Animal Welfare Professionals

If you could apply for a grant to cover anything for your organization, what would it be?

Tomorrow, September 20th at 6PM PT, Maddie's Fund Grants Specialists @Kelly Clardy and @eby will be hosting an informative webcast about how to apply for Innovation Grants from Maddie's Fund.

In the 60 minute webcast, we'll cover:

• an overview of the Innovation Grants, including Maddie's Fund requirements
• how to register for, complete and submit your application online through the Grants Portal
• where to go for ideas, suggestions and a list of past recipients
• frequently asked questions about the application process

Register for the free webcast here

We would ask for a grant to cover costs of treatment of fosters who came to us injured or heartworm positive.

We would ask for help with heartworm treatment on heartworm positive dogs, we need a transportation vehicle (currently we have an old retired police car with bad struts and a single crate in the back seat), and grants for construction/improvements. Our building is a past storage building for the water department still in use as a dog shelter from the 1970s. We are a rural community. 

Spay and Neuter and microchipping 

A grant to cover facility expenses.  Our community is wonderful in giving for the immediate needs of the cats in our care but we need funding to cover the electricity, water, gas, insurance etc.   All those not so wonderful things about running a 5200 sq. ft facility.

Funding for an out-building to run our intake diversion program on one side and a parvo ICU on the other side!  Or even better, an outbuilding with 3 areas with the third being holding for TNR cats.  Our shelter is saving so many animals we're busting at the seams and don't have room in the building to operate.

We would fund a location where potential adopters could come to meet potentially new furry family member(s). As a Foster based nonprofit special needs rescue it can be a challenge to put these two together. 

Funding for staff coordinator positions such as foster and intake.   Also, funding for medical procedures outside the norm.  A case of parvo in a litter of puppies can wipe out our "extra" medical funds.  Note, we are not a municipal facility, are limited intake, and do not euthanize unless it is a case of extreme behavior or medically necessary for long-term quality of life. 

Medical expenses, including just the basics of spay/neuter, gobble up the vast majority of our budget.  Nothing would help us more than extra funding to make sure that our cats and kittens were able to receive the very best medical care without us having to worry about going broke!

Construction costs for remodeling a new facility (which is an existing building that will be our new shelter).

TNR.  We do not have an on-site vet so our cost for this wipe our spay/neuter budget.

Operational expenses! No grant ever wants to help pay the electricity bills, staff, insurance, litter and food expenses, cleaning supplies, etc. We need to pay all of this to keep the shelter running and our community programs and services running.

A grant to help offset our microchip costs would be excellent, as well as medical grants for our pups

A watering system that keeps the water bowls full and fresh.  I have seen them used at other shelters and think they are great!

Add catios to our building so that cats can get more fresh air and dream about birds and squirrels.

Funds to continue our TNR program. We are helping an under staffed and underfunded shelter in a neighboring community. Prior to our involvement all feral/community cats were euthanized.  

As an innovative shelter moving the release rate toward the mid 90's I would say more money to provide medical care for those that can't be treated in the shelter, microchipping to prevent the animal coming to the shelter but instead be taken home, and money to assist for crisis care for owned pets to divert them from Owner Surrender.  I know there are so many needs.  

I would definitely agree that operations/hiring would be wonderful. So many grants allow for program funding but support for utilities and other less exciting things are not supported. 

Infrastructure - we’ve recently purchased 10 acres and need help with fencing for play yards and security for our kennels. 

We are working in conjunction with the local Animal Control Department to create a Animal Community Enrichment (ACE) facility.  This facility will provide low cost spay neuter, vaccinations, wellness, education, court mandated classes, public seminars, rescue/shelter seminars, municipal shelter seminars, co-op opportunities for rescues and shelters (supplies, meds, creative toys, enrichment items, Animeals (food back for public meeting qualifications, basically a hub for everything that will make the animal community in Northeast Arkansas better for pets, people and the public. 

The local mall pet store sells puppy mill puppies.  They are interested in partnering with our organization to convert to only offering shelter animals for adoption but need some initial financial assistance on infastructure to make it happen. A grant to help us to collectively make this happen would put another nail in the puppy mill coffin.

That's huge!  I bet if you did a fundraiser on Facebook or even a Kickstarter campaign there would be a lot of people that would donate.  (I know I want to already!)

I’ll chime in on the operating expenses, the items that can’t usually be covered by grants (utilities, rent, etc.). 

I agree, every day operating expenses keep going up.

We need a grant to help the dogs and cats that we pick up. Most are skinny, some have mange, some have been hit by cars, none have been spay or neutered. Medical expenses and quality food for our dogs and cats is one of our biggest expenses.

I would like to learn how to spotlight senior dogs to show the public the wonderful attributes of these dogs, so that they are more adoptable.

We are doing an "Oldies, but a Goodies" event in October to promote adoptions of our older, and longer stay dogs and cats.   We are offering reduced fee adoptions on these wonderful pets . We are  also giving the opportunity for folks to sponsor an older dog or cat's adoption fee so the adoption will be free.  We still do the regular adoption screenings to ensure a good home. 

See www.larashouseshelter.org/oldies 

I love this!  We were actually thinking of doing something similar since these dogs don't do well at crowded events with a bunch of other dogs. 

We would ask for funding to bring a mobile spay/neuter clinic to each county where we do trap/neuter/return (4 counties) for cats. The mobile clinic can s/n 50 cats/day. So, that would be 200 fewer cats needing s/n in the counties we serve.

We would ask for a grant to help with the upkeep of our building and equipment.  We recently replaced the air conditioner and furnace.  We're down to one working washing machine.  Not all computers will print and we're not techie enough to figure out what should be an easy fix.  We would also love to have a full time vet but that would be a huge expense.

I think one of our biggest things we would ask for would be Cat cages and more outside runs so the dogs could get out and run and play more

Try making an Amazon wish list with cat cages and post the list on social media. You might be surprised!

Operations for sure! Love grants for innovative programs, but the bottom line for all of us is that there is more outgo than income every year. 

Operations/Facilities - We have a VERY poor drainage system in the dog kennels and sometimes the smell is overpowering.  We need to tear it all out and replace it.  And as everybody else said, operations in general.  Everybody wants to fund the spay/neuter but without the electricity to run the building, and the staff to take care of the animals, it cannot happen.

General operating support. It's so difficult/impossible to find any grants that will cover this. Our shelter is also hoping to do a major cat area remodel in the next couple of years, so larger grants for capital needs would also be great.

Payroll - it is by far the biggest expense and people are the most important aspect of our work, yet very few grants cover payroll expenses. 

Transport costs for dogs in Hurricane ravaged North and South Carolina.

surgical center to offer low cost spay/neuters 

A nice dog wash area, grooming supplies, a grooming table, and coverage for a groomer to come in a few times a week.  Dogs and cats are more adaptable when they look squeaky clean and well taken care of.

It would be something to help community pet owners with medical costs for their pets and also to help medical cost of our free roaming cat community.  We have an Organization called Streetcatz that currently has a fund set up at a local cat( Hospital Bonanza Cat Hospital) this is based solely off donations, and there is a great need for help for these homeless or feral cats.

We are located in a very rural area of a county that cover 770 sq miles - A grant that assists to build a facility to help with local challenges such as vaccines, micro chipping, nail trims etc at no cost to the public. (The area has a majority of low to lower income families and sometimes a pet is the only bright part of their lives)

An eco-friendly grant. Being able to have energy efficient appliances and lighting to decrease the energy usage as well as decreasing monthly utility billing.

Office or warehouse space that could be used by all the local rescues as a "think-tank" where we could meet and bounce ideas off each other. We could also house rescues by giving them a dedicated desk and small storage area along with a physical mailing address. Optimally, it would include an area to facility adoptions, meet potential fosters, and provide community education seminairs. 

I wonder if any volunteers would be able to arrange for an office space through their day jobs? Might not be able to get a space for adoptions, but I'd imagine there would be a company that would be happy to provide space for a meeting. 

Spay and neuter for sure.  We can't get enough $ to fix all of the animals we need to fix in our county to bring the numbers down.

Surrender prevention work.  We've been doing this work for 8 years now, and it works.  But, it takes funding (no adoption fees, difficult to get the public to donate to owned animals, especially when the Internet is jammed with photos and stories of animals in shelters, etc).  Surrender prevention gets ahead of the curve, sort of speak.  We do what is needed to help keep the pet in the home, and/or prevent (more) unwanted litters, who would end up in a shelter or worse.    It is VERY difficult to get funding for surrender prevention, however.  Most grantors only give to rescues that pull from shelters, and they require that you show how many animals you've pulled from shelters.  So, if you're not pulling, but are preventing them from entering a shelter in the first place, your rescue does not qualify.    We know that Surrender prevention works.  

Agree. Prevention is so important. Why do we wait until it happens, until the animals are in the shelter? Then we have to spend all this money managing and operating the big "bandage".

Payroll.  As a private non-profit whose funding comes solely from donations and fundraisers and with a ~$700k budget payroll is a large expense for us.  Our staff is underpaid, overworked and stretched every day.   We are not able to afford to offer benefits or comparable pay for other agencies who have municipal funding.  It most definitely restricts our talent pool. 

Community spay/neuter and shelter vet costs.

Bridge to Home Animal Rescue would like to have additional funds for veterinary expenses, especially the emergency type because they are the most costly.  Secondly, help with the cost of spay and neuter.  Lastly, assistance with the cost of microchips.

I think that LARAS House could really use another paid employee or two.    We have only two at this point and we are a very large shelter and the only no-kill shelter in our county. Our employee clean the cat house/kitten cabin areas and the entire shelter, provide transport to the vet, handle adoptions, manage volunteers, and help with events.  Until recently they also did all the data entry and paperwork, but we now have an office volunteer, and a data management/remote office volunteer to help with that.    If one employee is sick, board members and the few regular volunteers we have step in. Both  employees also donate a lot of hours.   We function only on donations and care for over 100 dogs and often over 100 cats between the shelter and foster care.  We are located in a small town in a mostly rural, relatively low income county and volunteers can be hard to come by, so the same few of us do almost everything.

Our other big expense is veterinary costs, both for spay/neuter costs and other special veterinary needs.  We struggle to keep enough money coming in to keep up with the volume of animals.  It makes it difficult for us to come up with $ for special needs animals and it is often the same few people coming up with the money for their care.    

So maybe the biggest need is for a Shelter Operations grant which could include another salary and some make ready costs for adoptions  (mainly spay/neuter and vet costs- a generous donor pays for most of our vaccines, wormers, routine medicines, etc.) 

Homeward Bound desperately needs a dedicated facility.  We currently operate out of my own backyard with three kennels.  We've been able to rescue and adopt out almost 20 dogs this way, but we could save so many more with more space.  So, wee would use a grant to fund the building of a facility.

I don't volunteer, work at, or run a shelter or rescue but this week I read about a "shelter" on One Green Planet, Mamou Shelter in Mamou, LA who has one woman who runs this on a yearly budget of $12,000 which includes her "salary".  She has no beds for the animals, there is no a/c, no heat, and 2 puppies died just this week from worms, a $2 item that would have saved their lives.  Right now what they need is money, donations of food, heartworm, kitten formula, cleaning supplies, toys, blankets, towels, etc. so they can get to the next step of moving all the animals out to reputable shelters.

Payroll and Operations - like so many other people shared in their response, these are two areas that  WE MUST HAVE FUNDING in order to save lives and two areas that have very little grant funding available.

We would love funding to be able to cover much needed renovations and supplies for the dogs we have living here in sanctuary. 

This is Liz K with LARAS House in  Mexia, Texas!  We would love grant funding to bring  in a mobile vet clinic that provides low cost spay/neuter services and pediatric spay/neuter so that we can help adopt out our puppies and kittens when they are most adoptable and also ensure they are fixed, and it would also help us to save on transportation costs and having to locate folks to transport.  We have located a vet willing to come if we can raise the funds to bring them in!  We can also offer spots not needed by our shelter and other local rescues to the public. The clinic can do as many as 80 spays/neuters in a day for about $5000 a visit!  Especially invaluable during puppy and kitten season! 

Compassion Without Borders takes on many incredibly high maintenance, difficult medical cases regularly. Cases that would otherwise not be given second chances in Mexico and most shelters here in California, a grant specifically for difficult med cases would be extremely helpful. Examples: emergency transported 'hit by car' cases, diaphragmatic hernias (mostly do to dogs being hit by cars in Mexico) and various other severe traumas and illnesses.