March 2019 by Ellen Jefferson, DVM, Executive Director, Austin Pets Alive! and Maggie Lynch, Development Director, Austin Pets Alive!

Audience: Executive Leadership

Video Length: 35:14

Fundraising Fundamentals for Scrappy Organizations, Part 1

Austin Pets Alive! began as a volunteer-led organization with no budget but with a big dream to end the needless shelter killing in Austin's city shelter. Although very difficult to get, money didn't hold this organization back from achieving its dreams and it shouldn't hold you back from achieving yours, either. Join fundraising innovator, Maggie Lynch, and APA! Executive Director, Dr. Ellen Jefferson, to learn how to raise money and how to get scrappy when you need to! This presentation was recorded by Maddie's Fund® at the 2019 American Pets Alive! Conference.

See Fundraising Fundamentals for Scrappy Organizations, Part 2

About Ellen Jefferson, DVM

Dr. Jefferson graduated veterinary school in 1997 and started her career in private practice. In 1999, in response to an 85% death rate at the city shelter, she started Emancipet, a low cost and free spay/neuter clinic in an effort to decrease the number of homeless animals. In 2008, still not satisfied with how fast the city of Austin was moving towards no-kill status, she stepped in as Executive Director of Austin Pets Alive! Since 2008, Austin Pets Alive! has been the driving force to bring the entire city of Austin to a greater than 90% save rate and the largest no-kill city in the US, and to redefine what no-kill means, as Austin's save rate now approaches 98%. Dr. Jefferson was unanimously chosen as the first recipient of the Avanzino Leadership award, named for the father of no-kill and given for her outstanding contribution to the no-kill movement.


About Maggie Lynch

Maggie Lynch has been APA!'s Development Director since 2015 and now also serves as the Director of Development for American Pets Alive!. She began volunteering with APA in early 2009 when she founded APA's grants program to support its rapid growth, learning the ropes of bringing in and stewarding the funding that fuels nonprofit work along the way, as well as the basics of program budgets and performance measurement. She left in 2011 to expand her experience in supporting social change, working at one of the world's leading social enterprises in Cambodia. After returning to the U.S. in 2012, she consulted with nonprofits on how to build strong organizational foundations for fundraising and wrote grants for a variety of causes. As APA!'s Development Director, Maggie leads development strategy, oversees a staff of 6, and works with program managers in creating resources, measuring performance, and communicating their many successes to supporters.