Animal Welfare Professionals

Looking for ideas for funding our TNR Program!

A bit of backstory...
We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization, though we hold contracts with the city for all strays, and the county for stray dogs only. We began our TNR program a few years ago to offer a solution to the county cat population problem as we are not physically able to take in county cats. Also we believe that TNR is the most effective solution for these types of situations rather than relocation/euthanasia. So far this year we've provided free TNR services (spay/neuter, vaccinations, ear notches) for 136 cats, and currently have 82 more on our schedule before the end of July. New requests keep coming in as we are the only place that offers this level of access to care in our area, and the need is so great. 

Long story short, our previous grant funding for TNR has run out and while there is a local fund that usually contributes the majority of the funding, we had to direct their assistance towards other needs of the shelter after we were forced out of our old facility in September 2025 due to the city causing an emergency evacuation by using the building's crematorium to dispose of illegal narcotics. Since then we've been building our shelter back up from scratch, now being housed in a warehouse until the completion of our Capital Campaign to build a new shelter. 

The Capital Campaign and the immediate animal housing needs are what the majority of regular community donations/fundraisers and many bigger grants are going to. However that doesn't mean that the need for public access to medical care in order to keep animals out of the shelter isn't needed. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any general grants/funds we could apply for, or any TNR specific funding sources. 

Thank you!

#FundraisingandDevelopment

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Riley Bailey
Shelter Veterinary Practice Manager
Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter
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Have you tried using the Foundation Directory search feature on Candid to look for foundations that may be possible donors? You don't have to pay for access if you enter enough information to get your Gold seal for the year. I need to get better at using it myself but you can look for other non-profits like yours and see who gave to them. You can also search for foundations that give to animal rescues, etc. It might help narrow the search a bit. Good luck.

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Brandi Washburn
Executive Director
Bigglesworth Sanctuary
VA
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Riley, first, what your team has pushed through is something else. Forced out by a crematorium narcotics evacuation, rebuilding from a warehouse, running a Capital Campaign, and you still ran free TNR on 136 cats with 82 more booked before August. That is prevention under fire. Respect.

Brandi is right about Candid, and here is how to make it pay off fast for TNR specifically. When you search the Foundation Directory, do not just search "animal welfare," search for the funders already giving to TNR and community cat work, then look at who else those same funders support. That reverse lookup surfaces the cat-specific money that a broad animal search buries.

A few TNR and community cat funding sources worth chasing:

Petco Love has funded spay/neuter and community cat work at real scale, and they favor organizations doing exactly what you are, high-volume access to care that keeps animals out of the shelter. PetSmart Charities funds spay/neuter and has specific community cat and access-to-care grants. Maddie's Fund itself, right here, has grant opportunities and this forum will tell you when cycles open. Two Mauds is small and cat-specific and worth a look. And do not overlook your state's animal-friendly license plate fund and any local community foundations, because a shelter that just survived what yours did is exactly the local story those funders want to back.

One angle for your applications, since you mentioned the Capital Campaign is eating the big grants and community donations. Frame TNR as the thing that protects the investment. Every cat you fix is intake you never have to house in the new building. Funders who care about the capital project should care about the program that keeps it from overflowing on day one. That reframing can unlock money that would otherwise all flow to the building. Always check their funding cycles and verify eligibility.

Happy to compare notes on the access-to-care side. We run a prevention-first nonprofit and spay/neuter access is the whole ballgame for us too.

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Join The Shift To Prevention.

BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
calendy.com/animal-angels
bjadkins@animal-angels.org
animal-angelsfoundation.org
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