Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tracy Vogt. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Tracy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I came up with the idea for Charlie’s Acres as I started to explore the animal non profit world. I previously had worked for a medical non profit, and while I loved the idea of non profits and serving a higher cause with my work, I realized my passion was saving animals. I have always loved dogs and cats, and considered what I could do to make a difference in that world, but after doing a lot of research I realized farm animals are some of the most underrepresented and underserved animals, with billions of them in the food system. I realized that by dedicating my time to not only saving them, but also educating people on alternative more compassionate food choices, and developing empathy for these animals, I would not only be saving a few animals, but also be able to impact the lives of animals not as fortunate to be living at my sanctuary.

I was excited about the idea of education and making a larger impact beyond just a physical location and individual animals, and learned that one problem other sanctuaries ran into was location. Oftentimes farm animal sanctuaries are located so far away from major cities that their visitors are people that are already supporters and involved in their mission and goals. I was excited to find a location less than an hour from San Francisco, in a popular wine tasting route, that could not only serve visitors that were already bought into our mission, but also tourists and local San Franciscans and people from Silicon Valley, that could also make a difference for our cause.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a non profit professional who started my career working for a medical non profit. Although I loved my work, the subject matter was not my passion and I knew I wanted to combine my love for non profits with my passion for animals eventually. After leaving the medical non profit with my skills and knowledge of how non profits work and some of the pitfalls and challenges they face, I started a for profit fitness company which exposed me to how to run a business.

Starting Charlie’s Acres from the ground up, was a challenge, but I’m most proud of how far we’ve come from the beginning. I started with a 32 acre blank piece of land and have since built 11 barns, a team of 15 people, and starting from one rescued pig to 150 rescued farm animals who serve as ambassadors for billions of other animals not lucky enough to make it to a sanctuary or rescue.

I’m also proud of how unique we are both in the sanctuary non profit space and the tourism/hospitality space. I know that in order to make the most impact, we need to reach individuals who are not already sold on our mission. We achieve this by location, unique programs, and our beautiful facilities and animals. We aim to be a top notch tourist destination as well as top of the line animal sanctuary.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Expect the unexpected – that is of course the advice that most people give when they are starting a new venture and it rang true for me multiple times. Having a physical location for my business has proven challenging in more ways than one over the years, including a wildfire that blazed through the sanctuary in the middle of the night in 2017. We were fortunate in this situation in more ways than one however – that we only had a few animals on the property at the time, that we had just started grading for our new barns and fences, but hadn’t actually built anything yet, that we had a great staff who worked together to rescue the animals and move off site quickly, and that we had a partner sanctuary who could take in both staff and animals in a safe location.

However, rebuilding from the fires, rebuilding the infrastructure, and assessing the real risk of wildfires in California every year has been challenging. For us at Charlie’s Acres, we essentially needed to start over, come up with plans in place for future events, and do a risk assessment for our future business activities.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We share the common story of pivoting in business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this, we were working almost exclusively with in person visitors to the sanctuary. We rely on the income from visitors to our sanctuary who then become donors to fund the organization. However, during the pandemic, our most relied upon income stream dried up quickly. We had to pivot immediately. Luckily, we had a partner organization, Sweet Farm, who came up with a brilliant idea called “Goat to Meeting” and roped us in as a supporting sanctuary. We joined Zoom calls (or you name the online meeting app), with companies and teams of people with a live stream video of our rescued goats, cows, pigs etc., to bring some levity to the meeting. We had defense contractors, doctors working day and night with COVID patients, international embassies, tech companies, and just about any company now working remotely, request to have us join them on their call. They paid a small fee which went to replacing our in person income. We suddenly became very busy, and actually had to hire people to join in these meetings.

After a few months, the fad of this started to die out, and the Goat to Meetings started tapering off for us. We had to pivot again, and found that companies wanted to utilize our service as an official offsite (virtually), as well as schools wanted unique educational opportunities for their students to learn about our animals as well. Post pandemic, we now operate in a hybrid situation. On any given day we have several virtual programs which allow us to reach people scattered around the globe, as well as in person visits and programs.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.charliesacres.org
• Instagram: @charliesacres
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charliesacresfarmanimalsanctuary/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-vogt-1099656/

Image Credits
Gustavo Perez