PLEASE NOTE: APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED
Trustee/Trustor Personal Statement
Over the last 25 years, I’ve been involved with many animal welfare, environmental, and educational nonprofits, both large and small, as a director, officer, volunteer, or donor. I believe that the bulk of animal welfare work is carried out by small-to-medium sized organizations, because although they are small, there are so many of them. Unfortunately, being small often means being inexperienced in preparing a realistic business plan. Making matters worse, the burdens of day-to-day operation for small, understaffed organizations often are so overwhelming that there’s no time to plan for the future. Eventually, and I’ve already seen this just too many times, the founders can no longer care for all the animals they’ve taken in, because they're too old, or unwell, or just overwhelmed by the demands of what they've created. At that point, not only were their efforts in vain, but the animals in their care enter a crisis situation, with their lives and futures hanging in the balance.
It doesn’t have to be this way. My goal for the last decade has been to try to avoid this fate for at least one organization, and that is the goal of this Trust. There are two components to this goal. First is to encourage the adoption of business practices that are consistent with long-term success, starting with well defined objectives leading to organizational growth and development (these are described on the Home page). Second is to provide a series of financial incentives in return for achieving these objectives and then, for fully qualified organization(s), an annual gift given in perpetuity. The focus of this Trust is, and always has been, focused solely on long-term support for long-lasting organizations.
The original intent in launching an open grant competition in 2025 was to provide a transformative grant to a single organization, at least $50,000 per year or more, preserving enough to maintain the Trust principal in perpetuity. However, after a lengthy period of reviewing applications with my two partners in this Trust, we eventually ended up with a group of six organizations among which we could make no further rational cuts. That's not to say that they were all at the same point in their development, in fact, some were much more developed than others. But what they shared is a passion for animal care, recognition that they needed to develop a long-term plan, and willingness and eagerness to develop that plan together with what guidance we can provide. Given my experiences over the last decade, with numerous organizations that made many promises but never any progress, I can't explain how delighted I am to be working with this group. We are a family now, a collection of overlapping skills and perspectives, all working together for the benefit of animals. I'm very proud to be a part of it, and I am grateful to everyone involved for making it possible for this to happen.
While we work together on this, I’ll continue to take care of the stray cat with a broken leg, the turtle that’s hit by a car, the horse collapsed from heat exhaustion, the lost dog, the organization teetering on the brink, or whatever else ends up in my sphere of influence from time to time. Not this one. Not today. Not while I can still do something about it. And when I can’t, it will be time for my successor Trustee to step in and take over the reins. Until then, eyes on the prize. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Howard