More about ACF (it's long)

Welcome to Animals Come First, Inc.

This is a 501(c)3 non-profit charitable organization

Your donations of time, funds and things are welcome.

We are a “pass through.” Our administration costs are low because we have a donor who pays for the admin costs out of his pocket.

Volunteers tend to be people who have some supplies or may also have at least one or two cats in their house period so they want to participate in some way to provide safety for some volunteers to foster cats.

The purpose of Animals Come First is to support people who are current volunteers but also to support people who have never volunteered as foster parents. The goal is to expand the number of people and create a large pool that animal shelters can call on. To achieve this goal, ACF (with the help of donations) provides materials and training for new foster parents. Temporary foster care requires a special mindset and it is of course our hope that if you start fostering, you might actually adopt. At that point the support would cotinue with an additional cat tree as an incentive.

The issue is how do we create the best possible home or support for volunteers. The limitations that many shelters have is that they can't give a mother and five babies to one person because the person has room for only one cat and perhaps one cage and the cage would be too small for the entire family, so on a temporary basis, the animals come first can lend a cage to the shelter which would then be transferred to the volunteer foster parent.

The obstacles need to be removed. Finding new volunteers is just the first step. After the volunteer decides, "I'll try it, the support system kicks in. By showing the volunteer what aspects of psychosocial support are needed in addition to the physiological support of shelter food water and safety, it will be a training for the mentality and emotional needs of the foster parent period clearly there is a need that's being met when a volunteer decides to give time towards saving and protecting one or more cats. The benefits are not simply for the cat. Animals Come First is similar to the TV show that has been shown wolves for veterans, which puts veterans who have PTSD in contact and giving them a purpose to provide help to wolves that are in captivity or that have wandered into communities. The Wolf really needs to be rehabilitated or put on a special place and the act of helping the animal actually helps the person the volunteer period in the same way animals come first is providing social benefits for the greater society, so it's not just about animals. This may be a criticism that some people could level against organizations that focus on animals. We can see that it's a good idea for people who are under stress or in therapy and group therapy and they could use a short-term version of the wolves for veterans project. This is of course a secondary goal and we are looking for the appropriate social worker or credentialed psychologist or neurologist who can point to the need for and also the benefit of and the right procedures for getting the most for the foster parent. In short, the focus of Animals Come First on providing materials for the foster parent is just the beginning. The training and the showing of "how to be an effective parent" is in fact the more important part of the charity's work. Since the charity is providing some support, in food, litter, other equipment, and training, the focus might be strictly on economics. However, the most valuable part is to call from the internet useful videos and websites that can support the volunteer so that eventually the volunteer no longer needs Animals Come First because the volunteer has the equipment needed, and has perhaps enough training to be able to independently bring in friends and show others how to support animals for a short time (or eventually adopt).

Show others how to be an effective Foster parent. In other words, the goal of Animals Come First is to find perhaps 100 people and support those people over the next two years and those people could each find two people, so over a 5-year period, Animals Come First could directly help 500 people, but another thousand people, two people from each direct Foster parent, could in fact bring in another thousand. This one-to-three ratio is an effective use of charitable funds

The use of cat trees in homes helps cats get higher than us... they feel safer. Go ahead, invest in a cat tree for each cat in your home.

For more of the services and impact of Animals Come First, CLICK HERE (Learn about the Family Incentive Plan)