Grant Guidelines

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Are government animal control agencies eligible for funding?

A. Yes. On a case-by-case basis, Maddie's Fund will consider animal control or a traditional shelter as lead agency for the adoption component of a community collaborative project. In our funded community collaborative projects, animal control and traditional shelters are eligible to receive funding for above baseline adoptions.

Q. Are you funding programs to take care of sick and injured animals?

A. Yes. Maddie's Fund wants to help communities achieve no-kill status, whereby all their healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats are guaranteed loving homes within ten years. To achieve this goal, Maddie's Fund intends to financially support community-wide collaborations of adoption guarantee organizations, animal control and traditional shelters, and private practice veterinarians, working together to provide an adoption guarantee for all their healthy shelter dogs and cats by the start of Year Five and to extend that guarantee to include all treatable shelter pets by the end of Year Ten. We are also offering medical equipment grants to adoption guarantee organizations employing a full-time veterinarian in charge of the care of shelter's animals. And, the funding for Maddie's® Starter Grants can be used for any of the organizations' programs.

Q. Why doesn't Maddie's Fund provide financial assistance for building new shelters?

A. Maddie's Fund wants to put its resources into efforts that will save dog and cat lives today. And it's our view that saving lives is more about creative ideas, implementation strategies, and the will to get the job done than bricks and mortar. In our opinion, effective programs need to be built first - four walls can come later.

Q. In order to get funded, projects have to include animal control. What if animal control doesn't want to participate? What if my community doesn't have animal control?

A. If animal control doesn't participate, the project simply won't be funded. If you don't have animal control in your community, you're not eligible to apply. Groups can try to persuade animal control to get involved by explaining how this proposed partnership will be in everyone's best interest. Illustrate how the collaboration's efforts will help animal control save lives. Talk about how fewer deaths and reduced shelter volume will cut costs, reduce staff stress and boost morale, improve agency image and increase adoptions. And mention that the combined success of government and nonprofit agencies working together will increase community interest, support and philanthropy for the animals.

Q. How can we interest veterinarians in a collaborative partnership?

A. Collaborating with veterinarians, as with animal control, is about setting up win/win relationships. Don't begin by making demands, or expecting doctors to donate hours and hours of their time and gain nothing in return. As much as they want to contribute, veterinarians have to worry about their own time limitations and economic self-interest. Therefore, in persuading private practice veterinarians to join, it's smart to emphasize the benefits of the collaboration, such as good public relations, an increase in publicity, and the opportunity to expand client base. Proposals that make it easy for the doctors to participate are also a good idea. (For more information in this questions, please visit the Collaboration section of our Resource Library.)

Q. Does every animal group in the target area have to be included in the collaboration?

A. Maddie's Fund is trying to build community-wide safety nets of care for the animals who are abandoned in our nation's shelters. Our focus, therefore, is on building broad based coalitions within communities that include private practice veterinarians, animal control agencies, traditional shelters, rescue groups and adoption guarantee organizations. In order to get a grant from Maddie's Fund, some degree of collaboration must be in place, but this will vary from community to community. Collaborations need not be 100% inclusive. For example, if there are 10 animal groups in a given community, all 10 do not have to be working together to get a Maddie's Fund grant. But at a bare minimum, the collaboration must include animal control and traditional shelters operating in the community. For community collaborative projects and starter grants, the opportunity to participate must be extended to adoption guarantee organizations. For the targeted spay/neuter grant and for the spay/neuter component of the community collaborative grant, we are looking for strong participation from private practice veterinarians.

Q. Who decides which group is in charge of funds, who oversees the distribution of funds, and on what basis will groups receive funds?

A. The collaboration determines the lead agency. It's the job of the lead agency to take responsibility for all fund administration, including monetary distribution to other groups. Because the lead agency takes on such a large fiscal responsibility, Maddie's Fund carefully scrutinizes the lead agency and requires that it have a proven track record of success in finance, management and shelter operations. For the starter grants, funding is determined by Maddie's Fund based on each organization's adoption performance. For the community collaborative adoption grant, distribution of funds is based on above baseline adoptions. Additionally, the project budget should be agreed upon by all participating members. For the spay/neuter programs, funds are distributed based on number of surgeries performed by each veterinarian.

Q. For community collaborative projects, if a group drops out of the process after the grant has been given, what happens to the rest of the groups? Is the grant taken away?

A. If one of the partners drops out, funding continues as scheduled. However, the commitment made by the departing partner continues on, and this slack has to then be picked up by the remaining partners. Ultimately, it's the lead agency that's responsible for meeting the goal and the extra burden of a departing partner's goal may ultimately fall on the lead agency's shoulders. If animal control or a traditional shelter is the group that drops out, then the project will end. A Maddie's Fund project will not work without participation from all animal control and traditional shelters.

Q. Can we contact agencies that have already been given grants to see how they're meeting their goals?

A. Although there is no prohibition against contacting agencies that have already received funding, it's best to first review our web site section, Our Funded Projects. This section contains summary proposals of our funded projects and outlines their strategies and successes in great detail. There are also annual reviews demonstrating how well the different groups are meeting their goals.

Q. For community collaborative projects, the grant requires us to "show immediate and measurable" progress. What exactly does that mean?

A. Immediate and measurable progress means that a plan must be in place so that lives can be saved starting with day one. It simply won't work to figure that the first 3 weeks or even 3 days of the project can be used to gear up - to plan, schedule or figure out strategies. The number of lives that must be saved, the number of surgeries that must be performed are relentless and need to be worked on every day in order to meet the target goals from the very beginning.

Q. For community collaborative projects, are smaller organizations with less funding and resources expected to compete with larger groups' accomplishments?

A. The goals for each organization should be proportionate to its size, resources, and track record. The goals for each organization will be determined collectively by the group.

Q. Are there geographical limitations to your funding?

A. At this time, Maddie's Fund will not award grants to agencies operating outside of the United States.

Q. Do you offer funding for animals other than dogs and cats?

A. Currently, Maddie's Fund is focusing its efforts on creating a no-kill nation for shelter dogs and cats. As such, we are not providing funding for animals other than dogs and cats.

Q. Is there an application deadline?

A. No. Applications will be accepted throughout the year.

Q. You have population requirements for many of your grants. What if my community is smaller than your minimum? Can I involve neighboring communities?

A. Maddie's Fund grants are designed to make the largest impact we can on reaching our goal of a no-kill nation for shelter dogs and cats. If it makes sense for you to expand your target area to include neighboring counties, it's fine with us. But remember, all animal control and traditional shelters must participate.

Q. How much money should an organization request?

A. Generally, the budget will be calculated by multiplying a dollar amount times the target number of animals to be placed and the target number of spay/neuter surgeries to be performed (see the online application forms). For the medical equipment grant, put forth your best case for why you need the equipment you're requesting and how many animals will be affected by this purchase.

Q. Baseline is frequently mentioned in the community collaborative and targeted spay/neuter applications. What exactly is that?

A. The baseline quantifies how many spay/neuter surgeries were performed by the practitioners in your community in the year preceding the application, as well as how many adoptions and deaths of dogs and cats took place in the preceding year. These statistics must include data from all participating organizations. The baseline is vital to your proposal, because a grant from Maddie's Fund only supports accomplishments above and beyond the baseline. We provide step-by-step help in calculating the baseline in our online application forms.

Q. Getting Maddie's Fund money is really complicated. There are so many prerequisites groups have to comply with just to fill out the application! Why can't you just review good proposals and give out money to individual projects?

A. Maddie's Fund is trying to achieve several ambitious objectives with our funding. First and foremost, we want to help make adoption guarantees for healthy shelter dogs and cats commonplace by 2015. Second, in the communities we fund, we want to set the stage for animal organizations to work together and create a broad safety net to save companion animals. We want to initiate a collaborative spirit that will be nurtured over the grant period and continue well beyond the grant's termination date. Third, we want the organizations we fund to not only meet their targets and goals, but to build a strong track record of success. We believe a demonstrated history of accomplishment will merit a continued and expanded commitment of community resources. This in turn will enable each of the organizations that participate in the project to be prosperous long after the project is over. Finally, we want to help sharpen the management skills and business acumen within our funded agencies so they can grow and thrive long into the future. Fulfilling all of these objectives is a tall order, and as a consequence, our grants have challenging requirements. We ask for the collaboration of private veterinary practitioners, animal control agencies, traditional shelters and adoption guarantee organizations. We insist on accountability and results. And we ask for the statistics that will establish parameters for performance, enable us to monitor activities and meet the objectives of the business plan. Having said that, it's good to remember that our community collaborative grants are multi-organizational, include several programs, are offered over seven to ten years and are generally large (we have a half million-dollar minimum - our largest grant is twenty-three million).

Q. Don't you think your requirements for getting a grant are too difficult for most organizations to meet?

A. To be perfectly clear: If what we ask of groups isn't what they believe in, or isn't what they want to do anyway, they shouldn't apply. For example, if the groups don't agree with the principle of collaboration or if they think the goals aren't worth the effort and therefore are too difficult, they shouldn't waste their time filling out an application. If organizations don't wholeheartedly embrace the idea of doing more adoptions and spay/neuter surgeries than they did the year before within the constraints of a defined budget, then a Maddie's Fund grant isn't right for them. Maddie's Fund grants are for organizations that share the Maddie's Fund principles and have a strong commitment to the goals but simply lack the resources to get the job done. We would also like our funded agencies to have a business commitment that's as strong and important to them as their dedication to fulfilling their philosophical objectives. Make no mistake, it's a challenging process, but communities have to decide for themselves whether the rewards and financial assistance are worth the effort.

Q. Why is it that even after you award a community collaborative grant you still ask for monthly reporting - that's more bureaucratic red tape than the government requires!

A. You can't run a successful business without knowing whether you're meeting the objectives of your business plan. You have to have a way to judge your successes and failures and looking at numbers every month gives an organization that gauge. We want to get organizations in the habit of using their numbers as an important tool for operational decision making. Without understanding what's happening, organizations can't know how to correct deficiencies if any shortfalls occur. We believe tracking the numbers is an important discipline that leads to better management decisions and higher goal attainment. If communities don't think the effort involved in collecting the numbers is offset by the added financial resources and the gratification of achieving the goals, then this project isn't going to work for anybody's interest.

Q. Isn't your model too oriented towards numbers? For example, it seems like you care more about the number of adoptions you do than the quality of the adoptions.

A. When we remember that each number represents a life, the numbers take on a huge significance. Yes, it's critical to make those adoption numbers high - it's the difference between life and death. And frankly, I don't know how you measure life-saving efforts without numbers. We believe the agencies we've funded have committed themselves to placing animals into loving homes for a lifetime. We would expect them to continue this practice with or without a Maddie's Fund grant. The fact is, to do otherwise would be counterproductive. If community shelters have a high rate of return and have to spend time and money placing the same animals over and over, it would be almost impossible to achieve the adoption or death reduction goals.

Q. What makes you think your model will work?

A. We don't have all the answers and ours isn't the only solution. We do believe that ours is a model worth investing in. We believe it has the potential to change the status quo and radically accelerate the ability to save lives. We have created a model that relies on the ingenuity and creativity of each community to build a collaborative structure to achieve quantifiable goals within five to ten years. We think the movement has come a long way but we want to end the tragedy of surplus pets. We're betting with our dollars that this is one good way to help get the job done.