NARRATIVE: This is our story

Save-an-Animal was organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes. Specifically, Save-an-Animal promotes no-kill policies especially in rural areas where the need is great. Saving animals is our mission and our passion.

Approximately three to four million pets are killed each year in the United States. Through no-kill policies such as adoption, fostering, spay/neuter, and educational awareness programs Save-an-Animal would like to assist in greatly reducing the number of animals getting euthanized in our shelters.

Our goal is to fund-raise through solicitations, events and donations. We at Save-an-Animal think that it is wrong to kill animals for no other reason than a lack of an adopting family. We are finding widespread support in the community for saving these abused, unwanted, or displaced animals. These animals are not at fault and are mainly victims of irresponsible owners and/or insensitive shelter operators. Many are healthy kittens and puppies whose life is cut way too short. We think it is incumbent on all of us in our society to be advocates for these animals and show more compassion and responsibility for our pets.

At Save-an-Animal we think the time has come to stop thinking of animals as expendable commodities and to end the belief that “dropping them off” at the shelter is acceptable behavior. It is not okay. These animals have feelings and can exhibit striking human-like characteristics such as intelligence, love, and loyalty. According to statistics from nine out of ten pet owners consider their pet as a family member. It is as unconscionable to drop off a beloved family pet in a shelter, feeling smug in our belief that our responsibility to the pet has been met, as it is to “drop off” an elderly family member in a nursing home and believe that we are now “off the hook”.

Currently, according to the American Humane Society, a dog dropped off at a shelter has less than a fifty percent chance of leaving the shelter alive! For cats their chances are even less, dropping to only thirty percent. In large part this is due to cultural practices, lack of pet owner education, and pet owner irresponsibility.
Save-an-Animal plans to attack this problem on several fronts.

1.      Providing public education and awareness regarding the dire conditions that exist and solutions to address these problems.
2.      Providing some financial aid and some tangible items directly to over-crowded shelters and no-kill organizations. The aid will be determined by a formula that empower shelters to keep the animals alive longer with the goal of finding an acceptable rescue, foster family, or adopter. Diligent and caring Save-an-Animal representatives will periodically meet with shelter/no-kill organization representatives to identify shelters’ and animals’ needs. Examples of tangible items which Save-an-Animal may be able to provide include blankets, cages and crates, food, bleach and cleaning supplies with the express goal of keeping shelter animals alive longer.
3.  Another targeted area is assisting in providing low cost spay/neuter programs, subject to agreement between Save-an-Animal and the shelter’s representative. According to only ten percent of animals surrendered at shelters are spayed or neutered compared to seventy-five percent of owned animals. According to the Feral Cat Coalition a pair of breeding cats, which can have two or more litters per year, can exponentially produce 420,000 offspring over a seven-year period! According to Spay-USA neutering an animal will increase its life expectancy one to three years for dogs and three to five years for cats.

Save-an-Animal maintains this website which includes success stories, educational articles, links to major resources like Petfinder, Humane Societies, and the ASPCA. The website includes links to other sites that assist in finding lost animals and still others for finding available, adoptable pets. Occasionally the website will offer promotional items such as personalized tee shirts, handbags, and holiday stockings. We think of this as “sell to donate” since the proceeds will be donated after material costs are covered. We have sold several shirts and given away others to our members as promotional items. The website makes use of associate advertising with partner Google Adsense which currently generates very little revenue. In order for the advertising to actually generate revenue we would need much higher SEO and much more traffic hitting the website. We plan to add quality content regularly which should slowly increase traffic and perhaps generate a small amount of revenue.

We have also used a garage sale to raise funds. Promotional items and garage sales will comprise a small percentage of our total donations (around ten percent) but do draw needed attention to our cause. Save-an-Animal has received donations from friends who share our convictions to save dogs and cats from extermination. With help from Google Blogger and we have configured available dog and cat searches based on shelters in a regional area in Kentucky including Louisville and surrounding cities. Anyone looking for a particular dog could search for say, Siberian Husky, and find multiple listings with location, pictures, and descriptions of the available animals that match the search criteria.

Save-an-Animal does not have shelter facilities nor do we plan to house animals. Most of our members have at least one pet and several have more than one. We seek animal lovers as volunteers and then determine what strengths they can bring to the organization. The home office of our CEO, Kenneth LeMaster, is the central meeting location. Those living nearby can meet in person while most others connect remotely with computer software (Skype and Google Video Chat) using microphones and, optionally, web-cams. We can provide email addresses to our members. We may eventually print business cards for members and possibly a brochure for increasing awareness both of the plight of pets and as a reminder of our organization.

Save-an-Animal pays no salaries or wages. Generally the organization does not reimburse expenses such as gasoline, travel, or meals. In fact the only expense that Save-an-Animal has been reimbursing is the cost of materials for tee shirts sold. Fundraising and donations are critical as they are our largest source of revenue at about ninety percent of the total. If we can successfully grow the organization we plan to apply for any suitable animal welfare grants that we justify in our cause.

The target solicitation audience is the general public with emphasis on animal lovers and pet owners who keep animals at home in good environments. Most of our education initiatives will be either on the Internet or word-of-mouth. Eventually we will seek representation in the primary and secondary school systems. If we can teach young people the value of life early we think the lesson will have life-long benefits to society including less stray animals, less overcrowding at shelters resulting in less euthanasia, and less of a mindset that animals are an expendable commodity. Educating people to avoid “puppy mills”, to choose a proper/suitable breed to match their lifestyle, and tagging and micro-chipping animals will also help ease the current crisis. Obviously a big portion of our task consists of providing education.

Save-an-Animal currently charges no fees from our members. Many members are family, friends of family, neighbors, and work acquaintances. We plan to designate certain members as “fund developers” who will determine new activities and opportunities to raise funds. One example would be to bring a group of volunteers together to sell sodas and hot dogs for a vendor at an athletic event and then donate the (labor) proceeds. The board will only approve fund raising activities that are legal and comply with the IRS rules for nonprofit organizations. It is also possible that the proceeds could be shared with other nonprofits if both organizations work together at an event. We plan to make good use of social media and currently have a very active Facebook Save-an-Animal group with about one hundred and seventy-five members, a Facebook Page, Facebook Cause, and a LinkedIn company profile. Save-an-Animal cross-posts and shares to help other animal welfare groups get the word out, especially concerning available, adoptable animals with only a limited amount of time remaining before euthanasia. Mass mailings are a future possibility but the effectiveness of this method is debatable. Telephone solicitations will most likely not be a means used by Save-an-Animal. We want to make long-term friendly relationships with our donors.

At Save-an-Animal we do not intend to “reinvent the wheel” nor to compete with existing charities but rather seek to promote education and innovation to enhance current practices at animal shelters and no-kill organizations that need more help. We seek to join our fellow animal-lovers to seek a better solution for pets that are currently regarded as expendable.