As many of you are aware, we have up until now been a self-funding rescue. Tony and I have always worked and we have not solicited funds for doing what we do. We are both in principle, opposed to asking for support to do something that is our choice.
We did run a gofundme for post mortems and forensic tests but that money is strictly for that purpose. We have raised it for those reasons and we have an audit and justification process to go through before funds are released. This is exactly as it should be as it isn’t our money but other people’s money that has been donated for very specific purposes.
A number of you lovely people have offered us donations which we have up until now turned down, for the reasons stated above.
However, we are now at a point where we needed to decide whether we carry on being a focal point of this investigation or whether Tony goes back to full time work.
We have spent the last few weeks throwing this back and forth between ourselves and as today amply demonstrated, this needs at least one of us working on it full time.
So we have finally (apologies for the delay, we really both are uncomfortable with this) come to the decision that if we are to carry on, we need to accept donations.
The money will be spent on petrol costs, food, litter, car expenses, housing, all the usual things we need to continue in two separate houses, which is essential, considering that the welfare and happiness of the cats in our care.
We will be keeping a full set of books and we will, once this is over, be looking to go down the route of becoming a proper charity.
Currently, we spend around £600 a month on food, litter, vets bills and medication and this is before we factor in both mortgages and associated costs of running two homes, investigation costs, phone bills (which have rocketed lately) etc.
We have also debated long and hard about how we accept funds. The need to keep our location secret is a factor, also gofundme and other fundraising sites take a substantial cut.
We will never be a charity that spends donations on admin or advertising and the thought of people’s hard earned money being spent on “admin” is repugnant.
After a fair amount of research, we think PayPal is the best option for now.
Apologies again for previously appearing to be ungrateful, we are not at all (we have a big thank you post to do regarding our wish list) – we just really needed to think hard about this before we made any decisions around it.
Thank you so much for your support, offers of help and offers to donate. As of today, we will be accepting them.
Our PayPal is tjenko64@aol.com. If you wish to donate but don’t use PayPal, let us know by private message and we will find a way forward.
Thank you all very much and apologies again for the time it’s taken to make this decision.
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