1 PetSmart Charities’ High Impact Spay/Neuter Grants: What are We Looking For? Presented by Bryan Kortis, Program Manager PetSmart Charities

2 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

3 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, YES: 2010 revenue = $250,000; request $40, There is no set percentage or formula – proportionality determined on a case-by-case basis.

4 APPLICATION PROCESS All applications are now online (no more paper!) To learn more: - Go to - 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 then click on “Recorded Sessions”. Eligible groups: 501(c)(3) or government agency

5 MORE DETAILS Allowable Expenses 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?

6 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

7 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

8 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.

9 TARGET AREA - 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 Target Area = the area in which you’re trying to reduce the free-roaming cat overpopulation.

10 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.

11 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

12 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.

13 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.

14 CHOOSING A TARGET AREA ZIP 1ZIP 2 ZIP 3 ZIP 4 Feralville 100 cats 20 s/n’s

15 CHOOSING A TARGET AREA ZIP 1ZIP 2 ZIP 3 ZIP 4 Feralville Target = Feralville (all 4 zips) s/n rate = 20%

16 CHOOSING A TARGET AREA ZIP 1ZIP 2 ZIP 3 ZIP 4 Feralville Target = Zip 4 s/n rate = 80%

17 CHOOSING A TARGET AREA ZIP 1ZIP 2 ZIP 3 ZIP 4 Feralville Reality = uneven distribution among zip codes Highest impact possible in most populated zip code

18 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: ) Adjust according to local conditions (e.g., dense urban vs. rural) and tribal knowledge

19 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.

20 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.

QUESTIONS? YESNO 21

22 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.)

23 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.

24 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).

25 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.

26 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?

27 NEED MORE INFO? Free-roaming Cat S/N grants: Targeted S/N grants: