Howie First Looks at the Business To See How He Can Help

 

Thank you for a most memorable evening.  I will never look at "cat toys" the same again.

 

At 07:59 AM 12/16/02 -0500, Carole wrote:

 

I was really pleased with the following figures.  I had to compile them for the Combined Federal Campaign renewal that I just did and thought they may be of interest to your friend, as it shows tremendous growth during a time when many non profits and for profits have failed.  The year is obvious.  The next number is the number of families that have actually visited WOES.  We only fill out one release form per family, and often if we recognize a person, we don't have them fill one out if they come back within 4 years.  Some people are there every month.   The dollar amount is the amount donated by the general public in each of those years.  For the years 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 there was one 10,000.00 donor in each year.  The next highest, one year was 7500.00 with everyone else below 2000.00.  That averages out to 89.00 per family.

 

1996         34            $32,280.99

1997       159            $97,848.20

1998      1683         $176,258.15

1999      3565         $189,456.21

2000      4271         $314,738.00

2001      4982         $322,249.00 due to 9/11

2002      4382         $400,012.00

 

We are in the black by about 800.00 for 2002 for the very first time.  Each figure below represents how deep in the red we were for each corresponding year.

 

1995   164,290.09   loss

1996   154,254.01   loss

1997   149,094.80   loss

1998   222,373.80   loss

1999   101,556.50   loss

2000   281,524.00   loss

2001     34,778.00   loss

2002                           800.00 profit

 

As you can imagine, I am just ecstatic.  I have to donate 125,000 to 150,000 every year for tax purposes, but now that means that the money I put in can go into expanding our programs and doing so much more good than just supporting the animals that I have already taken responsibility for.  I expect 2003 to be a terrific year for promoting compassion in our community.

 

Our supporters come from all over.

 

Total number of  families  19,076

From Tampa   4276

From FL, but outside Tampa  9268

U.S. outside FL   5286

Outside U.S.  246

 

 

 

The more I learn about your life the more in awe I am of the struggles you have endured.  Like your cats, you are a survivor, maybe against the odds given what you have had to handle.

 

This is excellent!  Do you happen to have a way to easily know how much of the donations were from attendance, i.e. people donating when they visit, versus ones like the $10k that people send in unrelated to a visit?

 

No.  We have a cash box that gets counted down every week, but no breakdown between tours, gift shop items, etc.  We began keeping inventory records this year, so that we can go backwards to calculate the value of things "sold" (we call it a donation, so the prices vary).  This still doesn't help with knowing much about where the income is from.  Jamie was able to track 90k this year from gift shops "sales" and adoptions and memberships.  Jess is working on creating some software for us to help.  Blackbaud charges 10k for their program.  Tracking this information would help us and is on the short list of things to do.

 

I had the impression the sanctuary started 10 years ago?  Did it start in 96, or was there no visitor program or no records from before then?

 

We started in 1992 with the rescue mission, but didn't allow visitors until 1996.  Don was always dragging home people and showing off his collection and then one day someone said, "you know, you could charge for this"...

 

We were writing it off our taxes each year and the IRS said we had to make it profitable or else become a legitimate non profit, so I applied in 1994 and was accepted in 1995.  It took me three times because I didn't know what I was doing.  We had virtually no volunteers prior to 1995.  Don, Jamie and I took care of feeding, cleaning and vet care for ove