Development Agency
Contact Sign in Get a project quote

Service

Adoption portal development

For trustees, rehoming managers and volunteer coordinators of rescue centres and rehoming charities who need a portal built around the animal, its applications and its home check rather than a website with a contact form.

Get a project quote See the software package

The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A rescue lists its animals on a website that a volunteer updates when they have an evening free, so a dog that was reserved on Tuesday is still attracting enquiries on Friday.

  • Applications arrive by email and a downloadable form; they are printed, read by the rehoming manager at the weekend and filed in a ring binder.
  • An applicant with a ground-floor flat and a full-time job is matched to a young collie because nobody checked the needs on the listing against the home on the form.
  • Home checks are arranged by a volunteer telephoning other volunteers, and the applicant is asked the same questions three times.

Where it gets harder

Foster carers hold animals that do not appear anywhere public, so a cat in foster for six months is never offered.

  • Adoption fees are paid in cash at the gate and donations arrive through a separate button that does not say which animal prompted them.
  • Six weeks after adoption nobody asks how the animal is settling, and the first the rescue hears of a problem is a return.
  • When two small rescues try to share a site, the second one has to email the first to change a listing.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom adoption portal normally covers the animal from intake to follow-up:

  • A profile with species Breed, age, sex, neutering and vaccination record, behaviour and medical needs, suitability notes and photographs, with a status of available, reserved, in foster or adopted that changes what the public sees
  • An adoption application that captures home type Garden, other animals, children, working hours and experience
  • Matching criteria on each profile That score or filter applications before a person reads them
  • A home-check queue where a coordinator assigns a checker Offers slots and records the outcome against the application
  • Adoption fees and donations tied to the animal
  • Foster carer records and placements So an animal in foster is still listed
  • Post-adoption updates requested at intervals the rescue sets

Where several rescues share one portal, each gets its own account, animals, applications and home-checkers, with a shared public listing and a portal operator role above them. Discovery works through a real rehoming cycle with the manager and a volunteer coordinator: what the application asks, which answers rule an applicant out for a given animal, who may approve a home check, how fosterers are recruited and how long after adoption the rescue checks in. Each becomes a named stage in the scope document.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Veterinary clinical records beyond what the rescue records, charity accounting and gift-aid processing, which stay in the tools the charity already uses and are connected where that earns its place. Lost-and-found notices are available as a public board

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A county network of five small rescues wants one public site, its own listings and applications per rescue, a pool of volunteer home-checkers shared across the county and a network coordinator who sees the whole picture. That is a different build from a single shelter with a kennel block, and the scope document says so plainly.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes mapping intake, listing, application, home check, adoption and follow-up at the rescue
  • A scope document naming each workflow stage, the matching criteria and what is out of scope
  • Design of the public listings, the application form, the home-check queue and the rescue dashboard on phone and desktop
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or hosting we manage
  • Migration of animal records, open applications, fosterers and adopters from the current site or spreadsheets where relevant
  • Training for the rehoming manager, coordinators, home-checkers and fosterers, with a written guide
  • Handover material and ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to the current site, application form, spreadsheets and donation account, and a named contact at the rescue.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the rehoming manager and a coordinator; the application, matching criteria and scope document are agreed.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the listings with status, the application form, the home-check queue and the rescue dashboard, reviewed with volunteers.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Profiles and listings first, then applications and matching, then home checks, fees and donations, then fostering and follow-up.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    The rescue runs a test rehoming cycle on real animals and real applicants it controls and reports what does not match its process.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Findings are corrected and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Records migrated, old site redirects in place, notifications tested against contacts you control, launch checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The rescue rehomes through the portal; hosting and maintenance continue under their own agreement if chosen.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Card payment and donation providers for adoption fees and giving
  • Email and SMS providers for application updates, home-check offers and follow-up requests
  • Microchip registration databases for transfer of keepership at adoption
  • Charity CRM or supporter databases the rescue already uses
  • Social media publishing of new listings
  • Veterinary practice systems for vaccination and neutering records, read-only where offered
  • Calendar feeds for volunteer home-checkers

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A county network of five rescues on one portal

The situation

Five small rescues in one county each ran a page on a shared site that one volunteer edited, with applications arriving to five different inboxes and home-checkers found by telephoning round.

Why it is a custom build

A content-managed website could not do this because it has no concept of an application, a status or a check; the duplicated effort this network suffered from was built into its tools.

The scope we would propose

  • An account per rescue with its own animals, applications and fosterers
  • One public listing that filters by rescue, species and needs
  • A shared pool of volunteer home-checkers with a county coordinator who assigns checks and offers slots
  • Matching criteria per animal that flag unsuitable applications before a volunteer reads them
  • Donations and fees recorded against the animal and the rescue that holds it

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Single rescue or several rescues sharing one portal
  • Depth of the application form and the matching criteria applied per animal
  • Home-check scheduling, the size of the volunteer pool and the messaging channels used
  • Adoption fees, donations and the payment provider involved
  • Foster carer records and placements
  • Post-adoption follow-up intervals and the lost-and-found board
  • Volume of animal, applicant and fosterer records to migrate
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Animal adoption portal package

Listings by status and needs, applications with matching criteria, a home-check queue, fees and donations, foster placements and post-adoption follow-up for rescues and rehoming charities.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

When is the package enough and when is a custom build the right route?

The animal adoption portal package covers listings by status, applications with matching, home-check scheduling, fees, donations and fostering for one rescue or several with configuration. Custom work becomes the honest answer when the application process is unusual, the rescue needs integration with a supporter database or microchip registry, or a network needs reporting the package does not ship with. Discovery is where we say which applies.

Does the system decide who can adopt?

No. Matching criteria flag and order applications against the needs the rescue recorded on the profile, so volunteers read the most suitable first. Every decision is made by a person at the rescue and recorded against the application.

Can several rescues share one site?

Yes. Each rescue has its own account, animals, applications and volunteers, with a shared public listing and a network coordinator role above them. A rescue only ever sees its own data unless the network agrees otherwise.

Who owns the portal afterwards?

The charity does. Source code and data are handed over at delivery. Hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed, and the portal can be moved to another provider.

Get a project quote for adoption portal software

Answer a few questions about your business, your current systems and what should change. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

Get a project quote Discuss a partnership
Get a project quote

Cookies on this site. Strictly necessary cookies keep the site working. Allow first-party analytics so we can see which pages lead to enquiries. No advertising, no third-party trackers, no personal data; you can change this at any time on the cookies page.

Manage preferences