Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello All,

Six years ago, I had a career as an auditor. Then, a trip to Vietnam forced me to see the harsh realities of animal welfare EVERYWHERE. I started volunteering with rescues and saw the immense need for funding and support. After a second career as a vet tech, I'm now building a U.S.-based nonprofit that focuses on providing microgrants to rescues in Vietnam (and hopefully elsewhere once we can prove local impact).

While this kind of work moves me, there are a lot of requirements for US-based grantmakers to vet partners and ensure distribute funds are going to a charitable cause-- completely reasonable. My question to shelter managers/directors: how much baseline data, documentation of funds, and outcome data, do you think is fair to ask for roughly a $2,000 renewable microgrant? The goal is to improve the long-term capacity for these rescues and collect data that would help us better understand the local pressures and priorities of rescue workers. 

As someone interested in building strong systems to ensure these rescues are sustainable, I'm looking to develop a pilot phase in which we test different funding approaches and measure impact. This would require the rescue to fill out an in-depth survey about organization basics, current capacity, cost and operational pressures, and bottlenecks. Following a three-month pilot, they would fill out another survey that asks about outcomes. They would also need to provide basic documentation of funds used- not to audit, but to verify that public funds are going to a charitable cause. 

I've never managed a rescue/shelter and don't know how a manager/director would feel about this kind of paperwork. I'm looking for honest feedback: If this was your organization, would this kind of commitment be worth wile for you? What else should I consider as I start this work?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated! 

Joudi

Hi Joudi! 

I'm a grant writer for a foster-based rescue, but I can only speak as someone working for an American rescue. I'm sure shelters in Vietnam and elsewhere would have their own needs and expectations!

Generally, though, the standard documentation for any grant would be a budget, a short proposal, documentation of charitable status, and possibly a financial statement. Most organizations are going to have that information ready to go every year, since it's needed so often. For $2,000, though, I wouldn't expect a shelter to be eager to spend the time on sending much more info than that. 

I think surveys can really go either way. It just depends on how hard it is to collect the data you're asking for, and whether an admin worker/volunteer would reasonably have the answers on hand -- or have to comb through databases and coworkers to get it. I would probably start by looking at grant applications for similar microgrants for pet non-profits and noting what degree of detail is standard! Especially for organizations that give internationally.

Best of luck! I really appreciate the work that funders put in to programs like yours, so I hope all goes well!

Hello All,

Six years ago, I had a career as an auditor. Then, a trip to Vietnam forced me to see the harsh realities of animal welfare EVERYWHERE. I started volunteering with rescues and saw the immense need for funding and support. After a second career as a vet tech, I'm now building a U.S.-based nonprofit that focuses on providing microgrants to rescues in Vietnam (and hopefully elsewhere once we can prove local impact).

While this kind of work moves me, there are a lot of requirements for US-based grantmakers to vet partners and ensure distribute funds are going to a charitable cause-- completely reasonable. My question to shelter managers/directors: how much baseline data, documentation of funds, and outcome data, do you think is fair to ask for roughly a $2,000 renewable microgrant? The goal is to improve the long-term capacity for these rescues and collect data that would help us better understand the local pressures and priorities of rescue workers. 

As someone interested in building strong systems to ensure these rescues are sustainable, I'm looking to develop a pilot phase in which we test different funding approaches and measure impact. This would require the rescue to fill out an in-depth survey about organization basics, current capacity, cost and operational pressures, and bottlenecks. Following a three-month pilot, they would fill out another survey that asks about outcomes. They would also need to provide basic documentation of funds used- not to audit, but to verify that public funds are going to a charitable cause. 

I've never managed a rescue/shelter and don't know how a manager/director would feel about this kind of paperwork. I'm looking for honest feedback: If this was your organization, would this kind of commitment be worth wile for you? What else should I consider as I start this work?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated! 

Joudi