We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nicole Brecht. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nicole below.
Alright, Nicole thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
The Good Life Refuge is a 501C3 nonprofit organization with the mission to provide a safe haven for abused, neglected and at-risk farm animals.
Personally, I have been involved in rescue for close to 2 decades, originally starting in dog and cat rescue. There is an abundance of need in rescue and only so many safe places for animals to go in general. This applies even more to farm animals as they often aren’t seen as rescue worthy. They are only considered as food and as such treated as a commodity and not as a living, breathing and feeling sentient being.
However, there is a similar abundance of need to rescue farm animals than there is for domestic pets. Seeing the need as a volunteer at another sanctuary and experience how much these animals want to live and how much emotions they have, planted the seed to make a difference for them.
At the time, there weren’t a lot of farm animal sanctuaries in the Front Range and most of them were and still are at capacity.
And with the intake of four abandoned domestic ducks at a local pond Good Life Refuge was born in 2018.
Today, we take care of close to 70 farm animals and 12 different species who call Good Life Refuge their forever home.
Nicole, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
The love for animals has always been a huge part of my life. I have been in rescue for close to two decades now using my marketing and medical skills to help animals in need. As a young girl I used to say that I will start an animal sanctuary when I am a grown up. This dream never went away and in 2018 I took the steps to make this longtime dream come true and I started the Good Life Refuge farm animal sanctuary.
Good Life Refuge is a 501C3 nonprofit organization providing a safe haven for abused and neglected farm animals with close to 70 residents, 12 different species and 12 special needs animals.
Our programs offer:
– Rescue, rehabilitation & a forever home here at the sanctuary
– Volunteer opportunities
– Outreach, advocacy and education.
We pride ourselves in providing excellent care for our residents, wonderful volunteer experiences and connecting the community with our residents through our open houses and onsite events.
We also help actively find suitable placements for animals in need when we are at capacity and answer community questions around animal husbandry, veterinary care and what to do with injured wildlife.
Our organization is 96% volunteer run and we are always looking for more hands on deck and opportunities to connect with our local community.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Good Life Refuge (GLR) had just started to get some traction and becoming a little bit better known within the community when the Covid-19 pandemic hit beginning of 2020. We had recently successfully kicked off our event series and at that time events were the main donation revenue stream to provide for our animals.
It was nerve wracking to have to close for the public being a young nonprofit with not a lot of experience on its belt to maneuver through challenging times like this pandemic.
We totally had to shift gears and find new ways to host events and to provide for our farm animal residents. So, we started planning and hosting virtual tours and events for our supporters and followers and implemented more fundraising opportunities for our local community.
I am proud to say, that we made it unscathed through these challenging times. Further, we were even able to grow our supporter base and donations. It has been wonderful to see how our volunteers and supporters came together to make all of this happen and to be the Hero’s for our animal residents.
Have you ever had to pivot?
There is a lot of planning and strategizing going on as the leader of a nonprofit organization.
Starting Good Life Refuge (GLR) five years ago, I had a solid background in marketing, event planning and veterinary medicine, but only minimal experience in fundraising and nonprofit management. In 2021, the organization was run in a way what in household terms would be considered “living paycheck by paycheck”. The organization had no designated fundraiser and fundraising efforts were based on ad hoc needs and heavily relied on our events.
We had a small financial buffer, but nothing substantially. Then, an animal emergency hit. Our potbellied pig Pickles got sick. He went up to CSU and emergency surgery was recommended. Of course it was a weekend and surgery costs were double than usual. He also needed hospitalization.
His emergency wiped out our small financial buffer and I started swimming. Realization hit me, that we need to be better prepared for emergencies and the associated costs with it. We also needed buffers for medical costs, housing needs and general costs to make sure we can sustain during tough times.
I started to learn about how to do fundraising right, building relationships with our donors and how to steward the organization better.
Today, we are financially in a very good place.
Investing in learning and fundraising has completely changed our financial landscape and taught me so much about fostering relationships and how to run an organization more smoothly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.goodliferefuge.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodliferefuge
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goodliferefuge/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-good-life-refuge
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/goodliferefuge
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCupo3holnAdgQCcjqn63nsA/videos?view=0&sort=da
Image Credits
Personal picture: image credit to Spike Stephens