RedRover Relief
Safe Housing grants
RedRover’s Safe Housing grants help survivors of domestic violence by removing a barrier to safety and allowing pets and people to escape abuse together. Flexibility in how to implement your pet program ensures that there is a solution for every community.
Steps to Apply
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Grant Information
Grants of up to $60,000 are offered to nonprofit domestic violence and animal organizations across the United States. Funding may be used to build or renovate spaces dedicated to housing survivor’s pets, begin a foster program to care for survivor’s pets, pay for temporary boarding for survivor’s pets, or a combination of services that will best serve your community. Grant funds may also be used for routine veterinary care, emergency veterinary care, and pet deposits.
Funds requested to pay for boarding, medical care, and pet deposits are intended to help with program costs for a maximum of two years. It is expected that your organization will use that time to work on a funding plan and cover those costs after RedRover’s funds have been used. The funds requested must also be based on a researched or demonstrated need for the number of animals expected to use the pet program. Preferably, a minimum of six months of data on the actual need for boarding should be collected before applying. This would include both the number of families needing help and the number of animals. Suggestions on how to collect this information include talking about pets during intake or crisis calls, or from how often our Safe Escape program is used.
Homeless Shelter Safe Housing Grants
RedRover is also offering grants of up to $60,000 to nonprofit homeless shelters to become pet friendly. They will follow the same guidelines as our other Safe Housing grants, with the focus for this funding being solutions to keep people and pets in shelter together. Please note that homeless shelters have their own application.
Building Collaborative Relationships
In addition to helping people and pets find safety together, these grants are meant to help build collaborative relationships within your community. Domestic violence and animal organizations will be expected to work together to identify the needs for these services in their communities and find the best ways to fill them. If veterinary services cannot be provided by the animal organization, a partnership with one or more veterinary clinics is recommended. We also suggest reaching out to community organizations, such as the Girl Scouts, local pet supply stores, places of worship, etc., to see if they are able to fulfill any program needs through community service or donations. Ongoing needs, such as pet food and supplies, leashes and collars, or short-term needs like help with landscaping or organizing, can often be filled by volunteers and fundraisers.
Resources
Before submitting your application, we strongly encourage you to visit DontForgetThePets.org. RedRover and Rescue Rebuild created this resource for those interested in building a program to help people and pets escape violence together. Free training workshops and handbooks, document templates and examples, and one-on-one coaching assistance are available to help you plan your program and submit your application. Learn more >
Questions? Check out our Safe Housing FAQ
To request a PDF copy of the RedRover Relief Safe Housing grant application to use as reference before applying, please fill out our Safe Housing Application PDF Request >
You can also download our Safe Housing budget template. All budgets submitted with a Safe Housing application must use this template.
Are you eligible?
RedRover has a goal of ensuring that 25% of domestic violence shelters in the United States are pet-friendly by 2025! That means funding priority will be given to applications from domestic violence shelters that are starting new pet programs to house animals at the domestic violence shelter. If there is remaining funding available, other application types will be considered.
- Applicants must be registered as a nonprofit organization.
- Applicants must be either an established domestic violence organization, or an established animal organization, interested in expanding their services to help domestic violence survivors keep their pets.
- Applicants must have a partner organization. Domestic violence organizations must form a partnership with at least one animal organization with experience housing animals, animal organizations must form a partnership with at least one domestic violence organization.This is to ensure that domestic violence organizations have a partner who can help with animal care information and overflow boarding when needed, and animal organizations have an active partner working with the survivors they’re trying to help.
- Applicants must be based in the United States.
RedRover Safe Housing grants cannot be used for:
Costs including, but not limited to...
- Salaries
- Training
- Real estate acquisition
- Promotional materials or advertising
- To support existing programs that are not expanding their capacity to help animals.
- To start a new organization, all grant applications must be submitted by established organizations.
Pre-application Checklist
Before applying all organizations must:
- Be ready to start accepting pets into their program within 12 months or less.
- Have a detailed program plan and budget.
- Have already spoken with a contractor, or other relevant person, and received detailed estimates for any building or renovation, if applicable.
- Verify their ability to obtain any permits or other authorization needed, if building or renovating.
- Ensure that the program meets all relevant animal ordinances and laws, if housing pets.
- Obtain a written Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with your partner organization. This should detail the responsibilities of both parties and not simply be a statement of mutual aid. An MOU that includes pet boarding should include the cost per day, if any.
- Ensure that, if asking for funds to board pets, all boarding must be offered at a discount by the kennel(s).
- Ensure that, if starting a foster program, there is no daily charge to care for the pet.
- Identify a veterinary partner, or have the ability to provide veterinary care through their organization.
The deadlines for submitting a Safe Housing grant application are
March 1st, June 1st, and September 1st.
Applications may be submitted at any time, but any applications received after a deadline will not be reviewed until the following deadline. Funding decisions will be made within 45 days of the application deadlines.
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By clicking the application link you are verifying that you have read the above eligibility information.
We will accept June applications through Monday, June 3.
Questions?
Check out our FAQs
Interested in additional resources and funding?
Check out our directory of grant and loan programs