Animal Shelter

Executive Summary

Fluffy Pet Parent (FPP) is a complete animal shelter care facility that offers high customer satisfaction through quality services and pet care. The shelter will be in Long Street, Clay County, and will initially hold 40 animals. Alongside some ex-cons individuals trying to integrate back into society, I will establish the Fluffy Pet Parent. These individuals are willing to make a change in society, create revenue, and earn salaries rather than wait for handouts. The workforce will include three individuals and one temporary animal control officer. FPP will target the public seeking to adopt pets and adopt integrated technology to gain a competitive advantage over other shelters. The projected financial analyses indicate the shelter will break even in the second year of operation with a profit margin of $23000. With the success of the project, the shelter will apply the concept to other non-profit services such as soup kitchens,

Business Description

The shelter’s principal mandate is to protect the animals’ health and welfare before finding a new loving family. Our aim is to increase community involvement through adoption, education, public awareness, and marketing programs. Ultimately, we hope to prevent unnecessary euthanasia of humans, re-establish connection with the animals, and minimize cases of animal abuse in the county. The business primarily targets those individuals who want to acquire pets, especially dogs and cats, within the next year but remain undecided. The shelter will be located in Clay County Long Street. The shelter will collaborate with local shelters in the initial stages to allow rapid growth. The shelter believes in offering excellent accommodation, care, and love for animals.

Mission

The business aims to provide quality animal care in a pet-friendly environment while ensuring that both the owner and the pet’s customers receive excellent service in a fun-loving environment. Notably, the shelter will introduce a new service where lost and found animals are housed until claimed or adopted. The facility will not kill animals.

Vision

The Fluffy Pet Parent will be sustainable through successful adoption, foster home education, and community participation in the next five years. The shelter will be financially self-sufficient to provide revenue to the ex-con turned homeless. In 10 years, the business will have successful fundraisings and community outreaches to other counties and states. The shelter will be financially self-sufficient to accommodate other ex-cons and provide livelihood without engagement with the shelter

Keys to success

Superior customer services: the shelter will offer 24 high-quality care and services

Environment: The pets will be housed in a clean, odour-free environment, allowing professional business conduct.

Convenience: Fluffy offers clients various services in one area.

Location: Long Street in Clay County is easily accessible for many county residents, maximizing customer convenience.

Business Location and Operation

Fluffy parent Pet’s essential operation involves the rescue, rehabilitation, and re-homing of pets. The company will collaborate with various networks of foster homes, retail partners who will assist with adoption days, and a foster program to assist in our activities. The initial working team will involve three members from varying backgrounds. I will head the team, while the other two individuals (ex-cons) will be involved in running the shelter. In case of high workload, one part-time individual employed-animal a control officer.

The shelter will be based in Long Street, Clay County, and in a visible location with ample space. One significant component of the location will be the outdoor space for the dogs to exercise with the capacity to interact with the community. Additionally, the site will be chosen to allow maximum expansion in the future. As stated, the shelter will observe factors such as the visibility to the constituent, accessibility to a constituent, outdoor dog’s exercise, and expansion potential.

The new shelter will be designed to host a minimum of 40 animals, with half being dogs. The new shelter will contain rooms such as reception, office, adoption, feline isolation, dogs intermediate, examination, storage, and utility. The adaptable and intermediate rooms are crucial and will be used to hold lost animals for a maximum of 7 days to allow owners to receive them. Otherwise, the animals will be taken to the intermediate room for potential adopters. All the animals will be given names to increase the chances of adoption as part of the family.

In the initial phase, the shelter’s public visiting time will be limited from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM from Thursday to Saturday. The visitors will be required to maintain time since the staff will be preoccupied with caring for the animal, promoting adoption through marketing strategies and educational programming.

Market Analysis

The US has more than 5000 animal shelters, with pet owners obtaining 23% of dog owners and 31% of cat owners through the shelters (SAC, 2021). Animals have increasingly had a larger role in human lives, with most individuals opting to provide them with a quality life. These pet-loving families with active pets or consciously searching have increased the demand for pets. Others are merely concerned for the well-being of the animals. Notably, most of the animals’ shelters (80%) operate strictly in a non-profit capacity providing them with homes on a foster or permanent basis (Hoy-Gerl et al., 2019). In the current state, the barriers to entry for an animal shelter are low, given there is minimal licensure required and the individuals adopting the pets pay most of the related fees. The low barriers to entry have led to an increase in pet shelters to cater to the 7.6 million animals entering the system annually (Bradley & Rajendran, 2021)). However, 3 million of them are unsheltered, giving a unique opportunity for FPP to help animals find new homes rapidly with minimal risks.

Our target population includes the public seeking to adopt a pet and those searching for existing animal shelters around the county. These clients are conscious of the disadvantages of spending on buying a pet rather than adopting one from the shelter. The constant increase of registered cats and dogs in the US indicates high demand, which the FTT will aim to meet (Bradley & Rajendran, 2021). Clay County is currently experiencing high growth of pets. As such, the community will require assistance in dealing with control and reforming abandoned or stray pet animals. The community will need help in case their rights to own a pet are restricted or if they are dealing with behavioural issues with the pet. Our works will provide advice and assistance to pet owners, which will allow them to keep their pets instead of surrendering them.

Most of the shelter homes in Clay rely on ‘word of mouth’ for their potential customers. To gain a competitive advantage, the company will invest heavily in integrated technologies to ease the customers’ needs. Most individuals under 30 heavily rely on the internet for information and opportunities. Expanding our reach on the internet through our website and effective social media presence will increase our recognition factor. Additionally, there are limited shelters in the county, primarily for veterinarians. The veterinarians’ competitive advantage is mainly in services offered, including taking care of animals and other health-related services (Hoy-Gerl et al., 2019). As for the relationship with the community, the FPP recognizes the strategic necessity of collaboration. Rather than compete, the shelter will establish a strong collaborative working relationship with service providers such as veterinarians. Additionally, the shelter will collaborate with local rescue groups, clinics, and shelters. The regional collaboration will massively improve the animal service by minimizing the need to duplicate others’ failing efforts.

Funding and Financial Analysis

Except for the founder, all other staff are currently unpaid. As such, most of the funding will be from donations, adoption fees, and fundraising events. The majority of the funding will aid in caring for the animals or expanding the shelter’s operations. The general start-up cost will be $119,000. In the initial stage (1 year), the foster providers will be required to provide their resources for the animals’ daily care. Nonetheless, the shelter will have supplies for emergencies. Hence, our initial expenses will mainly involve veterinary care, salaries, and construction.  

Fluffy Parent Pet Projected Sources & Uses of cash Start-Up Period, Development, and Progress Period
SOURCES OF CASH	2022	2023	2024
Adoption fees	5000	7000	10000
Loan Financing	20000	23000	30000
Donations	20,000	25000	40000
Equity Contribution	10000	10000	15000
Fundraising	30000	40000	55000
TOTAL SOURCES OF CASH	85000	105000	15000
USES OF CASH
Dogs Maintenance	8000	10000	15000
Cats Maintenance	6000	7000	10000
Salaries and wages	50000	50000	60000
Building establishment	40000
License	5000	5000	5000
Miscellaneous	10000	10000	10000
Total cash use	119,000	82000	100000
Total operation income (loss)	(34,000)	23000	50000

Conclusion

The Fluffy Pet Parent is a new and interesting animal shelter based in Long Street, Clay County. We believe animal shelter is an essential function in society given that otherwise, the increased nature of animals in the county and country would lead to uncertain fate for most. Although the group is inexperienced in animal care, we believe that collectively we have the determination, shrewdness, and diversity that will allow the group to grow and flourish. We look forward to expanding in the future with an increase in resources.

References

 Hoy-Gerlach, J., Delgado, M., Sloane, H., & Arkow, P. (2019). Rediscovering connections between animal and human welfare: Creating social work internships at a humane society. Journal of Social Work, 19(2), 216-232.

Bradley, J., & Rajendran, S. (2021). Increasing adoption rates at animal shelters: A two-phase approach to predicting length of stay and optimal shelter allocation. BMC Veterinary Research, 17(1), 1-16.

Shelter Animal Count. (2021) Shelter Animal Count National Database -Q1-Q4 2019–2020–2021 analysis.