You have info on your site about “Think Lost, NOT Stray”, developed by Missing Pet Partnership, http://www.missingpetpartnership.org/recovery-thinklost.php

I recently came across the recorded webinar Kat Albrecht, founder of Missing Pet Partnership did that’s posted on the Best Friends Animal Society site, called
“Think Lost, Not Stray” – It outlines many surprising reasons that prevent people from searching for their lost pets. (I recently had personal experience with this when a neighbor and I tried to find the owner of a kitten. The father didn’t advertise or make a report with Animal Services because “people help stray dogs, not stray cats.”) Being aware of these barriers can help communities overcome them.
http://www.bestfriends.org/recordings/thinklostnotstray/index.html

Increasing the return-to-owner rate for lost pets (aka Proactive Redemption) is part of the No Kill Equation and something that many communities can improve on.
If communities had people trained to help in pet recovery, more pets could be returned to their owners. Fewer pets would be killed in “shelters”, and fewer pets would take up precious space in rescue groups. Kat outlines this plan in “Missing Animal Response: A Paradigm Shift to Reduce Shelter Kill Rates”,
http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/MAR.pdf

The article is on the No Kill Advocacy Center site, http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/

I believe there’s data showing 1 in 3 pets will go missing during their lifetime.

Calgary in Alberta, Canada is a city with more than a million people and probably has the highest return-to-owner rate in North America. Over 90% of dogs and 50% of cats are licensed.

“For dogs, out of an intake of 4330 in 2010, 86% were returned to their owners. Of the returns-to-owner, about 1/3 were returned by animal control officers in the field, without ever entering the shelter. The live release rate for dogs was 95% in both 2009 and 2010. For cats, an incredible 55% were returned to their owners in 2010. The live release rate for cats was 78% in 2009 and 82% in 2010. Overall, the live release rate for cats and dogs combined was 93% in 2010.” http://www.no-killnews.com/?p=1072

I believe the following webinar states that when a lost pet report is made with Calgary Animal and Bylaw Services, they send out flyers to the neighborhood where the pet was lost.

“The Calgary Model for Success:
In this webinar, Bill Bruce of The City of Calgary Animal Services will share with you the steps he and his organization took to bring his community such a successful program, and the impact it had on animals’ lives in that community.” http://www.petsmartcharities.org/resources/the-calgary-model-for-success.html

New et al. (2000) also published an earlier research paper that showed that 20.7% of households acquired their cats as strays and 22.7% of cats relinquished to animal shelters were originally found as stray/abandoned cats. Since these data are from the same survey as New et al. (2004), I am unclear why the percentages are different. However, even 20% is a unexpectedly large number of cats being “rescued” and adopted off the streets.

Source: New, John C., M.D. Salman, Mike King, Janet M. Scarlett, Philip H. Kass, and Jennifer M. Hutchinson. 2004. Characteristics of Shelter-Relinquished Animals and Their Owners Compared with Animals and Their Owners in U.S. Pet-Owning Households. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 3(3): 179-201.