Hi everyone,
I have been lurking on this forum for a while and figured it was time to introduce myself and what we are building.
My name is BJ Adkins. I am a disabled veteran and the founder of Animal-Angels Foundation, a prevention-first nonprofit serving seven counties in the Birmingham metro area of Central Alabama. I spent years fostering and kept watching the same thing happen that broke my heart. Families losing pets they loved, not because they stopped caring, but because they hit a crisis they could not solve in time. A rent increase. A vet bill they could not cover. A landlord who said the pet had to go. A temporary emergency with no safety net.
By the time most of those families reached a shelter, they already felt like surrender was the only option. The system was stepping in too late.
That is why I built Animal-Angels Foundation. We are not a rescue. We are prevention infrastructure. Our mission is to keep families together by changing the reasons they end up in shelters in the first.
What we do
We work upstream, before surrender happens, to solve the specific problem that is putting the pet at risk. We run six programs, each designed to reduce intake in a different way:
Home Bound is our biggest program. It covers crisis stabilization, emergency supplies, vet support, landlord mediation, pet deposit micro-grants for families whose only barrier is an upfront housing cost, temporary foster with a clear reunification timeline, finder-to-foster reunification for lost pets, and safe self-rehoming support when keeping truly is not possible.
SNIP (Spay Neuter Initiative Program) provides free spay and neuter surgery with a $100 completion stipend. The stipend exists because free surgery is not enough if the family cannot miss work or afford recovery supplies.
We also run Foster-to-Train (intensive foster placement with professional training to improve adoptability), Adoption Boost (post-adoption support to reduce returns during the critical first 90 days), community cat TNVR, and a Pet Help Desk that acts as the front door for every family who reaches us.
The partner model
This is the part I would really love to talk about with this community.
We operate on what we call an interconnected prevention network. The idea is simple, but it changes the way work gets done shelters, rescues, veterinarians, spay and neuter clinics, landlords, trainers, donors, businesses, and the public all connect to each other, not just through one central organization. Every partner connects to every other partner. We do not compete with shelters and rescues. We strengthen them by reducing preventable intake before it reaches their doors.
We are building a technology platform called the Animal Welfare Referral Network (AWRN) to support that coordination. Shared case tracking, a central events calendar, partner directory, bulletin system, and eventually a public-facing resource finder for families. The goal is to close the gap between the moment a family asks for help and the moment they get it.
Where we are
We are expecting our 501(c)(3) approval by end of April 2026. Our Year 1 target is to prevent 100 to 150 shelter intakes across the seven-county service area. We track outcomes at 90 days, and we report failures alongside successes because funders and partners deserve honest data.
What I am looking for here
I know this community has deep experience in surrender prevention, intake diversion, temporary housing programs, and the real day-to-day challenges of keeping families together. I have been reading through threads on owner surrender, intake reasons, and housing barriers and there is a lot of knowledge in this group that I want to learn from.
Specifically, I would love to connect with anyone who is running prevention or diversion programs and is willing to share what is working and what is not. I am also interested in talking with organizations that have built referral networks across multiple partners in a region, because that coordination piece is where we think the biggest gains are. And if anyone has done work around landlord partnerships for pet-inclusive housing, I would really like to compare notes.
I am also very open to feedback on our model. If you see gaps or have been through something similar in your own community and learned the hard way, I want to hear that too.
The way I see it, rescue and prevention are not in competition. Prevention is what makes less rescue necessary. And the strongest animal welfare system is one where both work together.
Looking forward to being part of this community.
BJ Adkins Founder
Animal-Angels Foundation
Central Alabama
animal-angelsfoundation.org
bjadkins@animal-angels.org
(205) 754-7542
#PetSupportServices*------------------------------
BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
bjadkins@animal-angels.org------------------------------