LingYang.Org Foster Network

http://lingyang.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/fosterflyer.jpg

LingYang.org is the website component of LingYang Xiaopu ("Adoption Shop" in Chinese), a Beijing-based foster-powered adoption network for rescued small animals.

Rescue groups in Beijing are working our butts off, creating everyday miracles and we are a staunchly no-kill community.

But the few shelters available are over-capacity and/or so far outside the city as to make adoptions very difficult.

Our idea is to build a sophisticated, self-sustainable, open-source (copyable) model for a foster-powered adoption network that could work on at the neighborhood, district and citywide level.

There are three basic components, of which 1 and 2 are currently already active.

1) PEOPLE: A network of foster homes - we currently already have a dozen or more active foster homes, several of whom have already fostered multiple animal friends, and, basically, it's a really wonderful thing. Getting to know people of diverse backgrounds whose common element is kindness to strangers!

2) TECHNOLOGY: Website(s) to coordinate the various needs of this network - promotion, adoption, education - and also enable our members to socially network among themselves. (http://lingyang.org is a Wordpress-powered blog platform, providing individual blogs to fosters with animals in their care, or for smaller groups who don't have their own websites, or who just want to be included on the LingYang platform. This is just one of many future components of the site.

3) SHOPS: Actually physical "xiaopu" or shops that will serve as mini adoption centers where paid workers and volunteers can simultaneously educate, vet potential fosters and raise funds for us and other groups via the sale of educational, consciousness-raising products directly related to the animals in our care.

**We are 100% opposed to any form of live "pet" trade and will not engage in any typical pet-related commerce (food, toys, etc.) or partnerships with pet industry companies, since we want to maintain our independence vis-a-vis the pet industry. Thus, we will have to raise money by more creative means, and seek to do so in a way that gives more than it takes.