Reasons to celebrate: Nutmeg turns two!

At Nutmeg Animal Welfare, we’re excited and optimistic about the future. Every so often, though, it’s altogether appropriate to take a moment to reflect on the past.

May 14 marks the two-year anniversary of our incorporation back in 2014, and we’ve come a long way in that relatively short time – from nothing more than an ambitious idea to a full-fledged non-profit organization delivering relief of all kinds to needy animals everywhere.

Today, we’ll focus on the strides we’ve made around the world – and around the corner – over the past 12 months. Then, we’ll turn our attention back to where it’s most needed: on the present and future.

Since our Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors in May 2015, Nutmeg has turned a number of its lofty goals into tangible realities. Highlights include:

• Launching our website, nutmeg.global, whose unique address both reflects our organization’s mission to care for needy animals everywhere around the world and offers donors a convenient way to contribute financially anytime, from anywhere on Earth;
• Increasing the number of donors who contributed financially to Nutmeg from the previous year;
• Delivering more food, water, and other materials to distressed animals, while maintaining our commitment to allocate no less than 75 percent of every dollar on direct relief supplies and support;
• Expanding our partner base by establishing working relationships and vital contacts with respected animal welfare organizations and individual activists in Barcelona (Spain), Amman (Jordan), and Jerusalem (Israel), as well as throughout our home state of Rhode Island and elsewhere in the United States;
• Fulfilling our promise to every donor to provide them with thorough documentation of how, where, how much of, and on whom their contributions were spent, to give them peace of mind that their generosity is being apportioned responsibly and making a significant difference;
• Serving on the Town of North Providence (RI, USA) Animal Shelter Advisory Committee, a body hand-picked by the town’s mayor and tasked with overseeing the construction of a new, improved, modern facility to replace the current antiquated structure, which serves North Providence and surrounding areas;
• Adding website developer and fellow animal lover Michael J. Groh to our Board of Directors;
• Broadening our social media presence with a Nutmeg Facebook page;
• Receiving our first media attention with a pair of written articles in the Valley Breeze, a publication serving the Town of North Providence and surrounding communities.

As Nutmeg enters year three, we continue to build upon our solid foundation of supporters and network of partners. Our organization is ever looking for ways to spread Nutmeg’s message through a variety of channels.

Short- and long-term goals include:

• Organizing our first-ever, official fundraiser to bolster our financial holdings and thereby provide even more much-needed direct relief to needy animals;
• Coordinating with activists in Jordan to help them fulfill their goal of establishing the Kingdom’s first and only government-sanctioned animal welfare organization;
• Meeting with leaders of other established animal welfare organizations and animal product companies to discuss areas of common interest and potential collaboration;
• Returning to already-visited cities such as Budapest (Hungary), Barcelona, and Jerusalem to provide much-needed free veterinary care and construction improvements to existing animal facilities there;
• Generating more news coverage about Nutmeg in various media to increase awareness of our organization and the animal welfare causes we address;
• Recruiting talented, passionate individuals to add to our volunteer support network and Board of Directors.

As we’ve traveled the United States and the world over this past year, we’ve faced the unpleasant reality that there is no shortage of work for Nutmeg to do – perhaps more than we or any animal welfare group can possibly ever accomplish.

Even so, that won’t stop us from trying. We hope you’ll join us. ETS