Grant Guidelines

Community Grants

Guidelines & Application Instructions (Revised Feb. 2007)


Maddie's Fund® wants to help communities achieve no-kill status, whereby all their healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats are guaranteed loving homes within ten years. To achieve this goal, Maddie's Fund intends to financially support community-wide collaborations of adoption guarantee organizations, animal control and traditional shelters, and private practice veterinarians, working together to provide an adoption guarantee for all their healthy shelter dogs and cats by the start of Year Five and to extend that guarantee to include all treatable shelter pets by the end of Year Ten. (For a PDF explanation of these terms, please see Attachment I: Shelter Categories and Attachment II: Categories/Definitions of Shelter Animals.)

NEW FEATURES IN REVISED GUIDELINES

  • Maddie's Fund has increased the funding for the Adoption and Spay/Neuter Components of the community collaborative project.
  • On a case-by-case basis, Maddie's Fund will consider Animal Control or Traditional Shelters for Lead Agency.
  • The Lead Agency for the Spay/Neuter Component can be a Veterinary Medical Association, non-profit animal welfare organization, or a spay/neuter organization.
  • In addition to private practice veterinary hospitals, non-profit and government clinics may now participate in the Spay/Neuter Component.
  • The length of the community collaborative projects has expanded.
  • The project goals have broadened.
  • The funding process has changed.
  • A sustainability requirement has been added.
  • The fundraising component of the project has been strengthened.
  • To increase the likelihood that funded projects will be able to achieve an adoption guarantee by Year Five, more emphasis is being placed on reducing healthy shelter deaths.
  • Maddie's Fund has asked funded projects to set aside in a special account a portion of their fundraising money plus any unspent or uncommitted grant funds they may have at year's end (in the event that they meet their project goals).
  • Maddie's Fund is using new definitions in classifying shelter animals: adoptable, treatable and nonrehabilitatable have been replaced with healthy, treatable-manageable, treatable-rehabilitatable, and unhealthy & untreatable.
  • While Maddie's Fund still uses the term "no-kill" to describe communities that are saving all their healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats (such as Tompkins County, NY) or to refer to our mission ("Building a No-Kill Nation"), we're not using the term as part of this application to describe the operations of individual shelters or rescue groups that save all the healthy and treatable animals under their care, with euthanasia reserved only for unhealthy & untreatable animals. Maddie's Fund now refers to these shelters or rescue groups as adoption guarantee organizations. An adoption guarantee organization (AG) could be an animal shelter, rescue group, foster care organization, or sanctuary.


I. GUIDELINES FOR COMMUNITY GRANTS

Who can get funding?
What is a Community Collaborative Project?
How much support will Maddie's Fund provide?

II. APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMMUNITY GRANTS

The Planning Process
The Review Process



I. GUIDELINES FOR COMMUNITY GRANTS

Who can get funding?

Tax Exempt Status

Maddie's Fund will support animal welfare groups and veterinary medical associations that operate within the United States and are classified by the Internal Revenue Service as tax-exempt organizations.

Adoption Guarantee Organizations

Animal welfare groups seeking funding must be adoption guarantee organizations that provide comprehensive medical treatment and behavior rehabilitation for all animals under their management and guarantee to find these animals loving homes. (For more information about Lead Agency requirements, please see Page 4.)

An animal organization does not have to say it's an adoption guarantee organization to qualify for this funding opportunity, but it does have to: (1) save all healthy and treatable animals under its care and make public its commitment to doing so; (2) clearly articulate to its community that it is saving all healthy and treatable animals under its care; (3) use the definitions of healthy and treatable as described in the Asilomar Accords; and (4) agree to publish, at least annually, in the organization's primary publications and on its website, the organization's shelter statistics using the Asilomar Accords Annual Animal Statistics Table.

Limitations of Giving

As a general rule, Maddie's Fund does not award community collaborative grants to individuals, or to support: projects for animals other than dogs and cats; construction of new facilities or major renovations of existing facilities; land purchase; endowment campaigns; deficit or emergency funding; scholarships; research; publications; films; or videos. In addition, the Foundation is not positioned at this time to support animal welfare groups operating outside of the United States.



What is a Community Collaborative Project?

Definition of a Maddie's Fund® Community Collaborative Project

A Maddie's Fund Community Collaborative Project is divided into two components, the Adoption Component and the Spay/Neuter Component:

  • The Adoption Component, entitled Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project, is administered by an adoption guarantee organization and involves the collaborative efforts of rescue groups, animal control shelters, and traditional shelters to place more dogs and cats in loving homes and to reduce the deaths of healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats in the target community. (On a case-by-case basis, Maddie's Fund will consider an animal control or traditional shelter as lead agency.) The lead agency gathers baseline statistics from all of the animal shelters and rescue groups, fills out the Preliminary Application, formulates a budget and a one year business plan for increasing shelter adoptions and reducing shelter deaths, fills out the Adoption Application, and prepares the ten year strategic plan for the project.

  • The Spay/Neuter Component, entitled Maddie's® Spay/Neuter (S/N) Project, provides spay/neuter surgeries for pets of people who receive Medicaid assistance and who reside in the target community. Spay/neuter surgeries can be performed by local private practice veterinarians, non-profit and government spay/neuter clinics. The S/N Project can be administered by a city, county, regional or state veterinary medical association (VMA), a non-profit animal welfare organization, or a spay/neuter organization. The lead agency contacts local private practice veterinarians and non-profit and government spay/neuter clinics to see if they're interested in enrolling in the program, gathers baseline spay/neuter statistics from prospective participants, and submits the Spay/Neuter Application.

All groups that are interested in applying for a Maddie's Fund Community Grant should first complete the Preliminary Application for a Community Collaborative Project. After reviewing the Preliminary Application and meeting with the coalition members during a conference call, Maddie's Fund will determine if your community has the elements necessary to establish a Community Collaborative Project. In those cases, the lead agencies will be invited to submit the Adoption and Spay/Neuter Applications for a Community Collaborative Project. [All application materials for a Community Collaborative Project are posted on the Maddie's Fund website at www.maddies.org.]

If your community has a human population of 100,000 or more, you may also apply for Maddie's Fund Starter Grants, which are the building blocks to a Maddie's Fund Community Grant. To learn more about the Starter Grants, please visit the Maddie's Fund website at www.maddies.org/grant/starter_grants_index.html.

Minimum Conditions for a Community Collaborative Project

A community collaborative project must meet the following minimum conditions to be eligible for consideration for a Maddie's Fund community grant (even if these conditions are met, grant approval is not automatic):

  1. The annual number of dogs and cats sheltered by all the groups participating in Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project (the adoption component) must be at least two thousand (2,000);

  2. All animal control and traditional shelters in the target community must participate in Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project (the adoption component);

  3. Successful applications should include substantial support on the part of local private practice veterinarians. Maddie's Fund believes that private practitioners are key to expanding a community's safety net of care to save all of its healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats. Therefore, the s/n component needs to involve private practice veterinary clinics and hospitals as well as non-profit and government clinics;

  4. A completed Adoption Application and Spay/Neuter Application must be submitted for each community collaborative project; and

  5. For projects that are likely to be funded, the adoption guarantee lead agencies will be asked to prepare a 10-year strategic plan for their projects.

Lead Agency

The adoption component and the spay/neuter component of the community collaborative project must each have a lead agency that can administer the grant and demonstrate its ability to achieve the goals of the project. The lead agency for Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project should be a 501(c)3 non-profit adoption guarantee organization with an established adoption track record and sufficient financial resources to effectively manage the project. On a case-by-case basis, Maddie's Fund will consider animal control or a traditional shelter as lead agency. The lead agency for Maddie's® Spay/Neuter Project can be a city, county, regional or state VMA, an established animal welfare organization, or an established spay/neuter organization.

Animal Control and Traditional Shelters

Animal control shelters and traditional shelters play a vital role in community collaborative projects. These organizations need to make their healthy and treatable animals available to the other groups in the project. They also need to provide their shelter statistics to the collaboration, as this information is used to develop project baselines and to monitor the progress of the project. These groups are also eligible to receive funding from the project as part of the spay/neuter component, or during adoption guarantee periods, for performing above baseline adoptions.

Programs Supported

Grant funds for Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project can be used to pay adoption guarantee coalition members for performing above baseline adoptions, expanding pre-existing programs, initiating new services, funding new staff positions, and underwriting promotional adoption campaigns. However, strategies proposed must be capable of producing immediate increases in the number of adoptions and immediate reductions in the number of shelter deaths, starting the day after the grant award is received.

Grant funds for Maddie's® Spay/Neuter Project must be used to reimburse qualified private practice veterinary hospitals $30-$120 per surgery, reimburse non-profit and government clinics $25-$90 per surgery, and to pay the lead agency $4 per surgery to administer the program. In addition to the grant funds, the public may be asked to make a co-payment of $20 per dog surgery and $10 per cat surgery.



How much support will Maddie's Fund provide?

Funding for the Grant

The length of a community collaborative project is 10 years. In addition to achieving an adoption guarantee for all healthy dogs and cats by the start of Year 5, projects must now be able to save all treatable shelter dogs and cats by the end of Year 10.

Maddie's Fund provides funding for seven of the ten years of the community collaborative project, with the grant amount gradually being reduced. Annual funding for Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project is based on the total number of above baseline adoptions to be performed by the adoption guarantee organizations multiplied by $400 in Year 1; $360 in Year 2; $320 in Year 3; $280 in Year 4; $240 in Year 5; $200 in Year 6; and $160 in Year 7. Once funding is established at the beginning of the project year, the amount is fixed, and further funding is generally not available for that year.

At least 60% of the funds received must be distributed to participating adoption guarantee organizations in the form of adoption subsidies for performing above baseline adoptions or as part of the Contingency Fund (see description below).

To promote adoptions involving animals taken from animal control and traditional shelters, Maddie's Fund has introduced a 5:1 adoption subsidy differential. That means, for each above baseline adoption involving a dog or cat taken from animal control or a traditional shelter, the lead agency must pay adoption groups a subsidy five times greater than the subsidy paid for above baseline adoptions involving dogs or cats from other sources (i.e., from the public). In addition, the lead agency must set aside a portion of the grant for a Contingency Fund to pay for any above baseline adoptions that exceed the annual project goal. Remaining grant funds can be used by the lead agency to finance strategies for increasing adoptions, as set forth in the community grant proposal. However, Maddie's Fund also limits the use of grant funds for advertising to 10% of the adoption grant.

Annual funding for Maddie's® Spay/Neuter Project is based on the actual number of spay/neuter surgeries performed in each project year. Grant installments are distributed in advance, with further funding available in each project year to provide reimbursement for all surgeries performed up to a maximum. (To determine the maximum number of spay/neuter surgeries to be performed under Maddie's® Spay/Neuter Project, multiply the total number of healthy shelter dogs and cats euthanized in your target community during the baseline year by seven.) Initial funding levels are calculated according to the number of spay/neuter surgeries expected to be performed during the period, at an average cost of $70 per surgery estimated to be performed by private practice veterinary hospitals (including the $4 administrative fee) and an average cost of $60 per surgery estimated to be performed by non-profit and government clinics (including the $4 administrative fee). Accounts are reconciled periodically to ensure adequate funding throughout the project and to adjust for different reimbursement amounts for dogs/cats, males/females and private practice/non-profit clinic.

Other Types of Assistance for Funded Projects

Maddie's Fund is interested in making a variety of support services available to funded collaborative projects. These may include mentor programs, consulting services, continuing education, and networking opportunities designed to help the adoption guarantee organizations build their infrastructure and be more successful in their operations.

Future Funding Eligibility

For Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project, eligibility to receive funding for the duration of the project is dependent on the successful attainment of annual goals that lead directly to reducing the deaths of healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats to zero by the end of 10 years. The goals for Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project are to increase above baseline adoptions, and reduce healthy, treatable and total shelter deaths by a specific number determined at the beginning of each project year.

In addition to the annual goals:

  • Funded projects will be asked to provide an adoption guarantee for healthy shelter pets for one month during Year 3 and for three consecutive months in Year 4. During those periods, funded projects will need to demonstrate that no healthy shelter dogs and cats will be euthanized in their community.

  • Before the start of Year 4, funded projects will be asked to develop a Pet Evaluation Matrix (PEM) for their community showing how the definitions of healthy, treatable, and unhealthy & untreatable are being applied uniformly in all shelters. (The PEM includes a list of various medical and behavioral conditions that fall under the different definitions as well as written policies on how the shelters will treat each category of animals.)

  • In addition to maintaining the adoption guarantee for all healthy shelter pets starting in Year 5, funded projects will be asked to put an adoption guarantee in place for all treatable shelter animals for one month in Year 6, two months in Year 7, three months in Year 8, three consecutive months in Year 9, and four consecutive months in Year 10.

The lead agency for Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project will be expected to furnish monthly, quarterly, semiannual and annual reports to Maddie's Fund documenting the success of all the coalition members in achieving their targeted goals.

For Maddie's® Spay/Neuter Project, eligibility to receive funding for the duration of the project is dependent upon the coalition members' success in attaining the annual adoption and euthanasia goals for the project. The s/n lead agency is also required to submit quarterly, semiannual and annual reports to Maddie's Fund that contain spay/neuter statistics for each participating hospital and clinic, as well as financial information about the grant and descriptions of promotional activities.

Please note that even if the eligibility requirements described in this section are met, there is no guarantee of continued funding beyond the initial grant period. All decisions concerning any future grant requests are solely in the discretion of Maddie's Fund and its Board of Directors.

Sustainability Requirement

The Maddie's Fund Board wants to be assured that the impact of their investment will be sustained beyond the grant period. In addition to increasing adoptions and spay/neuter surgeries and reducing shelter deaths during the grant period, it's important that the participating groups be operationally and financially equipped to build upon that success when the Maddie's Fund grant ends – to sustain the momentum achieved from the project and to expand their lifesaving capacity.

Towards that end, Maddie's Fund has instituted a sustainability requirement. Prospective applicants who are likely to be funded will be asked to submit a 10-year strategic plan showing how they intend to achieve the goals of the project and sustain their lifesaving work after the Maddie's Fund grant ends.

As part of the strategic plan, applicants need to include a 10-year fundraising plan that shows how the groups intend to make up the declining support from Maddie's Fund to achieve and sustain their adoption guarantee for healthy and treatable shelter pets for the duration of the project and beyond. Maddie's Fund also wants funded projects to set aside in a special account a portion of the money they generate through fundraising plus any unspent or uncommitted grant funds they may have at year's end (in the event that all project goals are met). These funds would be used to help subsidize the project in future years and would be distributed to the partners based on performance and with Maddie's Fund concurrence.

Maddie's Fund Core Values

Maddie's Fund expects that all participating groups in funded projects will honor its core values: honesty, integrity, and mutual respect. This includes maintaining cordial, professional relations with colleagues and the public, and carrying on public debate and discussion without personal attacks or recriminations.

Maddie Recognition Plan for Funded Projects

Recognition of Maddie, the Miniature Schnauzer whose lifetime of unconditional love and devotion to the Duffield Family inspired the creation of Maddie's Fund, is important to the Foundation and its Board of Directors. All funded projects will receive a specialized Maddie Recognition Plan. The plan will include recognition requirements for the lead agency and project partners with regards to websites, publicity materials, newsletters and speaking engagements.

Public Speaking Engagements

Funded agencies may also be provided with opportunities for greater public awareness including invitations to speak at regional/national conferences and opportunities for promoting their programs in regional/national media. While increased public awareness gives funded agencies more credibility, a stronger reputation and greater fundraising potential, these opportunities also bring certain burdens, including travel and requests for interviews, tours or photographs. Maddie's Fund expects funded groups to honor these requests, even if they are on very short notice, scheduled at inconvenient times (evenings or weekends) or require cash outlays that are relatively minor in relation to the size of the grant.



II. APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMMUNITY GRANTS

The Planning Process

Getting Started

A great deal of planning must be done before you complete and submit the Adoption and Spay/Neuter Applications for a Community Collaborative Project. Groups that have successfully submitted applications to Maddie's Fund have first spent several months involved in the planning process – building alliances, gathering and sharing statistical information, and developing strategic business plans.

The Maddie's Fund website at www.maddies.org offers a variety of resources to assist interested applicants in preparing their grant applications. The website provides descriptions of successful adoption strategies, "how to" articles, and successful proposals submitted by funded projects in addition to downloadable forms for all the application materials.

Preliminary Application

All groups interested in applying for a community grant should first complete the Preliminary Application for Community Collaborative Projects.

The Preliminary Application, which is posted at www.maddies.org, provides a thumbnail sketch of the target community. It also identifies the lead agency for Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project, the lead agency for Maddie's® Spay/Neuter Project, reports annual shelter statistics for each participating animal welfare group, and describes the level of participation by the veterinary community and spay/neuter clinics.

After the Preliminary Application has been submitted, Maddie's Fund will contact the adoption lead agency to arrange a teleconference. During the teleconference, Maddie's Fund staff is available to answer questions from the participating groups and offer comments about the project. To request a teleconference meeting, the adoption lead agency must complete a Preliminary Application and submit it to Maddie's Fund.

If Maddie's Fund determines that a community has the elements necessary to establish a community collaborative project as discussed in the guidelines and explained on the website, the lead agencies will be invited to submit the Adoption and Spay/Neuter Applications for a Community Collaborative Project. Prospective applicants who are likely to be funded will also be asked to submit a 10-year strategic plan.

The Preliminary Application can be submitted to Maddie's Fund by email (grants@maddies.org) or snail mail (Maddie's Fund, 2223 Santa Clara Avenue, Suite B, Alameda, California, 94501).

Application Form Requirement

All application and reporting forms are available online (www.maddies.org) or by contacting Maddie's Fund (grants@maddies.org or 510-337-8989). Do not send annual reports, newsletters, videos, CDs, brochures, or other collateral material with your initial application unless requested by Maddie's Fund. We would prefer to receive an electronic version of your application materials (grants@maddies.org).

Application Deadline

There is no application deadline for a Community Collaborative Project. Applications are accepted throughout the year.

Starter Grants

If your community has a human population of 100,000 or more, you may also apply for Maddie's Fund Starter Grants, which are the building blocks to a Maddie's Fund Community Grant. To learn more about the Starter Grants, please visit the Maddie's Fund website at www.maddies.org/grant/starter_grants_index.html.



The Review Process

Final Notification

The review process is long and competitive. Maddie's Fund gives priority to applications that most closely match the community grant guidelines for community projects. However, even if these guidelines are met, approval is not automatic. All funding decisions regarding grant requests are solely in the discretion of Maddie's Fund and its Board of Directors.

Maddie's Fund staff will make every effort to review applications within 90 days of their receipt to determine whether the project fits within the guidelines and goals of Maddie's Fund. If the project is not accepted by Maddie's Fund, the lead agency will be notified by mail. If the project is selected for further review, additional information will be requested from the lead agencies either in writing or through telephone inquiries, meetings, and site visits.





Maddie's Fund reserves the right to revise or amend the policies and procedures described in the guidelines and applications at any time.