dogs, and so on.
The amount of volunteers, in general, we would like to achieve is about 50, including those who
will be coming from the sponsors. These people will help us keep the event running smoother, by
helping to set up the event, cleaning up after the event, keeping the park clean, and helping run
the event itself. Running the event will include maintaining the water stations for the people and
their pets, overseeing the competitions, and ensuring vendor and sponsor needs are met.
A very important aspect to the event would also be to have vendors. These vendors can
include our sponsors should they choose to sell a product, but they mostly will consist of those
businesses who sell relevant, pet related products, as well as food vendors to keep patrons
satisfied. Through these partnerships, the vendors will be able to market to those interested in
their products or services, while still supporting a cause in their industry. They will set up their
own booths in order to tailor them to their own products, but the ultimate goal is for the vendors
to entertain and retain patrons.
Match.com believes that this the best assembly of staff; by working together with the
police, vendors, and volunteers, we hope this Halloween adoption festival will be a great success.
Ultimately, success will be measured by how many shelters we can help fund and help find
homes for the animals.
Budgeting:
Our goal is to earn $150,000 worth of money, service and products to give to the shelters.
This will allow the shelters to be able to reduce the cost of adoptions and in turn, alleviate some
of the capacity pressure on shelters and Dallas Animal Services. The donations will also be able
to make the animals happier, healthier, and more adoptable by providing them with beds, food,
and toys. The vendors who want to participate will be required to make a donation. Those who
give a bigger donation whether in service, products and/or money will be able to get more
marketing for their business and a better spot vendoring at the event.
By making it more of a competition we are hoping for a better outcome of donations,
around $10,000 as shown in Figure 3 below. The donated services and items can be things like
poop scooping, mobile grooming, beds, food, toys and so on. We will also ask $10 from each
person who registers for the parade and $20 for the trick show. This is shown in Figure 3 below
and we anticipate to get 300 participants for the parade and 50 participants for the trick show.
However, there will be no cap on how many people can register.
Another key revenue will be from Match.com. For three months before this event, we
will be marketing the partnerships with shelters. People using Match.com will be able to donate
to the cause by getting the premium version. Match.com will be donating 5% of the premium
payments for the three months. Match Group Company owns 9 dating networks (Statista, 2016).
They made an annual revenue of 1.1 billion dollars, in 2016. By 5% of the annual revenue of
Match.com and its affiliated dating networks, we would get an amount of $77,646 that we would
be donating which is what you see in Figure 3 below.

The variable expense, as shown in Figure 3, is the fact that The Dallas Parks and
Recreation (Walks/Runs and Special Events) requires special events to pay $2.00 per participant.
The fixed expenses, of the fees for reserving the park, is $200 refundable deposit as well as a
$200 special event fee. This is how we will hold the event at Robert E. Lee Park which seemed
like the most beautiful and most dog friendly park in Dallas.
The police will need to be paid too which will be another fixed expense. Their hourly pay
is between $12 and $20 (CostHelper.com, 2017). If we pay them about average at $16 for five
police officers for the amount of time the event is held, around five hours, we will pay $400,
which was calculated and shown in Figure 3. Food will be sold by vendors but water will be
provided by the event. The water is sold in twenty-four packs. Each pack is $4.99 and we will
need around four hundred cases (waterevent.com, 2017) By multiplying those two we will have
to spend about $2,000. This water is for the pets and humans so everyone stays hydrated during
the event.
Lastly we will have a medals to award for best dressed, best team, best tricks and so on.
We will need, 3 engraved trophies for 1st place. This will be given at a tricks competition and at
the end of the parade to the best tricks, best individual costumed and lastly best team costume.
Each trophy will cost $25 to produce. There will also be 2nd and 3rd place winner medals given
for best tricks and best individual costume which will come out to be $10 each. In addition, we
will reward a $100 gift card to the best trick 1st place winner. We are offering great awards for
the trick competition since this event requires them to pay $20 to enter. As long as we can get
more than six people to sign up for the event, we are able to break even and profit.
In addition to all these great ways of earning trophies and prizes, there will be a silent
auction for 5 gift baskets all from $50- $500 worth of items in them, some of it purchased, some
of it donated from our generous sponsors. The gift baskets will consist primarily of pet-related
items, ranging from dog beds to grooming supplies to dog/cat treats, though there will be some
items for their human counterparts as well. For the creation of these baskets, we have allocated
$1000 total, for all of the baskets, as seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3

Schedule:
In preparation for the adoption festival itself, we have come up with a timeline that we
would like to follow in order to assure that the day goes as smoothly as possible. Because of the
inclusion of vendors and sponsors in this event, we need to contact them well in advance to give
them adequate time to make and relay their decisions on participation. As such, we will be
reaching out to them on September 1st, to ensure timely responses and enough preparation time,
both on our part and theirs.
Beginning mid-September, we would like to start promoting the event to the public,
reaching out to local shelters and other public domains to place fliers as well as promoting the
event on the match.com website. By the end of September, we would like to know all of our
sponsors and confirm what supplies are being donated and how much money we will need to
raise during the event itself to reach our goal of $150,000.
At the beginning of October, we need to know who will be staffing the event so that we
are able to properly brief them on their tasks, expectations, and proper protocol. The week before
the festival, we would like to have all of the physical goods that are being donated for our event
so that we can take inventory of what we have and are able to purchase the remaining supplies,
of which we would like to complete 3 days before the festival. The evening before the event, we
will have the vendors and volunteers come in and set up the stages, booths, and whatever else
may be necessary for the festival to start promptly the following morning. For a visual, please
refer to Figure 4 below.
Figure 4

The Dallas Chamber of Commerce Page 10 April
25, 2017
Conclusion:
Although this event seems extremely big, it is very doable and shows great promise based
on how other similar events have succeeded in the past (Woldt, 2017). There is a very strong
community who would love to help out the animals in shelters whether they are animal lovers or
if they themselves had found their best friend at a shelter. When it comes to spending money at
events for these, the atmosphere is almost like a carnival. It's just as fun, interactive and exciting
while still having that sense that they are helping those animals who just haven't found a home
yet.
The stray and animal shelter issue of Dallas is at an impasse: we can either fix this
problem now or watch it spiral out of control. Proactive spending is always more productive than
reactive, and the animal control situation is already in dire straits: especially in the
neighbourhoods that are already low income. We suggest that the chamber recognize and select
our program for the “Businesses Give Back” competition as Dallas cannot be a city where the
residents are afraid to leave their houses and animals are continuously suffering. We ask that
both the interests of South Dallas communities and the many animals of Dallas are accounted
for. If approved we can set the standard for how to solve extreme animal welfare issues in a state
that has looked over them for too long. Thank you for your time and consideration, and we
eagerly await your decision.
With sincere thanks,
Jonathan Brasch, Nathanael Eskinder, Sivan Lubinin, Sidhant Mathur, & Nidhi Patel
References:

25, 2017
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