PetSmart Charities’ High Impact
Spay/Neuter Grants:
What are We Looking For?
Presented by Bryan Kortis, Program Manager
PetSmart Charities
bkortis@petsmartcharities.org
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CATEGORIES OF HIGH IMPACT
SPAY/NEUTER GRANTS
• Free-roaming Cats
– Feral, stray, loosely owned
– Focus is on TNR projects
– Can include pet cats if they’re
not the majority
• Targeted
– Primarily owned dogs and/or cats
– Free-roaming cats can be included,
but can’t be the majority of animals
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DETAILS
• Amount
- $10,000 to $100,000 per year
- 1 or 2 years
- Less than $10,000 considered if high impact shown
• Proportionate
- Amount requested should be proportionate to your
group’s annual revenue.
- NO: 2010 revenue = $35,000; request $100,000.
- YES: 2010 revenue = $250,000; request $40,000.
- There is no set percentage or formula – proportionality
determined on a case-by-case basis.
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APPLICATION PROCESS
• All applications are now online (no more paper!)
To learn more:
- Go to www.petsmartcharities.org
- Click on Grants in the top menu
- Click on NEW! Online Grant System (upper
right)
• View the webinar: Navigating PetSmart Charities
New Online Grant Application – go to
https://petsmartcharities.webex.com, then click on
“Recorded Sessions”.
• Eligible groups: 501(c)(3) or government agency
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MORE DETAILS
Allowable Expenses
•
•
•
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Spay/neuter surgical and related veterinary costs
Marketing costs (print, radio, mailings)
Equipment (traps, cages, spay packs)
Personnel (if additional expense incurred for hiring or
dedicating personnel to the project).
• NOTE: this list is not exclusive – question is what’s
needed to make the project a success?
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COMMON MISTAKES
• Incomplete financials
– Upload both 990 form and financial statements (read instructions
carefully for what is required)
– All financials must be signed by president or treasurer (except
audited financial statements signed by an accountant)
• Missing budgets
– Budget for grant project is needed AND identify items to be paid
for by PetSmart Charities
– NOT your annual budget
• Unusual file formats
- Try to upload Word, Excel
and PDF (Adobe) files
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WHAT IS “HIGH IMPACT”?
High impact = measurable reduction in dog
and/or cat overpopulation in your Target Area.
Three key elements:
1) reduction in dog and/or
cat overpopulation
2) Target Area
3) Measurable
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REDUCE OVERPOPULATION
Underlying assumptions of High Impact Grants:
• If there are fewer dogs and cats in a community, fewer of
them will be homeless and there will be less euthanasia.
• Spay/neuter can reduce the number of dogs and cats if it
is applied in a strategically correct manner.
• Spay/neuter is not the only way to reduce the number of
homeless pets and lower euthanasia, but it is the focus
of these grants.
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TARGET AREA
Target Area = the area in which you’re trying to reduce
the free-roaming cat overpopulation.
- Defined geographically, not by
demographic category (e.g., not
“elderly residents” or “low income
caretakers”)
- Examples of large Target Areas – town,
city, county, census tract, zip code.
- Examples of smaller Target Areas neighborhood, city park, mobile home
park, landfill.
- Can sub-target demographics w/in
Target Area if that is what would be
most effective in pop. reduction
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MEASURABLE IMPACT
Measurable impact = the result, as shown by
verifiable data, of your grant project on dog/cat
overpopulation in the Target Area.
- Hypothetical impact is NOT sufficient. Cannot assume that
doing X number of spay/neuters “must” have had a positive effect
on overpopulation.
- So counting the number of spay/neuters does not show
measurable impact, nor do formulas like, “one unspayed female
cat will equal 420,000 new cats over 7 years.”
- Instead: cat intake, complaint calls/requests for assistance, etc.
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RECAP
High Impact
Spay/Neuter Grants
1. Goal = reduce overpopulation
2. Focus on geographically
defined Target Area
3. Be able to measure the impact
of the grant project with data
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CREATING A PROJECT
• First: identify the category of dogs and/or cats you
are targeting (owned cats and/or dogs, free-roaming
cats, pit bulls & pit bull mixes, chihuahuas, a mix of
breeds).
• Second: choose your Target Area. Where are the
animals you will spay/neuter going to come from?
• Third: refine your Target Area by matching the
number of surgeries you want to perform to the
number of dogs and/or cats in need of being altered.
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KEY PRINCIPLE!!!
The number of surgeries you will perform should
equal a substantial percentage of the selected
category of cats and/or dogs in the Target Area.
Failure to apply this principle is a top reason for declines.
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CHOOSING A TARGET AREA
100 cats
20 s/n’s
ZIP 1
ZIP 2
ZIP 4
ZIP 3
Feralville
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CHOOSING A TARGET AREA
Target =
Feralville
(all 4 zips)
s/n rate =
20%
ZIP 1
ZIP 2
ZIP 4
ZIP 3
Feralville
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CHOOSING A TARGET AREA
Target =
Zip 4
s/n rate =
80%
ZIP 1
ZIP 3
ZIP 2
ZIP 4
Feralville
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CHOOSING A TARGET AREA
Reality =
uneven
distribution
among zip
codes
Highest
impact
possible
in most
populated
zip code
ZIP 1
ZIP 2
ZIP 4
ZIP 3
Feralville
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THE “HOT” TARGET AREA
Research
• Intake into local shelters broken down by location of origin
• Complaint calls/requests for assistance by location.
• Tribal knowledge (experience of local animal welfare groups, animal
control, shelters)
Estimating # of animals in need w/in target
• Start with formulas (e.g., for free-roaming cats, divide human pop.
by 6; for pit bulls/mixes use Best Friends tool:
http://www.guerrillaeconomics.biz/bestfriends/ )
• Adjust according to local conditions (e.g., dense urban vs. rural) and
tribal knowledge
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FREE-ROAMING CAT PROJECTS
1. Large scale: using animal control intake data, group
identified zip code in their county that was high in cat
intake. Proposed fixing 3500 of an estimated 6000 cats.
Had full-time TNR manager on staff and strong volunteer
network. Sought funds for surgeries, transport van and
outreach materials.
2. Small scale: small town in North Carolina with estimated
600 free-roaming cats, 100 already fixed. Local TNR
group proposed fixing 250 more. Sought funds for
surgeries, transportation to clinic. Tracked colony size,
intake from town to county shelter, complaint calls to
animal control.
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TARGETED PROJECTS
1. Large scale: city shelter in Ohio identified pit bull/mix
dogs as 40% of intake, higher % of euthanized dogs.
Proposed altering 2,000 pits over 2 years of city residents
with $10 co-pay. Sought funds for surgeries, part-time
project coordinator, advertising.
2. Small scale: rescue group on island in south Florida had
already TNR’ed almost entire feral population. Proposed
altering 300 owned cats belonging to island residents.
Sought funds for surgeries, marketing. Tracked intake to
their group of litters of kittens & abandoned cats.
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QUESTIONS?
YES
NO
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MEASURING IMPACT
Why measure?
• To know whether the goal of reduced
overpopulation is achieved.
• To ensure efficient and effective use of
resources, inc. grant funds.
• To serve as a compass or barometer of
your project, letting you know if
adjustments need to be made (e.g.,
shrink or expand target area, increase
number of surgeries, increase outreach
efforts, etc.)
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METRICS
Which metrics are available and appropriate for your
project will depend on local conditions.
1. Intake into local shelters (cat, dog, puppy, kitten, pit
bull/mix, free-roaming cat/stray) and euthanasia rates.
2. Complaint calls/requests for assistance to your
organization and/or animal control
3. (Free-roaming cats) Before/after colony numbers: how
many cats & kittens in each colony before TNR began;
how many a year later?
4. Be creative if need be: e.g., postings for kittens/puppies
on Craig’s List; calls to the town’s sole veterinarian, calls
to your group.
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METRICS
REMEMBER!
• Need a baseline year for comparison.
• Evaluate year-to-year changes within the Target
Area.
• Also evaluate how year-to-year changes within the
Target Area compare to year-to-year changes within
the community as a whole. (E.g., intake from the
Target Area might rise 3%, but this would still show
improvement if intake everywhere else in the
community rose by much more).
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OUTREACH / FIELD WORK
What is the plan for getting the animals from
the Target Area to the S/N Provider?
• It’s not enough to simply announce free or
low cost surgeries
• Active presence in the Target Area is
required (to get the word to enough
residents, provide transportation, address
any issues of trust, etc.)
• For TNR projects, identifying personnel for
trapping, transporting & recovering is
essential. Possible to partner with a local
group.
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ALSO IMPORTANT
TO THINK ABOUT
• Collaboration - cooperative efforts among agencies
doing similar work in the same Target Area are favored,
esp. if this will improve the grant project’s effectiveness.
• Surgical capacity – firm commitments must be in place
by your spay/neuter providers for the number of
surgeries to be funded, preferably at the same price
throughout the project.
• Sustainability – if achieving high impact will require
continued efforts beyond the grant period, is there a
strong plan for ongoing funding?
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NEED MORE INFO?
Free-roaming Cat S/N grants:
freeroaming@petsmartcharities.org
Targeted S/N grants:
targeted@petsmartcharities.org
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