About PetRescue

PetRescue is an animal welfare organisation and charity. We are not a volunteer rescue group. Our goal is to see a day when every pet is safe, respected and loved. We are focused on the bigger picture and work on longer term animal welfare programs to reach our goal. Although many of our programs and services have been created for our rescue group members and for the welfare of the pets in their care, providing this free support to rescue groups is just one aspect of our mission.

We also work across a number of projects and programs to improve outcomes for rescue pets in Australia, including:

PetRescue is an industry partner in the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation's community cat desexing trial.
Working with The University of Queensland to supply data and tech support to inform research into community cats.
Providing support for The University of Sydney project using artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve dog welfare.
Providing support for The University of Sydney pilot study into dog ownership/human health.
Running an event for tech-savvy individuals, to examine animal welfare problems from a fresh perspective and implement solutions, leveraging the latest advances in the tech world.
Trialling a helpline for a Foundation interested in supporting vulnerable pet owners.
Running a program that offers one-on-one support for older people who adopt pets.

Our mainstay programs and services include:

The PetRescue website which serves more than 35,000 sessions per day, connecting thousands of rescue pets with thousands of potential adopters at zero cost to rescue members and to the public.
A free online helpdesk for pet owners and pet seekers, which responded to 9,990 requests for assistance in the last 12 months.
Our food donation program, which has seen over $5.3 million worth of quality pet food distributed to rescue group members around Australia, working with our partners Mars Petcare and PETstock.
Free flights for pets, with 3 free flights per month coordinated for at-risk pets with our partner Jetpets.
The Adoptables - targeted, paid promotion for special needs and harder-to-rehome pets, with additional support from our partner PETstock Assist.
PetRescue & PETstock Assist National Pet Adoption Day - to give hundreds of rescue pets and families the chance to connect.
The Matchmakers project - developing and implementing tech solutions to overcome barriers to adoption and help rescue groups respond to all pet enquiries quickly and easily.
Skilled Volunteers program - connecting skilled volunteers from MARS Petcare with our rescue members, to deliver 1,000 hours of free professional services.
Safe & Sound Pounds - working to make Australia’s pounds a safe place for all pets by helping councils overcome the obstacles to introducing direct-from-pound adoptions.
Workplace Pet Foster - an innovative program transforming workplaces and tapping into a unique source of foster care support.
Meow’s The Time - a reduced-fee adult cat adoption campaign helping cats and Australians find love.
Free petcare goods - organising nationwide distribution of donated pet care essentials, such as free flea treatments for rescue pets.

Find out more about these programs and their impact.

PetRescue is the best pet adoption platform in the world, with Australia's largest searchable database of rescue pets, and the largest base of rescue groups in Australia. Our platform is built on cutting-edge digital strategy, a welfare-centric team, and strong, sustainable industry relationships. Our goal is to remain a sustainable organisation, to continue growing our programs and services, and to create radical change that challenges the big issues and improves outcomes for rescue pets in Australia.

Donations

PetRescue is a charity. We are not a fundraising agency, nor are we a foundation or an organisation that financially supports other charities.

100% of donations made to PetRescue go towards funding our animal welfare programs, including the operational costs of the PetRescue website. PetRescue.com.au is the single most effective digital tool in Australia for bringing potential adopters and rescue pets together, with more than 30,000 visits viewing 9,000+ rescue pets every day.

Although our website is free for rescue groups and the public to use, it is not free to run. Web hosting fees cost more than $7,000 per month, and ongoing web development is much more. Our detailed costs can be viewed in our fully audited financials available via the ACNC.

Paid staff

PetRescue is not a volunteer rescue group. We are a national digital-based animal welfare organisation with 15 staff.

From the beginning, we believed that people choosing to work in the animal welfare sector should be paid, and that there are currently far too few paid opportunities for people to choose this path.

PetRescue has the minimum legal requirement of company directors (3), two of whom are founders of PetRescue and work in the organisation. One is an external non-executive director and is not salaried. All staff, including directors, are paid based on the Probono Australian Salary Survey benchmarking report.

Pro Bono Australia’s highly regarded Salary Survey is the largest and most comprehensive report of its kind. It provides practical and in-depth information on selecting appropriate benchmarks and building a remuneration framework for Australia’s not-for-profit sector.

Our team members are not 'administration’ or ‘overheads' - they are project developers and co-ordinators, web developers, digital designers - they are the very people who create, develop and run all our programs and services, and without them, hundreds of thousands of rescue pets would never have had the chance to be spotted on our website and adopted as a result. As PetRescue grows, we hope to be able to offer more employment opportunities to those devoted to this cause.

Finances

PetRescue's fully audited financials are available on the ACNC website.

As we are a digital animal welfare organisation, people will always be our biggest outgoing expense - it's our people who create and run our programs.

We offer fair pay and excellent working conditions (including access to paid maternity leave, sick leave, carers leave, annual leave and superannuation) for our staff.

We believe people working in animal welfare deserve the same rights and benefits as people working in any other industry, and we're proud to offer these benefits.

Fundraising campaigns

PetRescue undertakes two major fundraisers a year - one at Christmas, and one at tax time to support the website and digital services.

Tax time fundraising appeal

PetRescue’s 2018 tax time appeal was launched in early May. This appeal used a pop-up and asked web users who find our service useful to consider donating to support it.

2017 Christmas fundraising appeal - ‘Desexmas’

This appeal raised $36,000 toward the creation of a new online donation platform, which enables the public to donate money directly to rescue groups via their PetRescue pet listings. We also allocated $12,000 of our existing funds to help get this project started.

If the money raised by this campaign was donated directly to members, each rescue group would receive a one-off payment of $50.52. But, as our members have told us their biggest challenge is funding, we instead developed a way for groups to use their listings as a new funding stream. Public donations go directly to the individual rescue group, they are not pooled and PetRescue does not receive a cut - we just bear the costs.

PetRescue HQ

PetRescue recently moved offices. Our previous office was next to a brothel in Northbridge, Perth. Our lease was up, and we have since moved to a new office 600 metres away which provides better safety and access for our employees. The new office is much better value, and can accommodate our growing team, as it is considerably cheaper to employ web developers in-house than to outsource web development to other companies.

Puppy farm advertising

The PetRescue website uses Google ads. We block all breeders, puppy farmers and other inappropriate ads. However, some breeders and puppy farmers are targeting the PetRescue website and will use fake categories when listing their ads with Google to get past the existing bans. Google ads display differently for each user, depending on their previous internet history. If you see an inappropriate ad on the PetRescue website, please get the URL by clicking on the ad and report it immediately to info@petrescue.org.au.

Got any questions, or need any further information? Please get in touch via info@petrescue.org.au.

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