Find a Community Grant for Your Animal Shelter or Rescue

Finding a grant for your animal shelter or rescue group could provide a valuable financial boost when your donations are down. Community foundations may offer a source of funding you haven’t tapped into. Find a list of foundations in your area on the Council on Foundations website.

The Council on Foundations supports grantmakers including community foundations, corporate grantmakers, and others in various aspects of foundation management.

Click on your state for a list of foundations in your community. Link to those websites to find the fields of interest for each foundation, information on grant criteria, downloadable applications, etc.

Many of these will not mention animals specifically, but they mention other interests that your shelter or rescue group is involved with. For example, the Assistance Dogs of the West here in Santa Fe received a grant related to helping troubled teens. ADW uses the services of troubled teens to help train the dogs. If your shelter uses rescue dogs as therapy dogs you may be able to find a grant relating to meeting the needs of the disabled.

Often community foundations support geography beyond their own community, such as the surrounding counties.

Corporate grantmakers in your community can be another source of funding (but this website doesn’t link to them). In addition to grants, corporate foundations often set up programs in which they match dollar for dollar the contributions of their employees to certain nonprofits. Find out about these programs and whether or not your rescue or shelter can participate in some of the community programs they support. Many corporate grants relate to children, education, families, etc.

A small animal sanctuary in our area received a grant from the LANL Foundation (associated with Los Alamos National Laboratory) with the help of a LANL employee who volunteers at the sanctuary.

Also, see the blog post Finding Grants and Funding from Local Sources and Foundations.

Grants for Creativity. Have you used creative programs to increase dog adoptions? Pedigree Foundation is awarding grants of $10K to $25K to shelters and rescue groups who have been innovative. Click “Apply for a grant” on this page to read the guidelines and submit your application by May 31.