Social Pros Podcast · Convince & Convert

Wags, Whiskers, and Cause-Based Wins with Virginia Chavez + Bonus Interview with Jenny Force

June 27, 2025·57 min·4 clips

PetSmart Charities fights pet hunger and aids disaster relief, not just adoptions—discover their full mission.

1. Social Pros host Jennifer Harmon interviews Virginia Chavez, content manager at PetSmart Charities, and in a bonus segment, Jenny Force, global VP of demand generation at Meltwater. 2. Virginia Chavez has been with PetSmart Charities for nearly 10 years and serves as the organization's lead storyteller, managing all digital channels including social media and the website. 3. The episode's central theme is how a small nonprofit content team sustains authentic, human-centered storytelling at scale without sacrificing the brand's mission credibility to AI-generated efficiency shortcuts. 4. Chavez clarifies that PetSmart Charities is legally a completely separate 501c3 from PetSmart the retailer — checkout donations go directly to PetSmart Charities, which grants those funds to animal welfare organizations. 5. The organization's mission extends beyond adoptions to include pet hunger prevention through Feeding America and Meals on Wheels America, access-to-care resources ensuring families can afford veterinary care, and disaster relief in partnership with the American Red Cross. 6. Chavez leads a small internal team supplemented by a robust national network of freelancers and a social media agency that handles day-to-day community management, allowing the internal team to focus on higher-level storytelling and partner visits. 7. The team's authenticity rule is that no content is produced through AI-generated or inauthentic means — mission content must come directly from grantee partners, in-store associates, or PetSmart Charities staff members on the ground. 8. Chavez describes a shot list system and intake form infrastructure she built to enable over 1,600 store locations and hundreds of grantee organizations to contribute content without needing media training. 9. The most difficult storytelling challenge was the access-to-care mission strand: grantee partners refused to ask struggling families to share their hardships publicly, so Chavez reframed requests toward hero stories about veterinarians, volunteers, and community clinics — starting with 10 partner uploads and growing to hundreds. 10. For the Journey to 11 Million campaign, Chavez's team tracked the approaching 11 millionth adoption milestone and decided to frame the story as a social-first reality dating show, building suspense about which shelter pet would be the record-setting adoption. 11. The campaign was shot in two formats simultaneously: vertical short-form clips with native sounds and drama moments for Instagram and TikTok, and full horizontal long-form journey narratives for Facebook and LinkedIn audiences who prefer in-depth storytelling. 12. To show the complete foster-to-adoption journey, the team traveled to the adoption event and fostered shelter dogs in hotel rooms, managing bathroom accidents all-hands-on-deck while ensuring pets had adequate rest and were never pressured into filming when tired or shy. 13. Chavez gives advice for teams with ambitious content ideas: start by bouncing the concept off an immediate team member, then expand the circle of input gradually — each additional perspective stress-tests the plan before production begins and builds collective ownership. 14. Chavez attributes PetSmart Charities' strong internal content participation rate to relationship-building with program teams, clear explanation of the storytelling purpose, and making content contribution as frictionless as possible through standardized intake tools. 15. The team's employee advocacy approach grew through transparency about why each person's perspective matters — helping program staff understand that their on-the-ground presence creates content no communications professional can replicate remotely. 16. Chavez describes social media as PetSmart Charities' primary place to share impact without directly asking for anything — it is the organization's community hub for supporters, donors, and pet lovers who want visibility into where their donations go. 17. Harmon introduces Jenny Force, global VP of demand generation at Meltwater, for a bonus segment focused on Meltwater Summit takeaways and mid-year marketing trends; Reese Witherspoon appeared as a keynote speaker at the summit. 18. The episode is conducted in a warm, conversational interview style with Harmon drawing on personal experience as a dog owner to anchor questions; Chavez is specific about campaign mechanics and shares behind-the-scenes logistics freely. 19. Social media managers, nonprofit content teams, and brand marketers trying to build authentic employee advocacy programs will find Chavez's frameworks for shot lists, intake forms, and access-to-care storytelling directly usable. 20. Listeners focused primarily on paid media, performance marketing, or B2B demand generation will find the Virginia Chavez segment too oriented toward organic nonprofit storytelling for immediate application.

As heard by us

Cause storytelling lands best when each channel gets a clear job.

Virginia Chavez keeps the focus on the work that actually matters: start small, get the immediate team on the same page, and then widen the circle until the vision feels shared instead of brittle.

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Why you'd press play

If you need a practical playbook for tailoring one story across social channels, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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