Donations – Spay It Forward!
We are not a 501c3 charity, and consequently we (usually) cover our bills with the revenue from the services we provide. But that’s not always an option for everybody, so we maintain a community sponsored fund to help those in need cover medical bills for their pets.
YOUR DONATIONS DON’T GO TO US
Precision Vet isn’t a non-profit. That’s actually intentional, but it’s not because we ever actually intend for this place to make money. It’s to prove that it’s possible to provide affordable care ethically while still being able to cover our own bills. We don’t receive grants or external funding for what we do and the care that pets receive with us is competitive with most pricier clinics (although there are certain services we can’t offer). To make that work, we keep very careful track of our costs, and everybody here works just a little bit harder to be able to do something they feel good about.
However, that does mean that we need to charge for our services. We need to pay for the medications and equipment we use and the staff all have to eat and pay rent, the same as anybody else. And while our fees are heavily discounted, not everybody has as much to spare as it takes to care for another life. Rescues get overwhelmed during rough periods and people lose jobs. In short, bad stuff happens.
Precision Vet will never be able to build up a large reserve fund on its own because of the way our clinic operates — we charge enough to cover our costs and keep the clinic from going under after the first rainy day. There isn’t usually much left over. But we also believe that even if you can’t afford to provide everything under the sun for a pet, a loving home is better than none and there are still a lot more pets out there than homes. So, if somebody is willing to put the time and effort into taking care of an animal, we want to help them do so.
The best option we’ve come up with to be able to do this is to maintain a community sponsored fund for those people and rescues. Sometimes it’s a family that comes in for basic care, but can’t afford the medications to cure a chronic condition. Sometimes it’s a rescue pet that’s here for surgery and during the operation we find a tumor that needs to be removed. Occasionally it’s a nice man who’s been saving up for one vaccine, but will have to come back for the rest or a farmer that’s trying to get the cats that somebody dumped in their barn fixed before the spring.
We aren’t an emergency clinic, the kinds of things we can help with aren’t the big dramatic cases that make for compelling social media stories, but they do make a difference, and they help avoid those cases in the future. Frequently a few dollars in prevention can avoid a few thousand in cure.
So, if you’ve got more than you need right now and you’d like to make sure it goes somewhere where it will do some good, we’ll keep an eye on it and make sure it gets to someone that needs it.
You can donate directly to the Spay It Forward fund, or purchase some sweet merchandise from Charlie himself and have the proceeds added to the fund to help his frens!