What You Won’t Learn in How-To Guides About Budgeting for an Animal Sanctuary
This is Part III of my journey through Best Friends Animal Society‘s Running A Lifesaving Sanctuary Certification program.
I enrolled in Best Friends Animal Society’s Running A Lifesaving Sanctuary certification, a three-month program that would guide me through building an imaginary shelter and test whether I had what it took to start a shelter of my own.
Those first few weeks felt like pure magic. Learning about Best Friends’ history and success filled me with boundless optimism. Writing my vision and mission statements pushed me to dream bigger than I ever had before. With a vision that “no dogs should be left behind,” my imagination travelled everywhere. I even pictured building a sanctuary large enough to house all 500 dogs I used to walk at the Yongin shelter in Korea.
Then came the course’s module on fundraising in week 4. Reality crashed in like a tidal wave.
Learning 1: The Hidden Funding Challenge for New Sanctuaries
When tasked with building a financial budget for the first year of my future sanctuary, I hit a wall. It revealed a harsh truth about starting a sanctuary from scratch: securing funding is far more challenging than most aspiring dog shelter founders realize. Established sanctuaries can attract support from both individual and institutional donors, drawing on years of demonstrated impact. But new sanctuaries face an unforgiving catch-22: meaningful operations require substantial funding, yet donors typically want to see operations before committing funds.
The course’s instructors, Best Friends’ co-founders, acknowledged this dilemma with stark honesty. They shared stories of countless rescues that never secured enough funds for a permanent facility. Looking around my virtual classroom, I saw the fortunate few who had solutions: some owned profitable businesses to fund their sanctuaries, others had retirement payouts, and one even had a donor ready to provide land. But for those of us starting with limited savings, no land, and no track record, the path forward seemed impossibly steep.
Even Best Friends’ own story reinforced this reality. They began with their cofounders’ personal savings and survived by partnering with local government for animal control work to generate income. Their sustainability emerged only after years of nurturing a loyal donor base.
Learning 2: Think Big, Start Small, Fail Fast
This financial reality sparked my second crucial insight: starting with personal savings and small donations from family, friends, or the community isn’t settling for less — it’s embracing a strategic advantage. While having millions in startup funding might seem ideal, it can actually create decision paralysis, tempting founders into major commitments like land purchases and building construction that may be hard to reverse if circumstances change.
Instead of seeing limited resources as handcuffs, I began viewing them as guardrails guiding us toward smarter, more focused decisions. Any initiative costing more than a couple thousand dollars was immediately off the table. This constraint forced us to ask a more powerful question: how could we use minimal resources to transform the lives of as many dogs as possible?
Borrowing wisdom from the startup world, I embraced the mantra “Think big, start small, fail fast.” This approach would free us to experiment with different strategies and pivot quickly based on real-world results, rather than being locked into a single, high-stakes plan.
Learning 3: Dynamic Budgeting for a Dynamic Journey
The final lesson crystallized when I realized that budgeting for a new sanctuary isn’t a one-time exercise — it’s an ongoing process that must match the dynamic nature of a startup organization. A startup’s path twists and turns unpredictably, making even a carefully crafted one-year budget obsolete almost immediately.
The challenges faced by established sanctuaries tell cautionary tales about the need for continuous budget refinement. Best Friends nearly collapsed when their Arizona ranch sale fell through. Redmond Humane Society’s dreams crumbled with their half-built shelter when funds ran dry. Minnesota Valley Humane Society closed their doors after more than three decades of service. When COVID-19 struck, thousands of shelters watched helplessly as their animal care costs skyrocketed.
These stories hammered home the importance of maintaining flexible, adaptive budgeting practices. Expected funding sources can evaporate, costs can surge without warning, and new opportunities might demand quick pivots.
Moving Forward: A Community-First Approach
Building that first budget and absorbing these lessons transformed my vision from a massive 500-dog sanctuary into something more focused and potentially more impactful: a small, urban-centered community hub inspired by Best Friends’ Arkansas model. The plan is to start with a modest space in the city center that will:
- Offer pet education programs and resources for pet owners
- Build a strong mailing list through local community engagement
- Foster no more than two or three dogs from partner organizations, with room to grow based on community support and proven success
Rather than viewing this as scaling back my dreams, I now see it as charting a smarter path to achieving them. By starting small and focusing on the heart of my mission statement — “bringing people together to tackle dog homelessness” — we can build a foundation for sustainable growth. Our impact won’t be measured by the number of kennels we fill, but by how effectively we engage and transform our community’s approach to animal welfare.
Financial constraints are real, but they aren’t prison walls — they’re stepping stones toward finding more effective ways to achieve our mission. In my case, they’ve led to a focused plan that’s not just more actionable, but potentially more transformative for both animals and people.
This is Part III of my journey through Best Friends Animal Society‘s Running A Lifesaving Sanctuary Certification program.