Maddie's Fund - Press Room

(Alameda, CA - May, 2005) PeopleSoft Founder Dave Duffield and his wife Cheryl have added $93 million to the foundation they established to revolutionize the well-being of companion animals. Their recent gift to Maddie's Fund builds on the Duffield’s original endowment of $200 million.

Maddie's Fund is the nation's largest foundation devoted strictly to animal welfare giving. The Duffield's latest contribution will be spent on current funding priorities, as well as on new grant opportunities to be announced in coming weeks.

The initial goal of Maddie's Fund is to help build a no-kill nation. The foundation's first step is to help create programs that guarantee loving homes for all of the healthy dogs and cats abandoned in our nation's animal shelters. The next step will be to save the sick and injured pets in animal shelters nationwide.

Maddie's Fund's largest current project is the city of New York. The foundation expects to award over $9 million to a coalition of 80 animal welfare organizations working together to provide an adoption guarantee for New York's healthy shelter dogs and cats within five years and a guarantee for treatable animals within ten years.

Maddie's Fund also supports spay/neuter programs that augment the efforts of community-wide adoption coalitions. The spay/neuter programs are administered by veterinary medical associations with surgeries provided by private practitioners.

Colleges of veterinary medicine are also eligible for Maddie's Fund grants to establish shelter medicine programs. Grantees include Auburn University, Cornell University and Iowa State University.

Maddie's Fund is named after a very special Miniature Schnauzer. Dave and Cheryl Duffield fell in love with Maddie when she was only ten days old. "We held her in our arms, and loved her immediately," says Dave. "Maddie melted our hearts from the first second we saw her," adds Cheryl. "We loved her sweet ways, her stubbornness, her independence, her intelligence, her spirit, and her devotion."

Dave, Cheryl and Maddie shared ten memorable and happy years together, years filled with walks in the woods, trips to the beach, and good times at home. Dave remembers one particularly good day during the formation of his company, PeopleSoft. Playing with Maddie, he picked her up and made the following promise: "If we ever make some money, I promise we will give it back to you and your kind so you all can be as happy as we are today."

Dave and Cheryl Duffield are certainly making good on their promise. They have given more money to animals than anybody else in the history of the animal welfare movement.

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May 2005