Is it time for us to close our doors? Is it time for Stolen Horse International to stop providing services to many who are searching for missing animals? Is it time to find someone new to oversee the day to day functions of the organization? We want to hear from you.
"Many nonprofits count on fees from client services as part of their annual income. It is a common misperception that all nonprofits get all their revenue from donations. In 2015, according to the Urban Institute, nearly half of the total revenue for public charities came from fees for services and goods. That is, nonprofits commonly sell things or services to help support their missions." - by Joanne Fritz, 2019, Should Nonprofits Charge for Services and Sell Products?
Why are we bringing this up now? Once again we are under attack for charging fees for our report services for stolen, missing, and searching for horses and pets. We have never tried to hide this fact as this old video on our Facebook page from 2016 illustrates. Click here to see this video on our Facebook page.
Stolen Horse International is a 3rd party organization that does our best to provide services and educational information to those in need when a horse or pet is missing. We are being accused now of being "all about the money". If that were true then this organization would have folded a long time ago. The sacrifices our founders and all the volunteers who have helped over almost 23 years have made, the number of hours and heartache we've all witnessed and the angry attacks we've endured have never been about the money
We offer a reporting service where people who have lost or found horses and pets can come to our website, pay a fee and for that fee gets a webpage and a flyer. This service cost to this organization is a minimum of $400 a month to maintain our website. How does that bill, and others get paid?
Anyone can file a report and give reasons why the report is under their chosen category of "missing". There is a small base fee for this service. There are also add ons for more chosen services. All of the money from these fees support this organization.
We are not perfect and we've found that neither are some of the people who file reports with us. We offer service on every report that gives someone disagreeing with the report the opportunity to dispute the claim made on the report. We do not post names of an 'accused' party involved, never have. However, if that party identifies themselves in a public format, that is their choice to do so, to a point.
We rarely know the people on either side of an issue and we do not pretend to be judge or jury. We are fair and ask that both the party that files a report and the party disputing it put their concerns into a form on the website. There is no fee to flag a report and we do take them seriously. This is our procedure of documentation for our records which has been very successful over the years.
Our new website is more automatic than those in the past for one simple reason, there is no extra money here to pay staff to do the multitude of jobs that this organization needs doing on a daily basis. Yet, we still try and do our best. We have never paid a salary to anyone, not even the hardest working volunteers or our founders.
But like every business, and a nonprofit is a business, we have operating expenses and our bills have to be paid. This organization is supported mostly by service fees, product sales, and donations.
Our organization started because of the theft of one horse, Idaho. The owners wanted to pay the kindness shown to them by strangers around the world in 1997 and started this organization. And pay it forward they have done!
Our name may be Stolen Horse International but our reports are not just stolen horse reports like it was in the beginning. We offer help to those who have had horses stolen, missing in a variety of situations and those searching for a horse they once sold or gave away. We offer a free found horse report as well.
Our website hosts a variety of services such as news and educational articles, a searchable horse auction database, a newsletter, and alerts on or social media platforms, all of which cost the organization to support and are created by volunteers.
Speaking of social media, we do allow the exchange of some of these cases on our Facebook page as an educational resource for those reading a post. It is our hope that those reading the post will find ways to better prepare themselves before a nasty "situation' occurs for them in the future. Reality is an excellent teacher and a resource for knowledge. We do reserve the right to hide or remove remarks that have fragrant speech or contain falsehoods and slander about this organization.
We are at risk of closing our doors. because honestly, the love for what our founders have created, what they have achieved and the thousands of people they have helped is still present. However, Debi and Harold are weary from the fight to survive financially, the attacks by disgruntled people and most importantly the pain they have lived through over 23 years with so many victims.
We are actively looking for a qualified person to take over the organization, someone who is willing to work 40-60 hours a week with no pay. A fierce passion to help others in the face of adversity is required.
We are actively looking for someone to become the official fundraiser so that funds will be here to support all of our programs. Without your support, we cease to exist.
If you are a person that fits the job descriptions above, please click on contact us and send us an email.
