The animals and we owe eternal gratitude to the following for their support . . . . Ahimsa Foundation, NY City Council on the Arts, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), Sandra Atlas Bass and Edythe and Sol G. Atlas Fund, Buddy Fund, Best Friends Society, Humane Society of Louisiana, New York City Animal Care and Control, Mayor's Alliance for New York City's Animals, Maddie's Fund, North Shore Animal League, Humane Society of the United States, Animal People newspaper
Reasons why your contribution goes very far in our organization:
1. We are an all-volunteer organization. Consequently, no one gets paid even a penny for his or her time and labor. It has always been this way at CAN as it is the only way of ensuring that there is no hidden motive in anyone involved with our efforts. That means the camera crews, the television newscasters, the foster homes, the telephone Help Line operators, the rescue transporters, the web site designer and web site host, even the management are all volunteers.
2. While we usually have an average of 20 animals (dogs and cats only) in our care any given time (compared to 50 dogs and 75 cats for an annual $25 million income generating organization such as the North Shore Animal League), we operate on a budget of under $25,000. That includes the production of a weekly television program (live call-in once a month) on Time Warner Cable which is seen in 4 million homes in New York City, from which we do advocacy, adoptions, and consultations.
3. Your membership dollars are ONLY spent for veterinary expenses, pet food, chewies, shampoo, medicine, boarding, and other items ONLY used by our animal friends. And even those expenses are stretched by shopping for the best prices from the veterinarians we trust and have a long time relationship with. Oh yes, we do pay one operating expense from memberships and contributions...the telephone bill, which costs about $50 per month.
4. Naturally you wonder how we can produce a TV program without spending any publicly donated monies. Here is our secret, which we advocated every group to emulate at a lecture in 2001 at the No-Kill conference (now renamed CHAMP) in Philadelphia. The studio we use is Time Warner's that we obtained the right to use when we began a collaborative effort with the Long Island Motion Picture Arts Center (www.LIMPACM.org) in 1994. Our founder, Garo Alexanian, is also Trustee of the Arts Center and he initiated an affiliation where we would provide content (animals and news reports from around the world, guests to appear on the show) and the Arts Center would provide cast, crew, studio, and distribution of the program to TV stations. Voila, a formula to make an enormous impact for animals for virtually free!
5. Perhaps even more important than the advocacy achieved from the TV program and the hundreds of mange rescues, adoptions, kill shelter pulls we do is the Help Line we have operated for the past 14 years. Until today it is still the only 24 hour Help Line in the whole Tri-State area, and perhaps the entire East Coast. Our phone consultation service spends an average of one hour with many callers . . . . trying to solve the problem causing them to dispossess their animal. Only one other organization that we know of does that other than us. . . the ASPCA. They started providing such a service during business hours Monday through Friday starting in 2003. Over the past 14 years we have taken over 75,000 calls and have intervened successfully, we estimate, in approximately 10% of those calls, conservatively. That means 7,500 potential euthanasia of animals were prevented from being carried out. Your membership and our volunteer labor is what keeps this effort going on a shoestring budget.
Thank you for your support.
Yearly Basic Membership $25Yearly Family Membership $100
Rescue Partner $250
Lifetime Sponsor $500
Lifetime Benefactor$1000