How To Adopt Out Your Farm Animals In A Drought

When we made a public appeal for financial assistance to help feed our sheep through the drought, the response was so great we felt humbled and undeserving. We were aware that there are many farmers worse of that we are. Still our first responsibility is to the viability of our business and to our flock. (We can't help others if we go broke.) Immediately we announced that we would provide detailed information to any farmer who wanted to try the same approach. (Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Give him a fishing line and teach him to use it and you feed him for the rest of his life.) Well, here's a fishing line. Call me (o2 6374 0329) for more information and advice.

PLEASE READ THIS BLOG FROM THE VERY BOTTOM UPWARDS.

This blogsite takes you through the steps to launch an "Adopta" appeal for raising the money you need to feed stock during a drought. For best results, start at the bottom and work your way up.

Michael Kiely
"Uamby"
Goolma NSW

www.adoptasheep.com.au

PS. I am happy to discuss any aspect of this information if you call me on (02) 6374 0329.

The Dire Straights song that includes the words: 'That ain't working' makes me think of the process we've just come through. I visited the pub at Goolma last night on my way back from the waste transfer station (on a break from the computer) and my next door neighbour said: "You've got it made... You're a millionaire." I am sure everyone in the pub and in a lot of other places think we struck gold by discovering a way to get money for nothing. But I calculate we have worked close to 1,000 man hours so far, under incredible pressure, to make this 'money for nothing'. There's an old saying: "There's no such thing as a free lunch." And there isn't. We were happy to work hard to get the money we needed to save our flock. When we sat there that night deciding whether to destock or feed, we tried to think of ways we could get the money. Overdraft maxed out. Credit cards, too. What could we sell? There was nothing, except an idea and the time and energy it would take to make it happen. So if you want some money for nothing, I don't know where it's available. If you decide to use the "Adopta" approach, be warned you are signing on for a lot of hard work. But the rewards are amazing: the sight of healthy animals, seeing the lambs thriving, getting all the messages of goodwill from people you don't know, feeling like you've got a whole new family backing you up. I'd do it again, no sweat.

It's not hard with today's home computers and colour printers to design a simple certificate. (See ours for Adoptasheep at www.adoptasheep.com.au) We decided to include a photo of the sheep, and to let the adopter name it, and include the adopter's name on the certificate.
We designed the certificate in PowerPoint and delivered it boht as a PowerPoint file and a JPEG. (To make a JPEG, simply select Save As and scroll down under Format to find Joint Photographic Experts Groups and click Save.)
The certificate is important. Without one, people don't feel they've done anything tangible. A certificate with a photo, personalised with names, makes them feel they've done something real.
People will understand that you can't have each individual animal on each certificate because of the stress on the sheep and the fact that it would bankrupt you given the amount of time it would take. We had 1700 sheep adopted and used 400 photos. Individual sheep die (most graziers budget to lose 5% annually). In 6 weeks a lamb looks nothing like it did when photographed and a sheep with full wool looks different as well.
We didn't print the certificates. We delivered by email and people printed their own. We had only a couple of hundred that we printed and delivered by snail mail.

PROCESSING ORDERS

This was our biggest weakness. We sucked at this. If we had 20 orders or 200, it would have been fine. But the pressure of 20000 hits on the site and close to 2000 orders, we panicked and made a lot of mistakes.
We needed a system for taking the order, making the certificate, delivering the certificate, checking it is accurate, and recording that it has been sent.

TELEPHONE CALLS

Expect the telephone to be ringing all the time with orders, with enquiries about orders, with changes of details, and with complaints. Doing all this just prior to Christmas added pressure like I've never felt before.

The pressure on my laptop (an 80 Gigabyte Apple PowerBook G4) of processing so many photographs and certificates was so great that my system melted down. My email system collapsed and I lost all my files. The solution? Buy an external disk drive to store the photographs (which are all heavy users of memory).

ORDER IDENTIFICATION

You need to be able to find certificates after they're made, for follow up calls like "What happened to my certificate?"
I use the name of the person placing the order. (Multiple orders can be signified by the addition of a numerals at the end of the person's name.) Another approach is to use the email address. Or you can give each a separate code number.

TEAM COMMUNICATIONS

If you are working with a team (we had myself, my wife Louisa, my son Daniel, and my sister-in-law Kerry as well as assistance from the Mudgee Buisness Centre) make sure everyone knows the game plan. So that all the certificates look the same and have the same informaiton. That there are no double ups. That there are no orders missed. Brief everyone thoroughly.

Publicity - this is the hardest part, but there are people who will help you.
Publicity simply means getting the media to take notice of you. How do you think people get to appear on Macca's Australia All Over on Sunday mornings on ABC Radio? Not even half the number of people who call get through to Macca. Which one's do? The ones who Macca thinks his listeners will find interesting. So you ask yourself; "Would the readers of this newspaper/listeners to this radio station/viewers of this tv station be interested in what I've got to say?"
In our case, the drought was the big story and the media needed a new angle. There is a limited number of ways you can say "Things are crook in Tallarook." Adoptasheep meets the media's need for a new angle. It's a good news story about the drought. Instead of doom and gloom, it featured hope. If you watch your tv news carefully you'll notice each program needs to finish with a good news story for the night, to lighten up the mood after all the bad news. Adoptasheep fitted the bill.
We didn't plan it this way. It was our good luck to stumble onto this opportunity.

HOW TO CONTACT THE MEDIA

I went to the websites of 2 newspapers - the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph - looking for email addresses of editors that I could send my press release to. found the "Contact us" button and found a list of journalists and editors. Don't sent your release to the Managing Editor. They are too important to have anything to do with the news. Send it to the News Editor or the Editor. That's all we did. A press release to 2 newspapers. Only one of them picked it up: the Daily Telegraph.
But that was enough. The media works like this: The breakfast radio programs read the morning papers early and start ringing likely interviewees. Radio 2SM and 2UE did just that the day a small article about us appeared in the Telegraph. The television stations do the same. Channel 7 called us and asked could they send a news crew in a chopper. The next day, the Herald's online edition called and interviewed us, the Herald having missed the opportunity for the print version by not running with it first up, leaving the Telegraph as first in, best dressed. News ain't news if it's already been reported.
Channel 9 called after the Channel 7 item went to air, and they featured Daniel for a fresh angle, and ran it on the Today Show.
While the Channel 7 item took 2 hours to film, it ran for only 90 seconds on tv. But the news broadcast featured the item in its 'still to come' alert at the beginning of each commercial break. So we got maximum attention for the article.
The next phase was the online phase. Channel 7 and 9 and both the newspapers featured us on their websites and provided links to our site.
So you can see how the media can work for you, if you get it right. (And luck plays a big part.)

HOW LUCK HELPED US

They say you make your own luck. What they mean is you activate your luck when you take action. There's an old saying from the Middle East: "Go and wake up your luck."
This is what was waiting to help us when we launched Adopt A Sheep:

1. Christmas -Our timing was perfect because we provided the perfect gift for 'hard-to-buy-for' people. It was easy to buy online. There was a buzz about it. It was in the news. It was inspiring. It was all about helping others (ie. Christmas). Sheep were seen in every nativity scene. It was ideal for young children. It was all about 'love' and 'caring'.

2. Drought - City people really feel bad about the drought and want to help, but don't know how. Many of our adopters thanked us for giving them a way to make a contribution.

3. Farm Management - It seems that our approach to land management is acceptable to non-farming people. We're not greenies, but we do farm for sustainability. We believe soil health and species diversity mean better pastures and low stress treatment of animals means better fleeces.

We were lucky to have all these things helping us - hidden from our view, visible from the hear and now, but not from the then and there.

ANOTHER REASON WHY IT WORKED

4. Authenticity - We never tried to be anything other than what we are. We were up front being better off than many farmers, that we had off-farm income and were not eligble for drought relief. We told everyone our story and provided links to our web and blog sites. We admitted our mistakes. We let people make up their own minds.

WRITING YOUR PRESS RELEASE

I have been trained to write press releases. I did a course. But you don't have the do a course. There are other ways to have a press release written.

1. Journalists from your local newspaper might do it for you for free, inspired by your story. Get the paper. See who writes the stories. Find the paper's contact details - they'll be in a special section somewhere in the pages. Call the writer(s) with a simple request - write a 1 or 2 page press release. They might do it for a few beers or a few bucks.

2. Students at local colleges and unis - Some unis, like CSU at Bathurst, have a PR course. Contact the person who runs the course with your simple request.

3. Farmer's Association - They may have someone who can write a simple press release.

4. Ask around - Many people in the community have relatives or friends in the media or PR who might help.

It's hard work getting media coverage. But it is worth it when it pays off.

HERE IS THE PRESS RELEASE WE USED - COPY THE FORMAT FOR YOUR OWN

Adopt An Australian Sheep?

“Adopt A Sheep” is an online appeal launched by an Australian farm family to raise the money they need to fee their flock through the worst drought in 1000 years.

The appeal is being launched on a blogsite – http://adoptasheep.blogspot.com .

The flock of 3000 mothers and lambs are being hand fed on a woolgrowing farm called “Uamby” in a valley 300 miles north west of Sydney, Australia in a historic district first settled in 1822. The Kiely family sent 1000 wethers to market as the long dry got longer, but they stand to lose nearly a decade of breeding for superfine fleece if they are forced to send their lambs and ewes to the slaughterhouse.

Adopting “parents” pay $35, the amount it will cost to feed a single sheep for 100 days. In return they can choose to adopt a lamb, a ewe or a ram and give it a name. They get a photograph of ‘their sheep’ and a certificate of adoption. As well they will receive frequent reports on how their sheep is going. And the Kielys invite adopting parents to visit with their sheep out on the farm.

Michael and Louisa Kiely left the big city several years ago and ‘went bush’ to join the farming families fighting to make their dreams come true in the Australian outback. “We walked away from a marketing business that was very successful, but was tearing us apart as a couple,” says Michael Kiely. “It was always Louisa’s dream to go farming, and it was always my dream to stay married to her. So here we are.”

Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in living memory, with waterways drying up and dams at historic lows. The Kiely’s have battled drought for most of their farming career. They use special farming techniques to protect the environment from degradation and make the most of what rain falls. They were recognised in 2005 by being selected as among the 10 most innovative farm families in the Central West. They use greenhouse-friendly no-till farming and humane stock-handling techniques.

The Kiely’s were able to graze their flock on green pastures long after many neighbouring farms had started hand feeding, thanks to a system called time controlled grazing which allows the grasses time to recover and encourages ‘biological diversity’. They also keep a mob of kangaroos and wallabies on their farm.

“The ‘roos deserve a place to live, too. Unfortunately they get to the best grasses before the sheep do, but we’ve learned to live with that.”

The Kiely family has also made their own private reconciliation with the original native (indigenous) inhabitants of the land. Wiradjuri elders conducted a ‘welcome to country’ smoking ceremony during which the Kiely’s read a declaration of commitment to protect the land. (See http://envirofarming.blogspot.com)

They are woolgrowers for ethical reasons: “Our sheep are precious to us and we'd hate to lose any more. We grow sheep for wool because it's not the same as growing animals up to slaughter them. We make sure they have enough shade and water and we use the most humane handling techniques. And we're always looking to improve. Because we believe contented sheep produce better wool, and better karma for everyone.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Michael Kiely (612) 6374 0329
Michael@newhorizon.au.com
http://envirofarming.blogspot.com

‘Uamby’
RMB 384 Uamby Road
GOOLMA NSW 2852

Before I discovered PayPal, I offered only the simplest payment system: here's our postal address; you can send us cheques or money orders. But people reaching you online want to be able to do the transaction online. I estimate we would have lost 90% of potential donations if we hadn't found a way to allow people to donate online. So PayPal was a godsend. In fact I've got to thank Bendigo Bank for helping me to discover PayPal. When I asked the Bank for a merchant facility for credit cards, it sent me a 15 page form to fill out, asking me to give them our financial history, etc. etc. In fact we were only seeking to reactivate an old merchant facility we ran for 10 years in the '90's. We needed this facility quickly, and the Bank was acting like it would get it to us sometime in 2007. Too late.
My friend Fred Schebesta mentioned PayPal. It allows you to take any credit card online, for a small fee. I can tell you we had a few problems with PayPal. There were a lot of complaints about its inflexibility from our donors. But the money got through. And the problems were probably caused by my ignorance. In fact, the best thing about PayPal is that you can connect it up to your site in a few minutes and start taking money instantly.

INSTALLING PAYPAL

The first step is to dial up www.paypal.com. Click on the "Sign Up Now" Button. This takes you to a window that offers you three types of account: 1. Personal - for buyers. 2. Premier - for sellers selling on EBay or individuals wanting to be merchants. 3. Business - for sellers trading under a business name. I wanted the most robust system so I chose the third option, even though it meant having to pay a fee. Select "Business" and choose "Australia" from the pull down menu asking you to nominate which country you are in, the click "Continue".
The next window asks for your business name - I used "Adoptasheep". It also asks you to choose a category. I selected "Gifts & Flowers" because that was the closest option I could find. Next fill in the contact details. The next window asks you to give an email address and a password. It also asks you to provide 2 security questions (like "Mother's maiden name"). Finally you need to read the fine print and agree to their terms of trade.
Once through this gate they send you and email which has a link to their website to enable you to activate your account.
Once you've done that click on the button "Merchant Tools" which gives you the option of "Donations". This asks you to choose their standard "Make A Donation" button or design your own. Stick with the easy option. Also choose the "Encryption" option because it is the safest way to send money.
Click "Create Button" and you are given some code to cut and paste into the template of your blogsite. My code looks like this:

Go to your blogsite and select Template from the buttons. Scroll down to <$BlogMemberProfile$> Cut and paste the PayPal code into the template just below <$BlogMemberProfile$>. Click on "Save Template changes", then on Republish. And you're done.

I spent nothing but time to create a website that was able to take payments from donors. I did it in an evening. I used free services I found on the Internet. (I have been teaching myself how to do simple online things for about a year. I am an idiot about computers. My son seems to know more about it. But I plod on. If I can do it, you can.) The two systems I used are called Blogger and PayPal - Blogger for the website and PayPal for the online banking operation. A "blog" site is not your standard website. It is an online diary, so anyone can use it. I adapted it for our adoption campaign.

HOW TO BUILD A BLOGGER SITE

1. Search for www.blogger.com
2. Register by clicking on the button "Create a blog in 3 easy steps"
3. Name your blog - I found that "Adopt A Sheep" was free, so I grabbed it. You'll have to try something else. Make it snappy and make it simple. Don't make it too long because people have got to remember it. You could try "Adopt Our Sheep" or something similar.
4. Choose a template - Blogger makes it all easy because everything is automatic. You select a design template and everytime you write a "post", it appears in the colours and background design you have chosen.
5. Start posting. You can write words and upload photos and illustrations by pointing and clicking. If you run into problems, you can read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section on Blogger's home page. Or you can go online and ask users. Or you can ask for help from Bloggers Help Desk.

MORETOCOME

You can simply copy our idea word for word, making changes such as the name of your farm, etc. Our idea was this simple: we need to decide whether to send our ewes and lambs to market or to feed them as this drought shows no sign of breaking. You've got to budget for feeding. 100 days. We did a budget. After having spent $60,000 so far that year feeding sheep, and having had my off-farm income more than halved since a cancer operation in May the year before, we decided we couldnt afford it. If we can find the money, we'll do it. Where could the money come from? I heard the World Vision TV commercial: "Adopt a smile for Christmas; adopt a child." My habit of playing with words led me to the ide. "Adopt a chicken... adopt a mongoose... adopt a ... sheep..."We'll ask the public to help us keep the flock together rather than sending it to the slaughterhouse (which was inevitable at that stage of the drought). "Adopt A Sheep" was not a new idea. Google it and you'll see there are hundreds of farmers in Europe and the USA (and Australia) who adopt out cute little lambs as a business venture. But they don't do it to save the sheep's life. That's what made our idea different.

Adopt A Sheep is a transferable idea. It can be used by anyone with animals to feed. It can be used by anyone with any legitimate need.

If you want charity, my advice is to go to a welfare organisation. They probably won't give you $60,000. But they won't make you work or it. On the other hand, you'll have to work very hard to make an adoption program work. We believe we will have put in at least 1000 man-hours between us to earn that figure. $60 an hour is not bad pay. But it's the toughest work any of us has ever done.

But surely all we had to do was sit there and count the money as it came in? Wrong. Fundraising, especially with NO BUDGET, is very difficult. 1. First we had to come up with the idea. (Brilliant ideas always seem so obvious after they've been had.) 2. Then we had to build the website and the payment system, with no expert technical advice, all with free software found on the Net. 3. Next we had to get the media interested. 4. Then we had to deliver to each donor a personalised recognition package. (Everyone wanted them before Christmas!) 5. On top of that we had many 'customer service' calls to field. ("Where's my certificate?") The media were calling day and night. Throughout all this we were still running a farm in drought. 6. And then the visitors started to arrive...

Are you still with me? Happy to proceed? Then we'll take everything in order.

This blogsite aims to teach you how to run your own 'adopt-a-sheep' or 'adopt-a-cow' or 'adopt-a-anything you want' appeal. It is based on our experience at "Uamby" in December 2006 when we raised more than $60,000 in 3 weeks, adopting out 1700 sheep at $35 a head, reaching 86% of our target of 2500 sheep adopted. The money was dedicated to feeding our sheep for the months of December, January and February during the long drought of 2004-2007. (See http://adoptasheep.blogspot.com

Once we saw how much support there is for farmers facing drought among non-farming people in Australia and around the world, we committed to teaching other farmers how to do it. We announced on our blogsite that we would provide a step-by-step guide as soon as we were able to get a moment free from sending out adoption certificates. And we published a brief "how to" so some farmers could get started in the meantime. And we contacted our Farmers' Association to offer to teach other farmers how to do what we had done.

This blogsite is step one in delivering on that promise. We hope that providing this detailed 'how to' information will help farmers who are willing to have a go and try something different set up their own adoption programs.

Good luck. God bless.