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WHISKERMATCH
My hearts

For shelters & rescues

Your team doesn’t lack information. It lacks one place where it meets.

WhiskerMatch keeps intake, foster updates, applications and public profiles on one reviewed record per animal, with a name and a due date on every next step. It starts beside the software you already use.

Bring one workflowSee the workflow

$20/month per organization · no seat limits · founder-led early access · no shelter has completed a pilot yet

Harbor Light RescueCommand center · todayIllustrative

Needs attention

Example workspace for a fictional rescue. Not WhiskerMatch usage data.

3Profiles held
4Applications waiting
2In foster
2Records with unknowns
1Overdue

  • Juniper A-2481

    Profile held

    Jordan · volunteer reviewer · Today · 4:00 PM

    Foster behavior note requires review

  • River A-2479

    Applicant review

    Applicant · Tomorrow · noon

    Applicant document is still pending

  • Maple A-2477

    Overdue by 1 day

    Lee · staff reviewer

    Medical note is unknown

  • Scout A-2484

    In foster

    Jordan · volunteer reviewer · Today · end of day

    Foster supply need

  • Olive A-2485

    Applicant review

    Ruth · shelter director · Friday

    Bonded-pair context needs a warmer profile rewrite

5 more animals

  • Otis A-2491

    Profile held

    Jordan · volunteer reviewer · Today · 2:00 PM

    Home-fit context needs applicant clarification

  • Marmalade A-2492

    Applicant review

    Applicant · Tomorrow · 10:00 AM

    Adopter education reply is pending

  • Wren A-2493

    In foster

    Jordan · volunteer reviewer · Today · end of day

    Kennel note and foster note disagree

  • Pretzel A-2494

    Applicant review

    Applicant · Friday

    Home-layout question is unanswered

  • Unnamed A-2495

    Intake review

    Lee · staff reviewer · Today · 5:00 PM

    Medical and behavior history is unknown

Harbor Light Rescue is fictional. Every count above comes from the ten example records listed beneath it.

Today

The same animal, as most teams have to piece her together.

Without one record

One animal. Six places. No shared owner.

  • Intake form

    “Friendly, no chip.”

    Paper, in a folder

  • Text message

    “Fine with our cat after a day.”

    In one coordinator's phone

  • Spreadsheet

    “Status: available?”

    Last edited last week

  • Vet paperwork

    “Vaccines given.”

    Scanned, unnamed PDF

  • Applicant email

    “How is she at the door?”

    In a personal inbox

  • Public listing

    “A joy on walks.”

    Week-one wording

  • Nobody owns the next step
  • No shared review state
  • No reliable current version
Harbor Light RescueAnimals / JuniperIllustrative

Juniper

Case A-2481

Dog · about 3 years · in foster with the Reyes household

Profile heldIn foster1 unknown
Record owner
MayaAdoption coordinator
Reviewer
JordanVolunteer reviewer
Due
Today · 4:00 PM

Current blocker

Foster update has not been reviewed

Next action: review the foster observation before the profile changes

Sources on the record

  • Intake note · finder reportSam · intake coordinator · Day 0
  • Intake examPartner clinic, entered by Sam · Day 1
  • Foster check-inReyes household · foster · Today · 9:12 AM
  • Application · housing documentBrennan household · applicant · Today · 10:04 AM
One animal

Open Juniper’s record and the week is in front of you.

What is known and where it came from, what nobody knows yet, who owns her case, what is blocked and what happens next.

Her open work

  • Review foster observationJordan · Today · 4:00 PMNeeds review
  • Update public profile wordingJordan · After review · waits on: review foster observationHeld
  • Answer the Brennans' door questionMaya · Tomorrow · noon · waits on: review foster observationDraft
  • Booster vaccineSam · In 11 monthsScheduled
One handoff

Foster to reviewer to public profile, without a group chat.

  1. 1 · The foster checks in

    Foster check-inReyes household · foster · Today · 9:12 AM

    “Fine with our cat after a day. Startles at the doorbell, settles in a minute.”

    Attached to JuniperNeeds review

  2. 2 · A reviewer gets the task

    • Settled with a cat after a dayFrom the foster update · New today, waiting for JordanNeeds review
    • Comfort around young childrenNobody has seen her with young childrenUnknown

    Jordan holds the public profile with a reason. Due Today · 4:00 PM.

    Profile held

  3. 3 · A person approves what adopters read

    Juniper is a friendly three-year-old who has lived with other dogs and settled with her foster family's cat after a day. She startles at the doorbell and settles in a minute. Nobody has seen her with young children yet, so ask us.

    Built from 2 sourcesApproval by Jordan

Compare the current profile with the draft

Public now

Held

Juniper is a friendly three-year-old who has lived with other dogs. Her foster family says she is a joy on walks.

Out of date: misses today’s foster note.

Draft for review

Draft

Juniper is a friendly three-year-old who has lived with other dogs and settled with her foster family's cat after a day. She startles at the doorbell and settles in a minute. Nobody has seen her with young children yet, so ask us.

Built from: Intake note, Foster check-in. Publishes only when Jordan approves.

Accountability

Eight places information gets lost, and what the software does about each.

  1. Intake arrives half-finished

    Intake is recorded once with its source. Missing facts stay marked unknown, with a reason to ask, instead of being filled in with a guess.

    Intake, animal record

  2. Foster knowledge lives in text messages

    Fosters send check-ins from their own portal. Each lands on the animal's record, attributed, and a person decides whether it changes the public profile.

    Foster portal, check-in review

  3. Public profiles go stale

    When a reviewer confirms that new foster, medical or behavior information matters, a live profile is marked stale. Drafts need an attributed source before review, and nothing publishes without a named reviewer.

    Profile review

  4. Applications wait with no owner

    Every application sits in one queue with a status and an owner. Approving or declining needs a written reason and is recorded against the person who made it. Nothing is scored.

    Applications, applicant portal

  5. Follow-up depends on memory

    Each animal carries a next action, an owner and a due date. The work board shows what is due, overdue or blocked across the whole organization.

    Work board, tasks

  6. Some animals must not move yet

    Holds are explicit, with a category, an owner and a review date. Releasing one needs a note and is attributed.

    Holds

  7. Volunteers see too much, or too little

    Roles decide who can view, edit, review, publish or decide. Fosters, applicants and volunteers get their own narrower portals, not a staff login.

    Team and roles, portals

  8. Nobody can say who changed what

    Reviews, decisions, holds and profile changes are written to an audit trail with the person and the reason.

    Audit log

Running special-needs, senior or medically complex placements? See the special-needs workflow. Each line above is in the shelter app today; no shelter has run it in a pilot yet, so we make no claim about hours saved.

One workflow at a time: animal intake, foster coordination, adoption application tracking, foster-based rescues, and how WhiskerMatch fits with shelter management software.

Rollout

One workflow first. Nothing ripped out.

Your current software, spreadsheets and listings keep running. You decide whether to add anything after the first workflow.

How it runs beside current tools →

  1. A working conversation

    How intake, review and foster updates run at your organization today. If the stage doesn't fit, we say so.

  2. Pick one workflow

    Usually the one costing the most staff time: intake, applicant review, foster updates or profile review.

  3. Run it beside your tools

    Your shelter software, spreadsheets and listings stay. Start with new animals or import a CSV.

  4. Judge it, then expand

    Add the next workflow only if the first one actually made the work easier.

Who early access fits now, and who should wait

Good fit

  • You run intake or placement with real volume, roughly 20+ animals in active placement.
  • Your public listings don’t reflect what staff actually know.
  • Your pain is intake structure, applicant review or foster follow-up.
  • Someone on your team will give direct feedback.

Better to wait

  • You need turnkey, fully featured software on day one.
  • You need a full shelter management system replacement before starting anything.
  • You want ranking or automated decisions.
  • You want to deploy self-serve, without a conversation.

Week one, what we need from you, and what we refuse to automate

1Intake cleanup
Current mess · Intake notes retyped into spreadsheets, shelter software, and listings, each copy loses context.
WhiskerMatch state · Structured fields with unknowns flagged. One record, one source of truth.
Human owner · Intake coordinator confirms fields; volunteer reviewer accepts or schedules assessments.
First-week output · First week: intake fields are structured and searchable. Unknowns are visible, not hidden.
2Foster update routing
Current mess · Concerns in group chats have to be found, re-read, and routed by hand.
WhiskerMatch state · Foster check-ins attach to the case record, tagged by type, routed to the coordinator.
Human owner · Foster coordinator reviews check-ins; adoption coordinator decides on profile or fit impact.
First-week output · First week: day-3 and day-14 check-ins are visible to the whole team, not buried in threads.
3Applicant lane
Current mess · Who applied, who was approved, who never showed, rebuilt from an inbox every week.
WhiskerMatch state · Application stage, documents, and messages attached to the animal record.
Human owner · Adoption coordinator owns the lane. Director sees queue posture.
First-week output · First week: one applicant queue visible to the team. No more inbox archaeology.
4Public profile review
Current mess · Listings drift from what staff actually know. Behavior context missing or softened.
WhiskerMatch state · Nothing publishes without a named reviewer sign-off. Unknowns stay marked unknown.
Human owner · Volunteer reviewer holds the gate. Coordinator updates drafts. Director sees blocked publishes.
First-week output · First week: every public profile has a reviewer name and date attached.
5Post-placement follow-up
Current mess · Two-week check-ins and returns depend on whoever remembers to look.
WhiskerMatch state · Follow-up tasks scheduled with owner and due date. Check-ins logged on the record.
Human owner · Adoption coordinator owns follow-up tasks. Foster coordinator closes foster side.
First-week output · First week: 72-hour and day-30 check-ins are scheduled with named owners.
What we need from you
  • One workflow you are willing to move first, not all of them at once.
  • A shelter software export or spreadsheet we can import the starting records from.
  • One person who can give direct feedback as the system lands.
  • Honesty about what is actually broken, so we scope the right thing.
Will not automate

Approving or rejecting applicants

A named person makes the placement call, every time.

Will not automate

Publishing a profile

Nothing goes public on a draft. The reviewer gate does not auto-open.

Will not automate

Filling unknowns with guesses

Missing medical or behavior context stays labelled unknown, not invented.

Will not automate

Ranking animals by who paid

No pay-to-rank. Discovery serves adopters and operators, not a revenue model.

Put your own numbers on the coordination time

A calculator loads here: you enter your own assumptions and it shows what they imply. No measured outcome is claimed.

Boundaries

What WhiskerMatch will not automate.

  • A person decides

    No placement, applicant or publishing decision is automated.

  • Sources stay attached

    Every fact keeps who said it, when, and who can see it.

  • Unknown means unknown

    Gaps stay marked as gaps. Nothing is guessed to look complete.

  • Review before public

    A named reviewer approves what adopters read.

Read the full trust standard →

No pay-to-rank, no data resale, no auto-placement.

Price

$20 / month

Per organization. Staff, volunteers and fosters included. The same price after the pilot.

Everything included, and the buying questions →

Do we have to replace our current shelter software?

No. WhiskerMatch runs alongside existing shelter software and spreadsheets. We import what matters, start with one workflow, and expand from there. No migration weekend, no forced cutover.

Also on /faq

Who owns placement decisions?

Your team. WhiskerMatch never auto-places and never auto-rejects an applicant. The one configured AI feature can prepare a source-grounded public-profile draft; a named human at the shelter or rescue reviews, decides, and remains accountable for every publish and placement action.

Also on /faq

What if our data is messy?

That is the normal starting point. We import what's there, flag what needs structure, and mark unknowns as unknown rather than guessing. Messy data gets structured over time, with a human reviewing changes.

Also on /faq

How long does setup take?

The plan is a fit call, one or two scoping sessions, and a staged rollout, the target is getting one real workflow live within two to four weeks, not a big-bang migration. No shelter has gone through this yet, so that's the intended pace, not a track record.

Also on /faq

Do more staff, volunteers, or fosters change the price?

No. The organization price is not tied to seat count. Pricing should not punish a shelter for involving the people who actually do the work.

Also on /pricing

Is there a free trial?

Yes. The first 30 days cost nothing while Chris sets up your workspace with you: your organization, your first animals and your adoption page. After that it is $20/month for the organization, paid by card in Settings or arranged directly. Nothing is charged automatically when the 30 days end.

Also on /pricing

Prefer to write directly? Email Chris at support@whiskermatch.com. Not ready yet? The free shelter checklists work without WhiskerMatch.