Volunteering
Volunteering with Green Cats gives you the opportunity to help improve the quality of life for the animals in our care and actively participate in making a difference in your community.
By volunteering, you’ll meet people with similar interests, learn more about cat behavior and care, and develop skills in time management, teamwork, problem solving, problem solving, managing emotions and social responsibility.
More than that, you will have the opportunity to better understand the current situation, learn about the problems and needs of the animals in the area and contribute directly to improving their living conditions.
Traits of the Green volunteer
- Responsibility: conscientiously assumes and fulfills its commitments.
- Empathy and compassion: recognizes animals’ suffering and their right to be treated as family members.
- Dedication: understands our values and actively contributes to the association’s mission and goals using their knowledge, talents and passions.
- Education: has an approach based on continuous learning and scientific knowledge in the field of cat behavior and veterinary medicine.
- Proactivity: identifies problems and seeks solutions for continuous improvement of the organization.
- Teamwork: understands the need for teamwork and contributes to its development.
- Altruism: they wants to change things for the better for those around them.
What can you do as a volunteer?
- Cat House:
- Daily shifts at the cat house: maintaining cleanliness in the cats’ environment and caring for the cats based on a Volunteer Guide;
- General cleaning or periodic organisation sessions;
- Socialising with the cats or play sessions.
- Rescue and field work:
- Handling the trap cage;
- Participating in emergency medical rescue operations;
- Capturing cats for sterilisation purposes (trap-neuter-release);
- Travelling to supply foster families, relocate cats, or take them to veterinary clinics for admission/discharge.
- Fundraising, marketing, and content creation:
- Creating posts or stories for fundraising, awareness, or education purposes;
- Planning social media content based on algorithms and current trends;
- Implementing the marketing strategy;
- Managing social media pages (TikTok/Instagram/Facebook);
- Creating content for the website: articles, updates on cat information, new projects and events, etc.;
- Creating printed materials to inform the community;
- Designing content for the website, social media pages, and printed materials.
- Operational management and coordination:
- Organising volunteer teams;
- Internal organisation of information about cats: maintaining individual albums for each cat, updating or writing descriptions for adoption promotion, updating medical records and foster placements, etc.;
- Managing foster families and their needs.
- Event planning:
- Creating handmade items;
- Photo/video coverage during the event;
- Coordinating the project management team;
- Volunteering during the event: open discussions about the association, its mission and values, community education, activities with children, etc.
How to volunteer?
- Volunteering application: We kindly ask interested individuals to complete the registration form below. Even if you do not live in Cluj-Napoca, but believe your skills could be of help, we encourage you to complete the registration form and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible!
- Candidate evaluation: We review the form to get a better understanding of the candidate, their skills, passions, values, as well as their openness to learning and commitment to animal rights and welfare in general.
- Initial contact:
- In the rare cases where we reject an application based on the form, notification is sent via email.
- Otherwise, initially accepted candidates are contacted via written message to confirm their interest, clarify certain aspects of the form, and invite them to review our Facebook and Instagram pages, as well as the Green Cats website, to ensure alignment with our values. With their agreement, the training process will commence.
- Joining the preparation group: Candidates are added to a dedicated WhatsApp group for volunteers in training, where they can access the necessary information to begin their preparation. This takes place at the Cat House, in the presence of a veteran volunteer, requiring a minimum of 3-4 shifts and positive feedback before becoming a Green volunteer.
- Volunteer validation: Once both we and the candidate feel they can manage a shift independently, the initial training is considered complete. Graduates will be added to the Facebook groups where the association’s activities are coordinated and will sign a volunteer agreement, selecting their preferred tasks and number of monthly hours, with a minimum requirement of 2 hours per week.
- Final allocation: Subsequently, volunteers will be assigned to their desired activity area, based on their results and the association’s needs in that particular segment. There is no restriction or requirement to choose only one area of activity, nor must it remain the same over time; it is rather a dynamic process that emphasises individual preferences and available resources.
