Open Sanctuary Beats PayPal Fees — and Raises $15K+ for Free

The Open Sanctuary Project is an educational resource for anyone running an animal sanctuary. Every caregiver needs to be equipped with very specific knowledge to properly care for formerly abused and neglected animals. Otherwise, even the most well-meaning people could exacerbate the trauma that the animals they rescue have already experienced. The Open Sanctuary Project keeps these animals safe and happy from afar by offering endless educational materials and resources entirely for free. 

“To provide reliable, actionable knowledge to sanctuaries and individuals who want to be of service to rescued animals in order to help them live long, healthy, happy lives free of exploitation." - Mckenzee Griffler, Open Sanctuary Project Executive Director

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Background

When husband and wife team Shaleen and Shilpi Shah wanted to start a shelter for abused or neglected farm animals, they turned to Google. They needed to learn pretty much everything. How was a fledgling sanctuary to get the accreditations they needed? What did they need to do to prepare living spaces for the animals? The Shahs were sure someone, somewhere, must have published information on how to get started, but they were disappointed to find that no one had. 

The Shahs went forward anyway, founding their refuge, now called Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary, in 2015. And while they were learning how to do what they wanted to do, the Shahs made sure to take as many notes as possible. They began working with a journalist, Mckenzee Griffler, build a future where all sanctuaries had knowledge they could rely on. Three years later, the Open Sanctuary website went public, with Mckenzee Griffler as the Executive Director. 

“Since 2018, The Open Sanctuary Project has been researching sanctuary models and needs, conferring with sanctuary, animal advocacy, and nonprofit experts across the world, and developing resources to help animal sanctuaries have all the tools and information required to help their organizations thrive,” Griffler says. 

Open Sanctuary resources, all deeply researched by animal welfare scientists, lawyers, humane educators, and advocates, have helped people all over the world build more responsible and stable homes for animals. 

“Our resources have been put into use and endorsed by animal sanctuaries, animal rescue organizations, microsanctuaries, wildlife rehabilitation organizations, and other nonprofits worldwide,” Griffler says.

Hopeful sanctuary founders can trust the Open Sanctuary Project’s educational resources to help them through every step of opening their animal refuge. Open Sanctuary provides guides on everything from founding a first nonprofit to opening up a space for tours and volunteers. The guides even get into the specific differences between caring for species like horses, donkeys, and llamas.

The Open Sanctuary Project is no longer a project of the Shahs. They have focused their energy on caring for the hundreds of abused or neglected animals that come through their sanctuary. But they can rest easy, knowing that the next compassionate team that wants to open a haven for animals in need will not have to figure out everything on their own like the Shahs themselves had to.

The Open Sanctuary Project is the passion project of a small team, and it runs on a tight budget. They tried using both PayPal and Anedot to fundraise, but Griffler says the fees, especially the PayPal fees, were atrocious. 

“Our old fundraising solutions were clunky, far too complex for what they were offering in terms of getting reports and features, and SO expensive in terms of fees—it felt like we were being fined for just trying to do our mission,” Griffler says.

If there were other features they liked, the punishing PayPal fees may have been worth it. But, there simply was not enough functionality to offset the cost. The Anedot fees made Griffler and her team have to choose between having physical resources ready for interested sanctuary owners, a sure way to get that info into their hands, and paying for fundraising costs. That trade-off didn’t make sense to Griffler. Besides that, using the software was confusing for the Open Sanctuary team and their donors.

“The fees that we were losing due to our primary fundraising solutions were amounting to hundreds of dollars per year,” Griffler says. “For an organization with as lean a budget as ours, and serving hundreds of other organizations without imposing costs upon them, every dollar raised is critical for our operational sustainability. That means we were losing funding for essentials like software, website fees, and our printed materials that we distribute globally to help rescues run better.”

Griffler started searching for a better fundraising home for The Open Sanctuary Project. She knew what it took to rehome a farmed animal, but finding a new stable for an entire nonprofit was a different beast. 

Luckily, a friend at an animal sanctuary came to the rescue.

“We first learned about Zeffy from an animal sanctuary who was singing their praises,” Griffler says. “We didn't believe that such a platform was possible at first—it felt like we were looking back at our own mission of providing a service without imposing fees, except for our own benefit.”

Griffler decided to take a chance. She knew her team deserved the same compassionate, no-strings-attached care that her team trained founders to employ.

Today, Griffler is so glad she did. The Open Sanctuary Project uses Zeffy for all of their fundraising needs. Zeffy’s fee-free fundraising covers donation forms, online fundraising campaigns, and more personal peer-to-peer campaigns. 

Cutting fundraising fees out of their budget leaves The Open Sanctuary Project free to create more resources and to send them further across the globe, helping founders do more and ensuring animals on several continents live fuller, happier lives. The hundreds of dollars they used to spend on getting access to their own money now go to research and outreach. 

With access to Open Sanctuary resources, animal sanctuary teams spend fewer hours figuring out how to set up their spaces. That means they can focus on their charges, spending more time helping animals heal from lives of abuse and neglect. With access to Zeffy’s fee-free fundraising, The Open Sanctuary Project can spend less time fundraising and more time supporting the sanctuary teams who look to them for help. 

“Zeffy has transformed our relationship to fundraising,” Griffler says. “What used to feel labyrinthian and a little punishing feels so much more friendly and accessible—it makes us feel empowered to use the tools and expand our impact!”