Let's Get to Work!!!

We are constantly asked how many staffers we have or are we hiring. NaNook & NaKoda's Big Paw rescue has NO PAID STAFF. Every dime donated goes to the sheltering, food, veterinarian costs, care and transporting, of the dogs. https://www.guidestar.org/Profile/9689327

We run on a shoestring budget as you can see at the link above on our guidestar profile due to low community donations since we are only 1 year and 9 months old. In 2018 we only brought in $9697 total revenue with animal care expenses of $7609 only leaving us $2646 towards the building fund. We are very proud of our 2018 & 2019 seal of transparency!! We are very limited to the amount of dogs we can take in because we have a very few fosters and one of the founders lives inside city limits so there is a cap on the number of dogs she can have in her home and the other founder can only manage a certain number alone.

Once the building is up and functional then all the dogs will be in one location and management of the dogs as well as the ability to take in more will be possible. We are bombarded with requests to take in overwhelming numbers of dogs in danger of being euthanized on a daily basis, owners calling wanting to surrender to us instead of the local kill shelter, and person's living outside the city limits who have had strays come up that have been dumped in their areas but we can't do anything to help them if we are already at our maximum allowed.

We still need to raise the money to put in the septic system required by county regulations and to finish out the inside of the building so that it is functional. The septic system will cost apx. $12,000 to put in and then probably another $3000-$5000 to finish out the inside of the building. Which is more than we were able to raise last year just to take care of the dogs we were able to save and be able to put some aside into savings for our building fund.

It's very frustrating to know we are right on the verge of being able to do more but can't seem to get the support in our community we need or find grantors willing to give us a grant before we are 3 years old. We are hoping it doesn't take another year for us to be able to raise the money to finish the building and be able to save more lives.

DUE DILIGENCE: Some kill shelters who have been in existence for long periods of time and have a large donor base are able to bring in $250,000 per year or more sometimes. For example the local kill shelter in our are brought in over $266,000 in 2018. However, not all of these donations/grants/fundraisers go towards the care of the animals. Salaries and wages alone can take up to $140,000 or more of this money; leaving only about $110,000 for other overhead and then the actual care of the animals. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/23-7437697 Look up your local kill shelter and see what their reported financials look like at www.guidestar.org

To find out more about how kill shelters work (even ones who say their goal is NO Kill) see our previously published blog The No- Kill Myth https://nanookandnakodasbigpawrescue.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-no-kill-myth.html