We’re excited to announce a new collaboration between the Community Cats Podcast and the United Spay Alliance!

The mission of the United Spay Alliance is “to make affordable, accessible, and timely spay/neuter services available nationwide.” They support this mission by engaging “with a national network of state and local spay/neuter referral organizations, by carrying out research, education, and public outreach initiatives, and by advocating for strong public policy on spay/neuter.”

The United Spay Alliance also supports the Feline Fix by Five campaign, which is endorsed by several national vet associations and works to raise awareness that the best time to fix cats is before they are five months old.

Because the United States is so big, it’s hard to know what kinds of subsidized-cost spay and neuter programs are available everywhere. For this reason, the United Spay Alliance relies on statewide leaders to keep an updated list of the referral programs in their area. Currently the United Spay Alliance has 20 active states participating in the program and they hope to get a few more states onboarded in the next few months.

As you know, Stacy has a lot of experience in the animal welfare world and the United Spay Alliance gets many calls about cats, so we believe this will be a very beneficial partnership. In February, around National Spay Day, the Community Cats Podcast will be hosting an online United Spay Alliance conference. The conference—which will be held from February 26–28, 2021—will be open to everyone and will feature panels on how to start spay/neuter programs, how to recruit vets and vet techs, grant making, as well as information about Feline Fix by Five and the United Spay Alliance. We hope the conference will help encourage other states to join the United Spay Alliance network.

If you are interested in being a statewide leader, you can email Esther Mechler here. Though the role of statewide leaders differs from state to state, what you’ll need to be an effective statewide leader is a strong commitment to spay/neuter, the ability to network, and a vision. You can also volunteer to help your local statewide leader if your state is already part of the United Spay Alliance network. We are also looking for an intern or administrative volunteer for the United Spay Alliance and Community Cats Podcast collaboration. Email Stacy here for more information.