Some of you may not realize that we have to move the dogs from their intake area to foster care. Generally, we look for something close - but not only is that not possible, but also there are areas of the country that get fewer intakes - but have a higher chance of adoption. Moving a dog from the midwest to the northwest can lessen time in foster care by months. If we only air ship 10 dogs that would be $2000/ month. (and ground transports aren't free - we pay for some, and for others we reimburse part of the transports)
As a rough total - that's well over $500 / dog - JUST to get them into foster care and vetted. For a 30 dog month, its $18,450 - many of our months we take in more than 30. And we all know it doesn't end there.....
We make sure each dog in care gets Heartworm and Flea protections - we have currently about 100 dogs in care - we have been up to 150 in some months this year - at say $20 per dog (for both together) that's $2000 per month.
There are always the dogs that need MORE vet care after getting into the foster home...
We provide stuff for Public Ed events - its not a lot (and much of the paper etc is donated), but there are costs. We have to pay a CPA to audit us - we have gotten so large we get an automatic IRS Audit, and we can't go in cold. We do pay for some items on our NLOL fundraisers, and we do BUY most of what we sell on the Grooming Mall (which we sell for more, but there are still costs). And Shipping is a killer in everything we do....
Our 2007 tax return for example showed that CPCRN Program services costs totaled $282,907 - that's an average of $23,575 a month needed to cover our services. The best news is that we have ZERO PAYROLL... and that will remain unchanged into the future. This IS a labor of love from everyone here.
This letter is to help you understand why we insist the adoptive family pay all those extra fees - for transport, meds or crates. (Adoption donations are our largest single income). Why we ask for multiple vet estimates for fosters- we can reduce a vet bill by hundreds sometimes - and why we insist on pre approval before a non emergency vet visit. Also why we insist on pre-approvals for so many things - so we are sure to have the money available to pay for it.
This letter most assuredly is NOT to discourage reimbursements (pre approved or 'standard' please), nor to push donations. We think its important for everyone to understand our venture here. We are blessed with our volunteers - all of us, all of you - are the ones doing all this work. If we PAID for everyone's work, we would need millions. We also are very concerned about the economy and how we can continue to meet these costs if more dogs need our help. Our entry into Facebook, YouTube etc has helped bring new donations and new volunteers - it is a true blessing. We diversified our banking so that if our bank has problems, we still have backup cash to pay for all of this.
The truth in life is that if you don't have the money, you can't get the services. And for 350+ dogs a year, our being able to provide services is a lifeline.
Everyone here has a right to be proud of what we do - without you all, Col. Potter could never have helped as many dogs as we do. Thank you.
This is excellent "real world" info and very useful for understanding both the strength and the ever present need to maintain CP's financial foundation.
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing these important reminders of what is needed to keep the system going.