Animal Welfare Heroes 2024 Competition

Collection & Use of Personal Information:

Entry into the competition constitutes agreement to the sponsor’s collection, use, and disclosure of the nominator and nominee’s personal information submitted on the entry form. Information includes but is not limited to names, addresses, photos, likenesses, and statements for publicity and marketing.

Thank you for supporting animal welfare in our community and participating in this competition to recognize and honor The Animal Welfare Heroes of 2024.

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The following is previously communicated information that has been edited slightly and is incorporated into these rules.

January 11, 2024

After writing the rules, I became aware of some suggestions, clarifications, and modifications that may be useful and need to be implemented to help me help the nominees succeed.

Please refer to your IRS status as a 501 (c)(3) if it helps you. This is important to many potential donors.

If possible, please provide statistics on such factors as fosters, adoptions, number of animals spayed and neutered, pulled from a specific animal shelter (please provide the name), cost of supplies on a weekly or monthly basis, assistance with feral cats, how long you have been doing this work, what organizations you are affiliated with, and how affiliated. Having access to statistics can significantly enhance our understanding, and that of the public, of your contributions to animal welfare. Would it be possible for you to provide me with some relevant statistics? Thank you.

Please indicate what you are most proud of while doing this work. 

We must have the nominator’s phone, email, or other contact information, and the nominee’s contact information, with their mailing address as part of the rules, so we can mail them an award if we do not present it in person. 

Please help me to market you! This contest is your opening to pull your light from under a bushel basket and shine it brightly so others will know who you are and consider you for donations or volunteer with you. This is also an opportunity to highlight the needs of our warriors in animal welfare, whether through animal shelters, animal rescue organizations, or by single individuals. “We are a little charity, doing big things, with great heart!” TM Let’s work together and get the positive recognition you and your organization deserve. 

A well-written essay in a form that is easy for us to prepare a press release, sometimes a proclamation, is helpful and appreciated. Government officials want a lot of details when deciding whether to agree to issue a proclamation, so please work with us. Newspapers like factual details also. 

Please indicate at the end how readers can donate or volunteer to assist your efforts, i.e., CashApp, Venmo, PayPal (not recommended), check, et cetera. Sell yourself and make it easy for folks to help you! 

Please nominate yourself and others. The nominators are anonymous.

This contest is about you, not me! You are the heroes that I wish to honor through my foundation. If you don’t like me or our contest, please ask yourself when you expect a government entity to provide you with an award, news article, or anything to express appreciation for your considerable contributions of time, emotions, money, caring, dedication or self-sacrifice, heavy heart, etc. I think it is unlikely that animal rescue will be top of mind for government officials in the immediate future. Could you prove me wrong? 

We need volunteers and donors, so please encourage others to help us. Donations can be made through our website at www.BurtonFletcherFoundation.org. It is not necessary to donate to participate in this contest. 

This is how I feel about the Animal Welfare Heroes, and this quote is on my foundation’s website:

“I have found the people in Animal Rescue to be the most caring, dedicated, and self- sacrificing individuals I have ever known. I am proud to associate myself with them and to walk in their shadows.” Burton Fletcher, J.D.

Please keep a close eye on my Facebook page, “Burton Fletcher,” for important updates. 

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June 4, 2023

The Burton Fletcher Foundation for Animals
Third Annual Animal Welfare Heroes 2024 Contest
Accepting Nominations: January 1 to Noon February 15, 2024

I appreciate your interest in recognizing others or yourself and for accepting responsibilities in animal welfare, whether in government or private volunteer positions.

We want to keep this contest as simple as possible and honor the people who are the heart and soul of animal welfare across South Georgia and North Central Florida, consisting of the four counties of Hamilton, Columbia, Suwannee, and Madison.

At the outset, I knew that many folks in Animal Rescue were insecure about their writing skills. I ask that you provide us with the details needed to understand, evaluate, and write press releases where appropriate. If you can get help from others, that is appreciated, but it is not essential to this contest. We will edit your writing before it goes to a newspaper for publication or posted on our website, www.burtonfletcherfoundation.org, and the newspaper may edit our proposed articles further. 

Please do not allow your insecure feelings about writing to hold you back from nominating deserving people, whether yourself or someone else. We admire the folks involved in Animal Rescue work, which has a different skill level than writing and editing, so please do not let your hesitation hold you back.

To start: 

1. Who is the Nominator? 

Please provide your name and your contact information. We want to know how you are acquainted with this nominee in animal welfare activities so we can judge the credibility of your knowledge. We may ask that you provide additional information from other people if we feel we need more information.

We will not intentionally put you or anyone on the spot, so this is not something to be defensive about. This is a friendly competition; we don’t consider it a win-lose contest. Just by being nominated, we consider it a win.

As you probably know, most people in non-government positions have never received recognition from government entities. We will allow the government officials to explain this themselves. I have been a public critic long enough that many people know my views in this regard. 

So, how do you know your nominee? How long have you known this person regarding their activities involving animal welfare? How much interaction have you had with this person in the role for which you are nominating them? 

2. Who is the Nominee?

We recommend speaking with and obtaining the nominee’s cooperation for your nominee. Some well-deserving people do not want to receive awards, and though we may disagree with that point of view, our hands are busy serving those who do want awards, so I don’t plan to spend much time begging anyone to cooperate. I have already tried that, and it was less than satisfying. With a few noteworthy exceptions, where the qualifications are widely known to the Burton Fletcher Foundation if your nominee is determined not to provide information or help, we will not stand in the way of not giving them an award. 

Organizational Awards & Individual Awards: Some people prefer only to receive an organizational award, which I also respect. When there is an organizational award, it would be

very positive if the nominator had the names of all the volunteers who should be included in the award. We could include those names in the award certificate, which might be an immense honor for many folks. 

In some cases, we can do both and present both individual and organizational awards. We will rely on our nominators to provide us with all the information to guide us as much as we will guide you. Unfortunately, we cannot chase down most of the information ourselves. We ask for a separate nomination for each award. 

We need your nominee’s contact information, including their mailing address. If they receive an award, we need to know where to mail that award. Some awards will only be presented in person so that photographs can be taken. We also need to know everyone’s telephone number, preferably their cell phone number, and a working email address to reach them directly.

Nominees will only win if we have enough information to judge the activities for which you nominate them for an award. Some deserving people will not receive awards because the nominator must provide the essential details. We need to assess their credentials. We are a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a need for volunteers and money, just like most other nonprofits. We need the help of the nominators. We intend to write press releases specifically for specific awards, so the details are essential for us and the newspaper or other media. 

3. Proclamations: 

Please note that we will seek proclamations from various government officials for a few awards. These requests need to be detail-oriented, well-written, and of sufficient magnitude that the city mayor, chairman of the county commissioners, et cetera, will look kindly upon our request that we be provided with a proclamation on the nominee’s behalf. 

Records of long-term, exemplary service, supported by statements from others, are often persuasive to cross that threshold. If you feel your nominee deserves a proclamation, please state so and bring the facts, statistics, witness statements, or whatever you have to the table in a persuasive format. We hope to succeed on behalf of our nominees when we apply for a proclamation on their behalf. 

4. Acknowledge receipt of all communications: 

Please promptly acknowledge receipt if we send you an email, text message, etc. If you send me any written communication, I will acknowledge receipt. If you have yet to receive a reply from me in short order, please assume that I either did not receive your message or it is lost in transit, perhaps in my spam folder. Reach out to me again until you contact me, and I confirm my receipt. 

While we intend to announce many of the awards in late February or March, we intend to submit press releases, with photographs, to various media sources throughout 2024 so that award recipients can receive positive publicity, which we hope will give credibility to the award recipient. We hope the awards will encourage donations, sponsorships, or assistance with grants to provide bona fide benefits and to publicize well-deserved activities deserving of public recognition.  We also hope the awards will stimulate others to volunteer and participate in animal welfare activities. Our goal is to save the lives of more animals! We want to recognize our animal welfare heroes and encourage more people to emulate them.

Award titles: While the Burton Fletcher Foundation for Animals has the ultimate decision and discretion regarding the award titles and all other contest details, we believe it will be helpful to know the titles of the individual or organizational awards that would be most deserved and helpful for the individual or nonprofit, or governmental entity; however, we aim to be consistent across the award spectrum. Your input is important to us. 

We have some exciting awards in mind, but we would like to know the other viewpoints of those involved in this contest. This is not an autocratic contest. We want everyone to feel good about participating, whether now or in the future.

Should you have questions, please email me at burton@burtonfletcherfoundation.org. My cell phone is listed on the letterhead, and I prefer email communications first, then text and phone messages only when I request them. 

Thank you for participating in our area’s only known contest formed to recognize the Animal Welfare Heroes. Let’s have fun in this contest. 

Sincerely,

Burton

Prof. Burton Fletcher, J.D., MBA (Ret.)

President, Burton Fletcher Foundation for Animals, Inc.

www.BurtonFletcherFoundation.org 

Burton@BurtonFletcherFoundation.org