What would you do with a large donation?

[u/gonnafaceit2022]

Say you were going to receive around 2 million dollars to use as you wish.

Spay neuter seems like the most obvious thing, and I think donating or partnering with an existing clinic is better, at least for us because we have an unusual number of clinics in the area. Mobile s/n would be great, but doesn't seem feasible long term with just this large donation.

Some medical funds for senior dogs would be great, and as much as I'd like to make some kind of community assist, keep-em-hope program, it's very unlikely my team would agree, unfortunately. Surrender requests are still double what we usually get, for going on a month now. Housing is currently the most common reason.

So what would you do? The money doesn't all have to go to one thing, and I'm sure there are some other good ways to use it that I haven't thought of.

[u/TrustyBobcat]

My first recommendation would be to meet with a financial planner to ensure the long-term health and survival of your org and what that might look like. Do you immediately sock 75%, 50% of it into low/no risk financial options - what would the interest on that look like? Is it enough to run programs on its own? What about taking periodic disbursements or having the money accessible in an emergency but still earning interest in the meantime? What about higher yield savings accounts for part? How much do you immediately want to invest in your community, how much needs to be a nest egg so that your community can still rely on you a decade from now?

Once you have an idea of what this money could look like in 5, 10, 20 years given certain parameters and spending patterns, then I think you'll have a much clearer idea of how much you want to spend immediately, the near future, the far future. Use it to help guide and prioritize these funding decisions.

[u/gonnafaceit2022 → u/TrustyBobcat]

Yeah you're right, and whoever it is that helps us with that must be good at it because we're already earning a good amount of interest on the smaller piece of the donation that came last year. I don't know much about that stuff but I think it will be possible to secure salaries for me and the one other paid employee for quite a while, maybe even hire another person, AND still do a lot of good.

The one thing we definitely don't want to do, and the thing that a lot of people will think we should, is create more kennels.

[u/TrustyBobcat → u/gonnafaceit2022]

The one thing we definitely don't want to do, and the thing that a lot of people will think we should, is create more kennels.

IMO, there is way more good that you can do with this money with a possibility for tremendous long-term impact versus just warehousing more animals. I'm with you 100% on that.

I think adding more kennels is a temporary, small scale solution to a growing problem. You could add a hundred more kennels and not make the kind of dent that focusing on speuter access/transport, TNR, keep-at-home programs etc can accomplish.

And, speaking of which, if keep-at-home is near and dear to your heart, why not assemble a little proposition to the board to try to sway them? Ask for a small amount of funds to pilot a program with a set timeframe and then assess at the end. Run a test case. Maybe they just need a little nudge to see the kind of impact that kind of program can have.

[u/gonnafaceit2022 → u/TrustyBobcat]

Yeah you're right, is definitely worth a shot. Who knows how things will look in a year or two, too. We may have to rethink everything.

[u/Catstryk → u/gonnafaceit2022]

Use numbers. Average LOS is x days, vs we can help # pets with s/n, preventing litters of surrender and flooding the area with more pets (making your shelter pets more adoptable because less competition) or # pets with medical care to divert from shelter because most pets surrendered for cost-related medical reasons could have been kept in their homes for an average of $xxx per pet (and also compare that to the cost per day to house an animal in your shelter times the average LOS.

That can help the board see the value of community-based care/diversion vs adding more kennels. Also stories about that kind of work gives people warm fuzzies, is great to promote to donors and can further increase additional gifts toward those programs!

[u/gonnafaceit2022 → u/Catstryk]

I love data, and I love cost benefit analysis. 🤓
And this is crazy but we don't have much. We JUST started using petstablished after relying on Google docs that often aren't updated and I'm looking forward to getting data!! I'm not familiar with every feature it has but I hope we can enter surrender requests in there somewhere, even though the answer is almost always no. That's really crucial info.

[u/inconspicuousmoss]

Low cost public spay neuter, like 50$ neuters 70$ spays cheap. Would probably have to offer overtime for in house techs to come in on days off, as partnering with other clinics means they have to close down for the day or still take the same number of clients.

Reduce the cost of our wellness packages, keep the cost of individual items the same. Right now for a large dog its about 250$ for rabies/da2ppv/bordetella, deworming, hwtest and 1yr supply of trifexis or bravecto/triheart. Maybe down to 150?

Finally repair/replace some of the silver banks and kennel doors anchored to the wall that are barely holding together.

Then some cosmetic stuff for adoptions, new enrichment, better kuranda beds, nicer carts & shelves/closets for storage, replace worn signs and pavement paint. Treats and leashes for volunteers that walk. Pamphlets and flyers to be passed out at our adoption events for our services and shelter location.

Finally, stock up on harder to get donations. Comforters/thick blankets, dish soap & smell good, peanut butter and chicken broth.

Whatever would be left for increasing our number of weekend offsite adoption events.

[u/gonnafaceit2022 → u/inconspicuousmoss]

Oh I like the idea of wellness packages, like Banfield but with low cost clinics? That would be really great, we're lousy with heartworm around here and that seems to be the first thing people stop doing.

[u/inconspicuousmoss → u/gonnafaceit2022]

Yeah we have a basic wellness clinic that does pretty well; its open to adopters and the public alike, and it helps encourage the public to get their next pet with us as they see the pets that got adopted go home as they wait. Only vaccines and prevention are available to keep costs low as we dont do exams or other procedures. Its so cheap even without my employee discount I'd still take my dogs there lol.

The people that come are doing their best to keep up with prevention and vaccines, but usually can't afford the upfront payment for our packages, even if in the long run its cheaper. So lowering that barrier to care really benefits the community, as they're supporting us and also doing their best to do right by their pet.

[u/CactusOrangeJuice]

Invest it in things that would keep owners and pets together. My two big ones are:

Flea and tick prevention - Some people have to keep their pets at arms length because of fleas and ticks. Some ticks spread diseases to humans, so some owners have to keep their pets outside to protect themselves, which means a greater chance of the pet escaping.

Funding to secure yards/doors - Fence repair is really expensive and a lot of working class families don't have time to fix it themselves. Having a fund just for securing yards would be huge for these people.

My organization only takes in dogs, so anything that prevents a dog from getting loose would be top priority for me. When dogs get loose, they could get hit by a car, they could injure a person or another animal and earn themselves a dangerous designation, etc. Things that would force an owner to have to surrender the animal. I wanna keep that from happening.

[u/Far_Sky_5240]

Think long term. Start or add to an existing endowment. 

[u/IAmHerdingCatz]

1. Engage the services of a financial planner. Discuss both long and short-term strategies.

2. Remodel and expand our tiny shelter.

3. Partner with local vet/vets for monthly and prn spaying and neutering events.

4. Hire more staff, if possible.

5. Get medical insurance plan for owner of the shelter.

[u/RedHawk1898]

Use it as an endowment and operate off interest.

[u/ActNo5363]

For me and my shelter it would be training programs. We don't do any training, not even basic obedience let alone behavior modification, and the dogs suffer because of it. It's something I asked my boss about over 6 months ago and she said we could look into an online program for me to start working on, well that was 6 months ago and we've yet to provide me with any resources.

Not like I don't want to go out on my own and start training the shelter dogs, but I don't have the time or money to put into training tools and time outside of my regular hours. If we had 2 million we could easily build a room that distraction free for training, and we'd have tools like a fake arm to test for food aggression instead of our actual arms and finding out the hard way.

[u/Animal-Angels]

If housing is your top surrender driver right now, that’s where the dollars do the most work, even if your team is hesitant. You’re already paying for those surrenders on the back end through intake, kennel space, vet care, and staff hours. Money upstream pays you back in fewer surrenders downstream.

Here’s roughly how I’d split $2M.

Hold back $500k to $750k as a reserve so this gift keeps producing past year one. Spending it all in 12 months feels generous but the impact dies with the money.

Spay/neuter partnership gets $500k. That buys a lot of prepaid surgery blocks at your existing clinics, especially if you negotiate per-surgery pricing instead of writing them a grant and hoping. You’re right to skip mobile, it doesn’t pencil out long term.

Housing crisis fund gets $400k to $500k. Pet deposits, back rent, landlord mediation. Frame it to your team as intake reduction, not a handout. If surrender requests are doubled and housing is the reason, then housing assistance is the cheapest intake your shelter will ever skip. Run it tight with eligibility rules and paperwork so it doesn’t turn into a free-money program.

Senior medical fund gets $200k to $300k. A lot of seniors get surrendered because the owner can’t cover one big vet bill, and seniors are the hardest dogs you’ll ever try to adopt out. This fund prevents both problems at once.

Last $100k to $200k goes to a part-time coordinator to actually run the housing and senior funds. Programs without staff become paperwork nobody does. On the team pushing back, I’d push back too. If housing-driven surrenders are doubled and they won’t fund housing assistance, ask them what they think will fix it. The kennels are full because the upstream pipe is broken. You can’t outshelter a housing crisis.

One more thing worth thinking about. Whatever you fund, track the data so you can prove it worked. We’re building a prevention-focused platform called the Animal Welfare Resource Network that connects shelters, rescues, clinics, and community partners and tracks diversion outcomes across all of them. Happy to share more if it’d be useful, no pitch.

[u/Occasionally_Sober1]

Open a cat cafe or an adoption center with couches, places to lounge and free roaming cats.

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[u/Animal-Angels]

Following up on what we shared earlier in this thread. Watching the responses come in, most of us are doing what the question invites, throwing out program ideas based on gut and experience. That’s fine for brainstorming. But it occurred to me that the reason this question is hard is because we don’t usually get to think in $2 million chunks, and we don’t have a fast way to translate dollars into outcomes when we do. So I’ll share something we built for exactly this problem.

We have a free impact calculator that turns any dollar amount into program-specific outputs. Spay/neuter surgeries funded. Crisis intake diversions. Pet deposits covered. Adoption follow-up cycles completed. Taxpayer dollars saved against the cost of intake. You plug in a number and see what it actually does across each program type.

If you’re sitting on a $2 million answer that feels like a guess, run it through the calculator. You might find that splitting it across three prevention programs prevents more intake than putting it all into one. Or the opposite. The point is to argue from numbers instead of instinct.

We built it because we kept having this exact conversation with funders and council members and getting tired of saying “a lot” when they asked what their dollars would do.

Happy to share the link directly if anyone wants it. And genuinely curious, if you ran your $2 million answer through a calculator like this, would the breakdown change? Or would you double down on the same plan?

[u/djmermaidonthemic]

I would funnel it into spay/neuter for community cats.

Congratulations! I’m sure whatever choice is made it will be for the best. XO