Help “The Animal Guide” App get funded- part 1!

The Animal Guide App is an app being built to serve as a centralized resource for anything animal-related. This includes everything from animal-related emergency situations, to centralizing local animal-related volunteer groups, to offering resources and exclusive deals for pet owners. We are fundraising for the app to be entered into the development phase and are asking for your help. 


The App will include features to support:

1. ANIMAL EMERGENCIES – The Animal Guide app will be the go-to place you turn when you have an animal-related emergency, so that you can get help for the animal in need quickly, efficiently and easily. Right now when you see something happen to an animal – like an animal getting hit by a car – or a skinny dog roaming the city by itself, most people feel bad seeing it but don’t necessarily have the time or knowledge of what to do to help. People who are good samaritans might band together and try to Google vet listings or wildlife emergency phone numbers on their phones or post to social media in these instances looking for others to help, but there is always a period of panic before it’s figured out – if anyone stops to help at all. These are valuable minutes of this animal’s life and they are desperately depending on us as humans to step up and do better, think smarter, quicker. And I want to believe that most humans want to help, but just don’t know how to. This app will be the place you turn to where you are directly connected to local assistance in case of emergencies, eliminating the “not knowing what to do” element in these instances.

 

2. MOBILIZING NEIGHBORS AS COMMUNITY SUPPORT – The Animal Guide app will allow regular people to become “Animal Community Volunteers” where you can receive alerts in your area and offer to help your neighbors with animal-related issues when they occur.  Say you are walking your dog down the street and he runs off. Instead of panicking, you can open the app and put a pin to your location, pinging your local volunteer community who has signed up to receive notifications, asking this grassroots volunteer community to be on the look out for the roaming pup, with available volunteers also coming out to join you in the search in real-time. This app will build a community of people in local areas who care about animals, backed with the resources to help, and thus linking us closer together with our furry friends who need us. It will also eliminate the need to post to multiple social media accounts and bulletin platforms, as this app will become the ONE centralized place everyone turns to for animal-related topics.

 

3. RESOURCES FOR PET OWNERS – The Animal Guide app will also serve as a guide to provide resources and services to pet owners with quick connects and reviews for local animal-related stores and services, like pet sitting, vet services, dog walking, pet grooming, pet meetups and forums for organizing play dates or discussing sick pets, etc.

4. EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNTS & OFFERS – The Animal Guide app will offer pet owners special pet-related discounts that can only be found on the app! Pet food, pet furniture and accessories, and everything you might need in order to take the best care of your pet will have special offers available which will be exclusive to users of this app.

 

5. HELP FOR VOLUNTEER GROUPS – The Animal Guide app will serve as an aid for animal-related volunteers who are out there doing the hard work right now with no (former) hope on the horizon of things changing. Help is now on the way! This app will serve as a place to get funding for your cause where you can post animal-related fundraisers and receive donations going directly to your animal in need, with as many eyes on your cause as users on the app. No more posting to your (limited) social media following asking for help when you have an entire app user base at your fingertips. 

6. FOSTERS, ADOPTIONS, LOST + FOUND – The Animal Guide app will be a centralized location for people to post and search for fosters and adoptions and a lost and found bulletin, as well as direct connects to local shelters.

7. TNR & CAT COLONY – For my cat community people, The Animal Guide app will offer education and resources for TNR courses and processes to help strays, with the ability to register a cat colony on a map pin, where users of the app can then sign up to help volunteer to help. Organizing within your local community will expand the reach of the people who are already doing this work to a larger user base with more available help, while spreading the educational importance of TNR work.

 

8. PET OWNER 101 – The Animal Guide app will also provide a valuable educational component to new pet parents. We are partnering with animal-related professionals and volunteers to provide “PET OWNER 101” forums, where within the app you can find free resources for anyone thinking about becoming a pet owner, to help ensure the best life possible for that animal.

9. I JUST LIKE ANIMALS AND WANT TO WATCH CUTE VIDEOS – We got you! We would not even dream of creating an animal app without the best part! The Animal Guide app will of course have a forum dedicated to posting and liking cute animal videos and photos all day long... without any other kind of content getting in your way. Just animal content on this app, always.

 

More features will be built and added as the app development process continues! The best part of all this? Using this app is absolutely FREE. Our goal is to help as many animals as possible and in doing so the app needs to be as easy to use and as accessible as possible so that it can reach as many humans as possible, and therefore as many animals as possible.

 

We as humans can do better in doing right by animals and The Animal Guide app intends to help us get there. So we are asking for help in raising the money to build this amazing resource in the same way that this app will be used – By creating a community of support. We are asking everyone and anyone who can to please donate whatever is in your means to help the app get fundraised, if you believe in this thing, and you care about animals, even if it is $2. We are also asking for everyone and anyone to help spread the word to your networks by posting a short video to your social media about why you believe in the app, what you want to use the app for, or what you love about the idea of having one app to help all animals. 

 

It is our passion in life to bring this valuable resource into the world in the form of an app, and we thank each and every one of you for your help in doing so.

 

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CALL FOR VIDEO SUBMISSIONS: If you're an animal lover and like the idea of this app, film a little selfie video of yourself telling us why! How would you use the app in your own life? What are the features you're most excited about having? Show us your pets! Don't forget to say the name of the app (The Animal Guide App) in your video and mention the fundraiser here on Go Fund Me. Post it to your social media with the hashtag #AnimalGuideApp and send us a copy for a chance for it to be included in our community montage reel! ([email redacted]). 

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BIO / HOW IT STARTED:

It started when I moved into a new Brooklyn apartment last summer with a yard, and one sweet orange kitty kept coming to my back door. No collar on, no ear tip, no way to know if she had a home and was just a friendly visitor, or if she needed help and food and shelter before the winter would come. I reached out to a local volunteer group that I had seen on Instagram and got some advice. I posted to NextDoor and to social media, and nobody claimed knowing her. Through the local volunteer group I was able to find someone who had a microchip scanner which I borrowed and found out out that she was registered and used to have a home. I contacted the previous owner through the microchip and discovered this cat was no longer wanted by her family, and therefore had been banished to the outside where she was fending for herself for food, water, shelter. So she lived in my yard now, and had chosen me to help her. After a few months of posting on her behalf to social media, reaching out to friends and other volunteer groups, and trying to socialize her with my own two cats (was not gonna happen), I was able to get her adopted. Now she’s loved and cared for in a permanent home, happy with her forever family, and is a lucky success story. But then more cats came…
 
Now there are four more regular stray cats in the yard – 3 who show up every day for food, and sleep in the shelter I placed outside for them when it is stormy or cold. And I’ve realized this is a much bigger issue than helping one cat. I got my TNR certification and connected with my neighbors about the new yard strays, setting up a regular feeding schedule in a group text to keep tabs on their wellbeing. I started following local volunteer groups on Instagram and am now witness to the staggering volume of animals who need help every single day, and the amazing work that these volunteers do. But they are flooded and overwhelmed and their networks for fosters or adoptions only go so far as their social media following. On a daily basis I see these volunteer groups struggling to find fosters or funds for vets or countless other issues they face, and the work is never ending, because people keep dumping animals on the street or not doing what’s best for an animal. And I realized, most people do not know what to do or how to actually help animals. There is right now no centralized resource for animals. We aim to change that, with the help of our community.

- Coco Tardiff, Founder of The Animal Guide App 

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Some of the kitties behind this app's inspiration: