Bruce Thorsen

RE: What grants are there.

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-21-2026 06:42 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

I've been writing grants for over 45 years with fairly decent success. I don't know if you have a "community foundation" in your area, but if so, I would contact them asking if they have "Donor Advised Funds" (DAFs) who are interested in animal welfare. Also look for smaller private foundations in your ...

RE: Fundraising Coordiator / Team

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-16-2026 06:46 AM
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After 45 years as a professional fund raiser, you're thinking all the right things here. My advice: Look at the colleges and universities in your area; also hospitals/health care for people with some experience but who are "down in the organization" at these institutions. Same with some of the other ...

RE: Community Conversations - 01/12/2026 - Money Mindset for Animal Organizations

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-14-2026 07:23 AM
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Having raised funds (for health care) for over 40 years, I fully agree with what Michael has outlined here. One of the most important points he makes is "don't think a NO is permanent." Donors give one THEIR time frame, not ours! I had many NOs during my career, but a good share of them accepted a future ...

RE: Therapy Dog for First Responders

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-10-2026 07:30 AM
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This is good advice, but I would recommend checking the Foundation's 990 form to see just how many grants they give to animal welfare. There are quite a few Foundations that list "animal welfare" as an interest, but in reality maybe only give one or two grants to our cause, so applying to them means ...

RE: Homeless Shelter looking for grant opportunities for an animal kennel

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 12-16-2025 07:38 AM
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Hi Jackson, I write grants for our cat rescue near Memphis and have had substantial success subscribing to Grant Gopher. It is very reasonably-priced and if you give them the perimeters you want they will narrow down the grants you may be eligible for. Tulsa has a number of significant foundations and ...

RE: October + November 2025 Giveaway: Share your end-of-year fundraising strategies!

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 11-26-2025 08:02 AM
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Our grants writer uses the 990 tax forms you find on ProPublica or other such sites to get a sense of where the Foundation is making grants, what kind of animal welfare organizations they are supporting and both the number of grants and average $$ amounts they are granting. There are numerous Foundations ...

RE: October + November 2025 Giveaway: Share your end-of-year fundraising strategies!

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 11-25-2025 08:51 AM
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We use Grant Gopher and also do some individual research using other on-line sources, Several of the foundations are listed on the opening page of our website www.purrfectmatchcatrescue.org ------------------------------ Bruce Thorsen President, Board of Directors Purrfect Match Cat Rescue ...

RE: October + November 2025 Giveaway: Share your end-of-year fundraising strategies!

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 11-24-2025 08:59 AM
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In the past 30 months we have received 15 grants from national foundations totaling around $75K. We have found putting our time and resources into grant- seeking has a much better ROI than Google Ads. We are fortunate to have a retired volunteer who has grants-writing experience so have not had to pay ...

RE: October + November 2025 Giveaway: Share your end-of-year fundraising strategies!

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 11-24-2025 08:47 AM
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The one thing it helped us with, was in eventually purchasing some email lists in regard to demographics (age and location). The Google Ads did produce many unwanted and time-consuming emails and calls from people all over the country wanting us to take their cats or volunteer. They didn't seem to read ...

RE: October + November 2025 Giveaway: Share your end-of-year fundraising strategies!

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 11-23-2025 06:58 AM
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Google Ads sounds great but for a smaller regional rescue it really doesn't produce much value either in placement or in donations. We used it for a year with a wonderful consultant to maximize results. We had fabulous content, ran multiple "campaigns" and gained very little. We were using it to expand ...

RE: October + November 2025 Giveaway: Share your end-of-year fundraising strategies!

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 10-25-2025 08:37 AM
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Did you have to get permission from Dr. Seuss to use the "Whoville" theme? We are considering using "The Cat in the Hat" theme but wondered if we needed to get permission from his estate? Thanks ------------------------------ Bruce Thorsen President, Board of Directors Purrfect Match Cat Rescue ...

RE: Fundraising Budget

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 09-01-2025 10:27 AM
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Are you seeking grants? We've received 12 in past 24 months, largest $12.5k, several in $5k range, numerous in $1k-$2.5k. A good share of them to cover veterinary care. I think your need for emergency vet care $$ has good grant potential. One of our vets is in North Mississippi and has given us access ...

RE: Fundraising Budget

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 09-01-2025 07:30 AM
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We raise about $250K annually and are rescuing around 500 cats/kittens per year. We've been a 501c3 since 2003. Our main source is Facebook postings and many small to medium donations. We have been relatively successful in receiving grants from foundations coast to coast, including repeat grants. We ...

RE: Grants, Grants, Grants

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 07-21-2025 08:33 AM
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Our TN-based cat rescue faces some of the same health situations with our rescue cats, as you do with your rescued dogs. We started an active grant-seeking program in late 2022 and have had fairly decent success with it. We've received 14 grants in the past 30 months from 10 different Foundations, with ...

RE: Grants Team Suggestions

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 06-25-2025 02:07 PM
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I'm retired so have the time and skills to do lots of research via a number of sources for grants. We use Grant Gopher and at least half of the grants we've been awarded came via their suggestions. You will need to give them parameters so the grants they search match your programs, location and services. ...

RE: Grants Team Suggestions

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 06-24-2025 07:52 AM
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Hi Jenn, I have successfully written grants for over 50 years, and am currently doing so for a TN-based cat rescue . In the past 30 months we've received 12 grants, from foundations coast to coast, the largest being $12,500 and the smallest $1,000. If you visit our website (www.purrfectmatchcatrescue.org) ...

RE: Starting a TNR and Rescue organization in an underserved area - please give me your advice.

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 02-26-2025 08:00 AM
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Our rescue model is completely different from yours, so I think you probably can fund TNR for 500 cats a year with some effort in broadening your social media content and looking around for some corporate support from businesses in your area that sell pet-related stuff and eventually some grants. We've ...

RE: Starting a TNR and Rescue organization in an underserved area - please give me your advice.

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 02-25-2025 06:48 AM
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You're the MAN, Bernie! Thank you for your compassion and your action to help all the struggling felines in your county. We've been rescuing cats in rural West Tennessee for the past 22 years, about 500 a year. I can tell you the biggest hurdle we face is meeting our annual budget of around $250K. We ...

RE: Do you have a vehicle donation fundraising program?

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 02-20-2025 03:30 PM
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In my experience with vehicle donation programs, an NPO has to have a couple of major things in place for this to be the tiny bit successful: 1) Excellent name recognition and reputation in your community and service area. In other words, a very robust marketing program for your organization above and ...

RE: Monthly Giving - question around defining the audience

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-31-2025 09:01 AM
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What we have done is look at the demographics of our current donors to determine which audiences have the best chance of contributing to us. I'm not sure where you plan to access your prospective donors that you are going to aim the monthly donor program toward. Are you buying email lists in your region ...

RE: Bruno Project Rescue, Inc. - Where do I start? :)

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-25-2025 07:00 AM
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Sadly you are going to struggle finding grants because you are so NEW! Most foundations want a non-profit to be in business at least a year and some 3 years. My best advice is to start locally with businesses and corporations. For example approach a pet store or other business who sells pet supplies ...

RE: Rebranding a non profit?

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-20-2025 08:16 AM
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I've had over 40 years experience in marketing, branding and fund development and my advice is this: I would just add "cats" to your brand (logo too if needed) and be sure to update all your materials and website to reflect this addition. That shouldn't be overly difficult or expensive. Don't rush out ...

RE: January 2025 Giveaway: Share Your 2025 Goals!

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-03-2025 08:43 AM
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Purrfect Match Cat Rescue is celebrating its 23rd year in 2025! In 2024 we rescued and found a permanent home for our 5,000th cat since 2015! In 2025 our strategic plan calls for us to begin purposely building a "reserve fund" to help us through the times when cash donations are slow. Our goal is $100K ...

RE: Google Ads

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 08-28-2024 07:02 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

Same has happened to us. We've been doing campaigns since March. ------------------------------ Bruce Thorsen President, Board of Directors Purrfect Match Cat Rescue Millington TN ------------------------------

RE: Google Ads

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 08-24-2024 08:13 PM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

We have had excellent customer service from Kristen Boie (kristenboiemba@gmail.com) as our Google Ads consultant. Bruce D. Thorsen Board President Purrfect Match Cat Rescue Millington TN

RE: Google Ads

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 08-24-2024 07:59 PM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

Good Luck Buck. We've had the $10k a month since March and it is not easy to manage and meet ALL of Googles requirements to both spend the $10k and stay eligible each month. Our goal was to increase online contributions. We've run about 8 campaigns and we haven't had any increase in donations. What we ...

RE: Excluding Rescues from Grants

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 07-31-2024 03:26 PM
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I actually have not experienced this! We are a TN-based grass-roots cat rescue with a $250K annual budget. In the past 18 months we've received 7 different grants from foundations across the US (none from TN!). They've ranged from $2,000 to $12,500 and total over $50K. I feel our success comes from serious ...

RE: Excluding Rescues from Grants

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 07-31-2024 03:16 PM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

Best of Success Buck. We received a Cold Noses grant last year for around $5K for veterinary care (our largest operating expense). They were easy to work with and the reporting requirements were not overly time-consuming. What I strongly suggest, if you get the grant, is to send them regular emails and ...

RE: Small Foster-Based Rescue Starting Grant Applications

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 07-23-2024 08:39 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

I started writing grants about 18 months ago for our small TN cat rescue non-profit. I signed up with Grant Gopher (rjunell@grantgopher.com) for $9.00 a month. The leads she has given me have resulted in over $50K in grants from national foundations coast to coast for our rescue. I would sincerely recommend ...

RE: Organizational Structure

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 06-27-2024 05:50 AM
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I'm the volunteer president of the Board of a small NPO Cat Rescue but have 45 years of experience working with non-profit board and organizations. In my experience the less complex you can make your organization the better. Take the time to develop position descriptions not only for the staff but the ...

RE: Google Ads

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 05-20-2024 03:10 PM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

No, it is not SPAM. Our TN-based non-profit qualified for the $10K a month in Google Ads (not any cash!) and started advertising in March 2024. We run a variety of campaigns and you will need to have "landing pages" on your website for each campaign. It is very complex and we actually hired a consultant ...

RE: Always at a Loss?

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 04-12-2024 01:00 PM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

Having been a fund development professional my entire career (45 yrs) I am NOT FOND of special events as they take lots of volunteer time, often financial resources and frequently yield very modest ROI (profit!). It took our organization 20 years to buy our own building, so if you have the resources ...

RE: Grants for Vaccines

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 04-12-2024 12:43 PM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

We just recently got a grant from LUSH Cosmetics and the application process was simple and straightforward. They made a decision within 60 days of our application. www.Lush.com/US/en_us/a/charity-pot-grant-guidelines-and-application/ ------------------------------ Bruce Thorsen President, ...

RE: Grant writing

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 04-02-2024 06:07 AM
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This is excellent advice on having a very specific and measurable project for most grant-making foundations. I've had excellent success in being awarded multiple grants from foundations coast to coast, who previously had NO relationship with my organization. The other advice I would offer is this: Have ...

RE: Fundraising and donations

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 03-29-2024 07:40 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

I'm the volunteer President of the Board of Purrfect Match Cat Rescue based in West Tennessee. We're a smaller non-profit with a $250K budget. In 2022 our board created a Fund Development Strategic Plan with the goal to expand our revenue sources from primarily FaceBook posts seeking small/medium contributions ...

RE: Quickie Fundraising

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 06-15-2023 07:32 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

Raffles work REALLY WELL for us! We've been doing them for at least the past five years and frequently! We have found a couple of cat lovers who are very talented seamstresses and crafters! They make unique handmade items for us from quilts (we usually get $400-$500 from a quilt raffle) to other cute ...

RE: May 2023 Resource Drive: Fundraisers

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 06-02-2023 06:59 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

One parting thought on fund raisers: I noticed in reading through all the wonderful ideas, that a number of them involved serving alcohol. I hope those groups understand the liability of that--for example if a person leaves your event intoxicated and has a traffic accident on the way home, then the organization ...

RE: Getting started with grant writing

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 05-29-2023 07:57 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

I've been successfully writing grants for 45 years primarily in health care but most recently for animal welfare. Everything that Teresa and Julieani have said is true. The two most important aspects of grant writing are research and matching project to funder. One thing I have done to be quickly prepared ...

RE: May 2023 Resource Drive: Fundraisers

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 05-17-2023 12:11 PM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

I'm sure this suggestion has been voiced before but I'll repeat it here as it has been successful for us. We have established categories for the contributions we seek, like Veterinary Fund; Transport Fund, Facilities Fund, General Fund etc. We then seek contributions based on these categories both from ...

RE: CRM Database

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-21-2023 07:37 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

Hey Jacqueline, I'm Board President of a small NPO Cat Rescue in TN (purrfectmatchcatrescue.org) We're a lot like you in no paid folks, just 35 passionate volunteers. Could you tell me a little more about Little Green Light and if they have a website? We need a CRM and this sounds perfect. Thanks so ...

Cause-Related business fund-raisers

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 01-21-2023 07:31 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

Has anyone done or had success with cause-related short-term fundraisers like "round ups" at check out or bar codes scanned with set amounts of contributions on them? We are looking at a regional pet supply firm that we'd like to approach about a month-long campaign using one these techniques. I've done ...

Pet Insurance Companies

Posted By Bruce Thorsen 12-08-2022 08:19 AM
Found In Egroup: Animal Welfare Professionals \ view thread

I'm a newly-elected volunteer President of a cat rescue NPO in TN. I am a retired health care fund development professional and want to put my skill set to work increasing the charitable gift income of my organization. I have noticed that almost all the big life insurance companies now seem to have a ...

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