Square Peg Foundation

The subject has come up lately about bringing in new horses and selling others. I've been faced with students, parents and supporters who feel like this reduces our horses to commodities to be bought sold or traded at will. It seems like time to debunk this train of thought.

First, for every horse for whom we find a wonderful home, we are able to receive, rescue, care for another soul. The number of horses in America who end up at slaughterhouses is staggering. This year, the number of horses sent to slaughter in the US and Canada is expected to be 100,000. The work we do at Square Pegs is committed to be "one horse, one student at a time." This is important work to us here.

Currently, with staff (that's me) and volunteers at this level, the 9 horses we are caring for today is about all we can handle. This means that each horse is cared for, groomed, vaccinated, has regular vet and hoof care, special diets and exercise and lesson plans appropriate to their mental and physical needs are attended to. If you have spent any time at the barn, you know that there is ALWAYS work to be done. During the short days of winter, darkness seems to fall about 20 minutes too soon. Our board bill would make you cry. And our board just recently went up!

Continue reading "Horses as Family?" »

Posted by Joell Dunlap at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, since I mentioned Guy I'll point you to his blog and a specific posting that is one of my favorite Guy-isms. It's a version of his commencement address that he's given a few times and it's a great illustration of why I read everything Guy puts out.

Let the Good Times Roll by Guy Kawasaki: Hindsights

The rest of Guy's blog is also some familiar stuff if you've already been reading Guy's books, but I think his blog will be worth following. I've certainly got it on my GoogleReader...

Posted by Chris Dunlap at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's great to see some folks in the Non-profit community paying attention to the sage advice of Guy Kawasaki:

Donor Power Blog: How to create charity evangelists

From the beginning, we've thought about how to create this sort of commitment and involvement with Square Peg Foundation. We know we have some good success with some individuals. But I always wonder what we might be missing. If you just talk to the folks who are already committed, then you won't find out what you need to do better if you want to hook the folks who are almost, but not quite, hooked.

Technorati Tags: philanthropy, evangelism, non-profit, SquarePeg

Posted by Chris Dunlap at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are on weather hold here on the coast again. It's been pouring rain here today, except when it isn't. The last month has been tough on us because this weather requires that we cancel lessons, and we never quite make them all up. That hurts program revenue and we're still running pretty tight financially.

The bad weather also means extra work for us. The horses stll need exercise, and we have to be especially careful of blanketing and other care to be sure our buddies don't all get sick.

Hopefully by next year we'll have a covered arena, making us at least a little bit more weather-proof!

Posted by Chris Dunlap at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our work generates stories. Lots of stories. We use these stories to hep people understand what we do, and we also use these stories to do what we do. The best stories work in both ways - supporting the growth of our program, and also supporting the work oof our program.

Our supporters and friends know this, of course. They want more. And we understand that we need to share stories more often and more widely. So that's the first purpose of this Blog.

The second purpose of this Blog is to share our thoughts and ideas. Sometimes this will be practical questions of expanding our network of support or administering the programs, and sometimes we will share ideas that are more philosophical regarding why we do what we do and how it works.

We will be sharing authorship of this Blog. At first, Joell and I will do the writing. But we hope to have some contrbutions from our students and supporters in the future. If you have ideas about this, please let us know!

Posted by Chris Dunlap at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)