Small & Mighty Organizations

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  • 1.  Reducing intake due to resources strain

    Posted 12-10-2023 04:29 AM

    Does anyone have tips for managing resources strain in very small orgs? We are facing having to significantly dial down operations while we try and get things on a more solid footing. But it's going to be really difficult to take that step down for a year or two.

    We are a group of 5; we all work so the kitten rescue work (160 kittens and a few cats)  is done in our free time.  We are the only kitten rescue in our area of Portugal so we get hundreds of requests. While we have a triage of sorts (neonatal, small/sick, small, older/sick), we are still being asked to take in far more than is possible and the emotional strain of saying no will get worse if we have to slash intake next year. People also pressure the individuals to take in animals - so one person will say no, and another will say yes. 

    Financially, it's a real struggle, while we have some income, it's not enough. Very obviously we're trying to do too much without the rise in income we'd hoped for in 2023.  TNR has (frustratingly) had to take a back seat; that has been halved this year. Grant applications (not that we have many we can apply for) remain a distant dream.

    How can we manage reducing operations while not turning off the donors we do have who will see we're doing less? Can we continue to be effective at all by taking a big step back? Anyone have any tips for this type of situation?



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    Bettina Vine
    Animal Health Director
    The Kitten Connection
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  • 2.  RE: Reducing intake due to resources strain

    Posted 12-11-2023 04:10 AM

    Hi Bettina, 

    I am sure many in this group of small rescues can relate. Resources such as funds and volunteers seem to always be a struggle. We are a small rural farm and exotic animal sanctuary in Florida with 156 animals at the sanctuary. Although we do adopt out some animals like rabbits, guinea pigs, pigs and birds, most of the animals will live out their lives at the sanctuary. It takes us about 4 to 5 hours daily to just feed the animals and clean their paddocks, habitats and cages. We are facing downsizing as well but because of lack of volunteers. It is difficult to write grants and work on fundraisers when you also have to work a full time job and be part of the hands on animal care. One thing that has helped us is to focus on getting volunteers to help with grant writing and fundraising. We have done pretty well this past year with raising funds. We listed our volunteer opportunities on volunteermatch.com and with our local united way. I was surprised at how many people offered to help with fundraising events and grant writing. We've also asked people on our social media pages to be animal sponsors. We have a few sustainable donors who donate $10 -$100 a month. It may not seem like much but knowing those funds are consistant makes it less stressful.  Do you have people that will foster kittens for you? I hope you are able to find the funding you need to keep doing the wonderful work you are doing saving the kittens. 



    ------------------------------
    Lisa Burn
    Co-founder/VP
    Farmhouse Animal & Nature Sanctuary
    Myakka City, FL
    https://farmhousesanctuary.org
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Reducing intake due to resources strain

    Posted 12-11-2023 05:18 AM

    We use Patreon which has grown over the last 2 years (while not huge, we get in the region of 450-500 € a month now) - having a monthly amount coming in has been very helpful for alleviating some stress. And we have supporters from all over the world, which is nice I really want to build that up as the consistency is good.  On top of that, our income is from adoption fees, Paypal and monthly GoFundMe (the latter is very variable). 

    While we do have a good, albeit small, set of regular fosters, we can't use them to keep capacity at this year's levels. We still have to pay for vet care and specialist food (we ask fosters to cover food and litter). It's an issue that fosters here all  travel a lot so we don't ever really have people available for consistent long periods.  Also, we need to  make sure the kittens are adopted as fast as possible, as we have no adult space. Adoption straight from foster is not quite working smoothly at present. 

    We have had some Portuguese speakers offer to do some things with grants/translations etc (my Portuguese is a bit weak and certainly not up to formal), although they weren't tapped into as they should have been; so that's something we need to try and work on in the next months. Also need to try and find some more funds from outside Portugal - there's very little available to us to apply for here.



    ------------------------------
    Bettina Vine
    Animal Health Director
    The Kitten Connection
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    Original Message


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