Strategic Communication Plan: A Partnership Between Save A Gato & the USDA

This Strategic Communications Plan for the Save A Gato (SAG) and the United States Department of Agriculture/Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA/APHIS) was created for MMC6639 Non-Profit and Government Communication (University of Florida). The partnership focuses on protecting and advocating for the community cats living on land managed by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). In the Fall of 2023, the NPS threatened to evict, euthanize, and prevent SAG from caring for and feeding the felines. SAG was given six months to remove the cats, or they would be eliminated by lethal means.

This strategic communication plan provides a roadmap, a blueprint of sorts, that provides goals, objectives, and tactics on how to raise awareness, bring the community together to push back against this horrific threat, and how to bring about collaborative solutions with its partner USDA/APHIS and additional animal welfare partners such as Alley Cat Allies (ACA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). In March 2024, ACA announced a partnership with SAG, and in April 2024, ACA sued the NPS over the threat of removing and killing community cats in Old San Juan.