We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jill Bannink-Albrecht a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jill, thanks for joining us today. One of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that there is almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
Tyson’s Place Animal Rescue is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that assists terminally ill people with finding new families for their pets. We interpret that mission to include those pet owners going into hospice, assisted living, nursing homes, and after the owner has passed away. We are a very small rescue that relies on volunteers to temporarily house the animals until they are adopted. We began taking in animals in 2015, and as the years went on, we began struggling to find enough volunteer foster homes to meet the demand of taking in animals, especially cats, that meet our mission. We discovered that our mission is filling a gap in services in animal welfare.
Weekly, we receive inquiries from all over the country looking for us to help take in an animal that meets our mission. We also receive a multitude of inquiries monthly from people right here in our state of Michigan that we have to turn away because we don’t have the foster homes. Although we provide guidance and other resources to these people, we are always disheartened to turn them away because we worry that the animals will end up stressed in a shelter environment or euthanized, unable to live out their golden years.
For me, as Tyson’s Place Founder and President, I feel so frustrated and heartbroken that I can’t help more animals that meet our mission. I attempted a digital ad campaign without success in recruiting more foster homes. I decided that the next step would be to open a small facility, set up similar to a living room of a home, that allows cats to free roam the facility until they are adopted. Because of our unique mission, we often take in older cats that can be harder to adopt, especially when potential adopters just see a photo and profile online for the cats. Not only will a facility allow us to take in more cats, but we will also hopefully be able to process more adoptions, leading to an additional number of cats that can be saved. Of course, the idea of opening a facility brings a whole set of additional challenges, including raising the money to pay for the lease and associated bills and finding volunteers to run the facility.
Jill, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Tyson’s Place Animal Rescue’s mission is to assist terminally ill people with finding new families for their pets. We interpret this mission to including helping those pet owners tackling medical challenges such as cancer treatments, those going into nursing homes, hospice, assisted living, and after the owner has passed away. We have been taking in cats and dogs (and one old parakeet!) since 2015. We pride ourselves on providing peace of mind to people and their pets. After an animal is surrendered to our rescue, we keep in frequent contact with the original owner or owner’s family, providing photo and video updates as the animal progresses in a foster home and upon adoption. By doing this, we are letting the owner or family know that their animal is thriving and loved.
I founded this rescue after my experiences working at an open admission animal shelter that, at that time, had a 50% euthanasia rate. I saw firsthand what happened to older dogs and cats that were surrendered to the shelter. Because of limited space, these animals were often the first to be euthanized. The senior dogs and cats that were put up for adoption were often extremely stressed and would become ill, again leading to euthanasia. Compassion fatigue took its toll on me, and I left the shelter but never forgot about those older animals and what led them to the shelter in the first place, leading me to start Tyson’s Place Animal Rescue.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Savings bonds from my grandmother. That’s the start-up money for our grassroots nonprofit. As a child, my grandmother would give me savings bonds for birthdays, I had no idea what that piece of paper meant, and I selfishly moved on to the wrapped gifts. As an adult, I needed money to pay for the application fee for 501c3 nonprofit status, and these savings bonds came in handy! Additional savings bonds were used to open a bank account for the rescue. Unfortunately, my grandmother passed away from cancer when I was just a teenager, but I know she would be proud. She was a strong woman who always advocated for us to speak our minds, and she would love that by rescuing animals, we are speaking for those that can’t speak for themselves.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
We were made aware of a blind and deaf dog, Tatiana, (who was born blind and deaf) in an animal shelter, dropped off by family members after the owner went into a nursing home. Can you imagine how confusing this situation was for the dog? Not only did she mourn the loss of the owner, she was confused and overwhelmed by all the new smells in an animal shelter. We knew that we had to help this girl but had no experience in caring for blind or deaf dogs. We did some Internet research and talked to some other organizations for advice. We scooped up Tatiana from the shelter and settled her in a foster with a retired woman and no other animals so she could have dedicated caregiving. She is an amazing dog that adjusted flawlessly in her foster home. In fact, our volunteer foster mom said that Tatiana was the only dog she fostered for us that didn’t have an accident in her home! I braced the foster mom to expect to have Tatiana in her care for months because most people aren’t in the market for a dog like her. Miraculously, just two weeks later, we found an adopter for her! A woman saw her profile on an online adoption site and although she wasn’t looking for a dog like her, she couldn’t stop thinking about her. The adoption was a success, and Tatiana was renamed to Breeze because that’s how easy it was to care for her. Breeze thrives with her adopter!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tysonsplacerescue.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tysonsplacerescue/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TysonsPlaceRescue/