28/11/2024
I’ve tried to wait to make this post until my head was clearer or maybe there was another way, but we’re out of time. Bear with me, things have taken a drastic turn in our reality as an organization and we need a sheer miracle.
🚨This is going to be a long read, if you don’t want to read this whole post, skip to the next “alert” emoji for the main point🚨
Here’s the Tea-
To recap:
Alittle under 2yrs ago I came to you all for help in raising money for a down payment to purchase our current facility after being notified by the property owner that he wanted to suddenly sell the place. (He’s a bit of a character… we’ll get into that.)
As I explained back in 2023, we did NOT have an original lease agreement from 2019 when we moved into this facility. A few months in, the friendly “rent to own” agreement turned into “you are only renting, give me $3k a month”, and we have been stuck with that ever since, scraping by each month hoping that there is a light at the end of this insanely expensive tunnel, because it was too late to turn back.
Important information- I, Ashlynn the director of FTSOBH, have never paid myself as an employee of the rescue. For a few reasons, morally and financially.
My home is directly connected to our shelter facility, which allows for me to be here 24/7 with the dogs (and all the other critters), providing care for them more than the average shelter is typically able to do. This rescue has not yet made enough to be able to pay anyone a salary + employment taxes, with its current operating costs. I’ve also never really felt comfortable taking a salary from the rescue personally… helping them is saving me in more ways than one, and now here we are in 2024 still making it happen somehow, with thousands of lives saved 🐾
Anyways, March of 2023 upon notice of the property owners intent to sell, we worked with a very talented mortgage advisor, we got my credit where it needed to be, I acquired a full time job to appease the mortgage underwriters and was working something like 7am-4pm, and then coming home to care for all the animals and run the rescue. We pulled impossible things together to prepare for that loan request and with your help, we even raised 2x what was needed for the down payment in just 2 weeks.
Only to be told by underwriters that it all wasn’t enough, that I simply didn’t have the “job history”… because apparently being a loyal volunteer/founder of an organization, and giving up the stereotypical life as a 18-24yr old, isn’t enough proof of stability when it comes to “job history”. It’s all Black and white in the financial world.
I kept fighting after that denial. I sat down with the property owner and begged for a 2yr lease to “buy us time” to appease the underwriters request for job history.
In return, he requested $19k, and then agreed. We announced the “good news” and kept moving forward, hoping we were on the right track.
But here we are and in typical “life” fashion, everything has flipped backwards on us over the past 1.5yrs, numerous times.
A few months after the lease signing and into my new full time job, I was approached with an offer to manage another local organization (with pay). After a few weeks of discussions with our board members, volunteers, and the other organizations board, I was all in and there were talks of a contract being devised with the fairly immediate need for me to jump into the position. So, I left my full time job and was prepared to start the next.
Well, within that same week… that opportunity flip flopped, and I was left without a job (that I tried, but could not get back.)
A few months went by, every job I was applying for was a dead end, and I was stuck pushing forward with the rescue not knowing if we would be okay, but still trying to get us back on track by finding another job. (Lord have mercy, I went through so many rollercoasters while looking for a job…) Spring approached and I was rehired at my previous company in a different position and started working full time again.
Well… a few months into that, I had a meeting with our mortgage advisor and the realization came that me being away from the rescue all day, not being able to fundraise/be present to do adoptions, was really hurting the rescue financially and wasn’t balancing out with the pay I was getting working full time… we were suddenly drowning financially, the dogs were not getting everything they deserved out of me, and my volunteers were burning out. I was quite literally advised in that meeting to leave the job and push forward with the rescue.
I took the advice, left the job again, and refocused all my energy and time back into the rescue… I knew it was the right call, but it wasn’t an easy one. I needed to be here, this rescue has nobody else to run it.
I went back to brainstorming, made a post in a “kennel properties for sale” group looking for something specific, and another opportunity landed in our hands.
Without giving away too much of that master plan (because I still hope to make this happen someday if we can pull things off with our current facility), let me tell you how that went.
We visited a property out of state that would have been perfect for an “out-post” facility to help generate income by boarding dogs. We had a specific target clientele of dogs that fits our mission… we found a “Niche”. This would have helped fund not only our purchase of our current facility but also would have helped provide a stable income to grow our organization substantially. The property owners were wonderful and “rescue minded”, at the start, and offered to Owner Finance the property to us so that we could keep it off my Credit, allowing room to still purchase our facility here in Michigan a few months down the line. They were very personable and stated that they wanted to help because they believed in our business plan and what we intended to do.
But, nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and ultimately after 3 months of patiently devising a plan with the owners, getting staff down south prepared for the adventure, getting business structure and policies devised and talking to potential clients to kick business off immediately…. The whole plan fell apart. The owners of that property turned around and wanted a hefty down payment….$575k.
It felt like we lost 2 facilities that day and 3 more months were wasted. (T and M, if you are reading this. I learned a lot from you in our interactions…but respectfully, screw you.)
Im telling you all of this in detail because I don’t want to give the impression that at any point in the past 1.5yrs I have done “nothing” to figure this out on my/our own. I’ve taken EVERY opportunity that has been thrown at us, but nothing has worked.
Anyways… I’ll try to get to the point now.
Early this month we got a letter in the mail from our property owners lawyer that included a sales agreement. (This came after a 9pm drunken phone call from the landlord just a few weeks prior)
To sum up the letter, we no longer have until May 2025 to purchase this facility. We now have until February 1st 2025 to do so, AND…. this is the best part… He has raised the purchase price to $400k. A $50k increase, pulled out of sheer pettiness, with no appraisal to back it up, which blows our chances at getting a loan when looking at our original plan because all of our preparations were for the amount of $350k.
“Ashlynn I want nothing more than for YOU to purchase this property.” -he sent in an email after I responded to the lawyers letter asking, professionally, what the hell happened to the original plan.
IF we were still hoping to get a loan, and IF things were still on that original track to do so… this new price increase and timeline would have just blown that away completely.
I could go into it more and share the personal details about all the hell we have been through with the owner of this property… but for now, I want to keep the focus on the rescue and animals that currently reside here, because that is literally the only thing that matters to me at the end of this nightmare.
If we don’t find a way to save this facility by purchasing it before Feb. 3rd, the animals lives that currently reside here are at great risk of being lost. There is no where for the majority of them to go. Every organization is full, and the dogs we have here are dogs that will not survive, nor will they be given a fair chance, with other organizations. This is another thing we can elaborate more on over the next few days/weeks as this all unfolds, but overall there are some things that drastically set us apart from other animal welfare organizations as far as the “No-Kill” approach goes.
Our ONLY option now is to fundraiser the $400k before Feb. 1st 2025. The original $38k that was raised in 2023 has dissolved into the $19k that the property owner requested to move forward in March 2023, and the rest we have set aside for what would have been our down payment this time around if we could even get a loan, which we can no longer do, atleast not through the lengthy list of banks and credit unions we have already tried to work with.
I have fought like hell to find a way to pull this off, I have thought WAYYYY outside the box for a way to make things happen without needing any more of our supporters help to do so. You guys already do so much for us and we wouldn’t still be here without your support over the years.
But lots of lives are fully counting on us to pull this off now, and we are left with only one option to do so.
⭐️The goal:
Raise $400k to purchase this facility out right by Feb. 3rd.
⭐️Who the goal benefits:
-The dogs/cats/critters that are currently in our care.
-The dogs/cats/other pets that will need us in the future.
-The community that has relied on us for help with their own pets and strays.
⭐️Our 5yr plan if we can survive this hurdle:
-Low cost clinics for the community; we started a low cost vaccine/microchip clinic this past summer and it surpassed our expectations every month. We have helped vaccinate and microchip hundreds of community pets so far and we plan to expand services to include low cost spay/neuters this upcoming spring!
-Start An Emergency medical fund to help local pet owners retain ownership of their pets during a medical emergency by covering their pet’s veterinary bills upfront and then setting up a payment plan with them to reimburse the fund over a schedule that works with their financial situation.
-We want to start a Training program that helps owners cope with some of the post adoption behavioral challenges, which would also extend into keeping dogs with their families vs owners feeling the need to surrender them for various correctable behavioral issues.
-We want to work towards purchasing another location in a few years that will stand as an outpost property that would bring us the ability to expand and grow our own roots here in Michigan, while also saving thousands of more lives across the country and helping other organizations to do the same.
-We want to start a volunteer program that would allow local individuals, who have had a run in with the law or substances and are ready for change, to work with the animals in our care to help them get their life back on track, thus giving back to the community in a way that shows their dedication to do better for themselves and others, and in turn allowing us to have the man power to help more pets in need.
This list goes on, with many more ideas and programs that we simply haven’t been able to fully dive into yet due to the impending doom of losing our facility, and the financial strain that renting for the past 5yrs has put on our organization.
🚨
It goes without saying that purchasing a facility out right would drastically and dramatically change everything for our organization. But to finally purchase THIS facility, to put everything from the past 5yrs behind us, and to finally showcase our full potential as an organization in our community and beyond, would be so much more than life changing… it would make all the behind the scenes BS 100% worth it, and allow us to keep our promise to the rescue pets that are already in our care.
So now I am desperately asking you all…
Will you please help me save our facility and continue our mission?
There are 11,000+ people who follow this page, and I’m sure thousands more will see this post. The power of social media has always baffled me, but now Its all I have to rely on with this seemingly impossible request.
If every person who follows our page donated $40 after reading this lengthy post, the impossible would become a miracle.
And while I know not everyone has $40 to spare right now… even the smallest of donations is not actually small at all, and will add up.
Here are all the ways you can donate:
PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/ForTheSakeRescue
Venmo: (ONLY ONE “e” , there is another account that we have reported for fraud with two ee’s at the end of “rescue”, 5488 are the last 4 digits for confirmation)
Cashapp: $FTSOBHRescue
GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/9e165351
Mail us a donation- 2525 Bluestar Hwy Fennville Michigan 49408, checks can be made out to the rescue directly.
Message us and set up a time to drop off a donation in person.
We will keep a running tally as donations are made to keep everyone informed of the progress.
⭐️$4,057 has been raised in just 3 hours, since this post has been made…. We can do this!⭐️
I am turning in the Signed Sales agreement with $1k down December 2nd. From there, we’re locked in, with only two fates:
Raise the money, or Lose it all 😞
