Horse rescues, does anyone investigate them?

[Displaced_Yankee]

I will take a stab answering your questions…considering I have prepared 990’s.

• For 2023, they took in $168,444 in contributions/donations from the public
• They paid out $119,230 in grants, specifically listing “209 grants for emergency feed, critical vet care and post disaster repair”
• They had and additional $94,603 in expenses, such as subcontractors, rent, utilities, printing, postage, etc.
• They took in $95 of merch sales
• They own no land or buildings, nor any depreciable property (desks, computers)
• They do have debt to someone(s) in the amount of $187,000ish thousand…but it appears that no payments are being made on that debt.
• They have no employees
• They get 99.99% of their funds from donations
• Their grants are listed as for “emergency feed and services for equines in crisis due to natural disasters and other major emergencies”

@sami-joe

Besides their totally volunteer evacuation horse trailer team and fully volunteer year-round staff, it seems FoA exists, in part, to rescue struggling horse rescues via grants.

I see no reference to horse rescue organizations on their 990, only equines affected by natural or major disasters. Did I miss it? (It is October 14th, I may have!)

@sami-joe

Their budget looks tiny given the number of disasters since they gained not-for-profit status in 2018.

Hard to tell, the budget is not included on the 990. But 70% of their contributions appear to be going back out as assistance to horse owners.

@sami-joe

what happens to the donations provided by businesses when there are no “gift/donations in kind” listed on their documents?

What line are you looking at for this?

@sami-joe

Do those businesses take income reducing tax deductions anyway? Do they eat the loss? Most private people donating to FoA don’t claim deductions because they don’t itemize, right?

If one legitimately donated to a 501©3, then yes, deductible on the biz or personal tax return…regardless of what the non-profit did with the money. If the non-profit loses it’s 501©3 status then the IRS is more concerned with the non-profit, less than tracking down those who donated in good faith.

On the personal side…it is true that since Don Trump’s tax law that fewer people are utilizing itemized deductions. But that is no hard fast rule. Everyone has different circumstances so the married couple next door may itemized deductions while the married couple on the OTHER side of you may not. It depends. It was interesting in 2020 and 2021 when the IRS said you could deduct $300 ($600 filing jointly) in contributions, regardless of whether or not you itemized or not.

I hope this helps! I have been crunching personal tax returns all day…so if I missed anything, just ask!

[sami-joe]

Thank you for your interest in this weird pursuit.

Using Tax Exempt Organization search tool and the ID number, 463895690, I found returns going back to 2013 when Elaine Nash and FoA filed as a private foundation in the IRS’s so-called postcard program.

Right, while they have no employees, at least back in 2014, the founder said that she worked 60–80 hours per week with no compensation. In the most recent filing, the doc says she works 10 hours per week and that none of the directors/board members work at all. No one receives any compensation. That seems odd to me.

Is that plausible when she’s on every horse person’s FB page beating the drum for donations?

As for the “gift in kind” section, I think I’m old and that’s what that sort of donation was called long, long ago. Now it appears on the 990 as “noncash property given.” Those sections are blank in every FoA return I’ve seen.

While I fully understand that reporters can get things wrong, this paragraph from an Oneonta, NY local news site seems like misrepresentation: Fleet of Angels is equipped with trucks and an organizational team that will be picking up the horse supplies from Rosemary Farm [in Oneanta, NY] and taking them to the crisis areas in North Carolina next week.

As of today, a news search for “Fleet of Angels” shows a fair amount of money coming in this week from the equestrian community, and I know at least one person donating her time, fuel, trailer space to the cause. Agreed, it’s unlikely that anyone will check whether my sister’s donation claim is real come tax time 2025. Still, as a person who thinks taxes are what we decide to do together, I want everyone who makes that choice to show up in the calculus on both sides of the ledger.

Though I probably have more questions, I’ll stop for now. Thanks again for your willingness to look at this with me.

[Jumptoit1]

Horse Angels / Penny Parker - Oxford PA
Omega Horse Rescue / Kelly Smith - Airville PA

[Scribbler]

Could this organization work to do two things?

Collect donations to aid horse owners in crisis

And serve as an organizing hub for volunteers to go rescue horses using their own equipment

When you volunteer for an organization you typically don’t consider your work time gas materials etc a donation, but it’s possible people are writing off their own volunteer expenses without the organization issuing receipts or accounting that work as a donation. I don’t know how any small organization could accurately evaluate and account for the “donation” part of a fleet of rescue volunteers using their website or FB as an organizing hub.

The money here is very small potatoes. We have a group with no paid employees taking in under $170,000 annually and disbursing most in emergency. When the organizer says they don’t work they mean they aren’t a paid employee. Obviously all board members of any organization put in a lot of volunteer hours running the thing or doing social media. The IRS does not care whether you volunteer one hour or 60 hours a week for your non-profit as long as this doesn’t involve wages that need to be accounted for.

I feel like this is such a small organization no horses under its direct care that it’s likely doing more good despite glitches in their report. As long as they money is going out where they state, not embezzled, I’m not too worried.

And yes the newspaper story conflated teams of volunteers organizing through FB with the organization having its own gear

People go spend their time and cash rescuing horses in all kinds of disasters

[sami-joe]

The first appears to be a small rescue with donations less than $50,000, so they don’t have to fill out much paperwork to maintain their 501c3 status.

Omega has a larger operation and their numbers look plausible.

This is their 2022 return. Omega9902022.pdf (5.7 MB)

[sami-joe]

@Scribbler

I don’t know how any small organization could accurately evaluate and account for the “donation” part of a fleet of rescue volunteers using their website or FB as an organizing hub.

Maybe they can’t be perfectly accurate. They could make an attempt to count those efforts as part of their business model, though.

When I donate time editing or writing, I know exactly what my time is worth. The handful of years that I itemized, I reduced my income including those donations.

I am not trying to eviscerate a group doing good work. My quibble is with the apparent squishy-ness and lack of a paper trail for the non-cash donations.

[Scribbler]

Let’s say a horse rescue group also ran a FB group that served as a clearinghouse for drivers with rigs willing to rescue private horses in a disaster zone. We have organizations here that coordinate rescues during wildfires, so I’m familiar with the model.

If Suzy takes her stock truck up into the mountains and picks up Betty’s three personally owned ponies and drives them down to the emergency stabling at the rodeo grounds, where a local rescue group is distributing free hay donated by a local feed store, who is Suzy donating to?

The feed store is obviously donating to the local rescue group. But Suzy is moving a privately owned horse. It’s even possible that the horse owner will be able to pay her something. Often these horses need rescuing from fires because the owner doesn’t have a rig or has already been evacuated, not because the owner is dead broke.

Anyhow, it’s clear that Suzy is doing a brave and wonderful thing (driving into a fire to rescue three frightened and skittish strange horses). But it’s not clear to me that Suzy is donating her time and equipment to the rescue the same way as if she did their accounting for free or used her tractor to Harrow the paddocks at the rescue ranch.

I think a more workable model would be for the rescue to give the volunteer evacuation drivers some payment towards gas, if the organization can afford it.

But then the rules are different in Canada and you can’t make a charitable donation for a tax write off unless you donate to an actual charity and recieve a receipt. You couldn’t just estimate what your time was worth for some non-profit and claim that.

[Jumptoit1]

What about rescues lead by an individual that uses donations they say are for rescue to pay their personal loans, bills, mortgages etc ?

[Scribbler]

@Jumptoit1

What about rescues lead by an individual that uses donations they say are for rescue to pay their personal loans, bills, mortgages etc ?

If the “rescue” is not constituted as a non-profit then there is no oversight at all. Any person can put up a GoFundMe for the dumbest stuff and see if anyone takes the bait. Likewise anyone can run FB begging posts for their private “rescue” hoarder farm.

If you give someone a gift they are not obligated to spend it on what they say they will. If you are buying an item or service for your own use, obviously it’s fraud if the seller doesn’t provide the thing you bought.

But if you give your flaky friend or adult child $100 for groceries and they spend it at the nail salon, there is no recourse. Or if you send $1000 to your online boyfriend romance scammer for some stupid reason.

Same with one person private “rescues.” You give them money, no one cares how they spend it.

You (g) need to research your chosen charities a bit.

[Annie10]

@Jumptoit1

What about rescues lead by an individual that uses donations they say are for rescue to pay their personal loans, bills, mortgages etc ?

Turn them in to the IRS, at least in the US

[Annie10]

In my state, FL, you have to be registered with the state in order to solicit donations. You DO NOT have to be a 501. However, if you want the tax write off for your donations, you need to donate to a 501 and get a receipt.
Some of the rules have also changed so that if you donate something and value it at more than $500 you need to have an appraisal
To go with it.

[OverandOnward]

This is an endless subject. Oversight of all 501(c )3’s and not-for-profits is uneven or absent. They range the gamut from the good, the bad and the indifferent.

It is very easy for a well-intentioned rescue to end up over its head, and not functioning very well. A way this happens is that some rescues find it difficult to admit that they are not equipped to solve every problem. And all rescues have limits on capacity. It is hard to turn away a horse in need.

One thing that is a red flag for me is a rescue that is constantly notifying its followers and donors of an impending crisis for which it needs immediate funds.

Frequently almost out of hay, desperate to afford a new truckload before they run out. Can’t get local vets to work with them any more, so desperate for funds for travel to a vet who will take them, before the animal’s life is in jeopardy. Must bail out an auction horse before it goes on the truck to Mexico. And so on.

People, donors, respond to that. It makes them feel good to have “saved” some situation, at the last minute. (That’s why online sales barns “shipping on ___” use it.)

The constant “need money before [catastrophic consequences on a date certain]” really need a close investigative review, imo. Maybe they are just bad managers. But maybe it is something else. But there are no standing review agencies.

[redandwhite]

i follow Penny on facebook. i remember her bidding on some absolutely starved ancient arabians and finding them a home. I definitely cried. those poor horses thrown to auction. i hope she’s not too scammy in real life. she seems (SEEMS) to be doing a decent job.

[Jumptoit1]

In my experience with both of those rescues they are scammy
Penny is more of a dealer/broker
Kelly only buys horses at the sale that she knows she can adopt out to make a profit. She lets all the ones get bought by the dealers and then bids up on something that would obviously have a home with a private buyer
Both only take in rough cases here and there to make their Facebook pages look good and to raise money
All in all I think both use the term “rescue” loosely and they both have pretty nice personal properties that these donations are paying for

[OverandOnward]

I hate to use the word ‘common’, but it has been a tactic for a barn to supposedly run a rescue on the side. And yes, the donations are going to support the owner’s horses and riding, with a few skinnies coming through here and there.

I believe there is now an IRS rule that rescues cannot be located on the same space as a commerical horse facility (boarding/lessons/training). The rescue facility has to be separately located.

Also this can make it harder for more legit, honestly intentioned rescues to operate. For example, for a boarding and/or lesson facility that has the space and the heart for it, it would be easier to do good things for a one or two rescue horses at a time, if they could do it on the premises and accept donations to help with their often considerable expenses. But maybe there are legit ways around that.

Rescuing horses can be very expensive. It’s not like they move on to good grass and graze their way to health. They have often developed bad health conditions that need vet interventions. I know one rescue who estimated that they spend at least $1,000 per rescue just for initial rehab, some horses more, some less.

[StormyDay]

@redandwhite

i follow Penny on facebook. i remember her bidding on some absolutely starved ancient arabians and finding them a home. I definitely cried. those poor horses thrown to auction. i hope she’s not too scammy in real life. she seems (SEEMS) to be doing a decent job.

I think she’s kind of a mix of both. I think she really loves horses and tries to save the ones that are definitely not going to end up in a good place. But, on the other hand, she has clients who tell her ‘I’m looking for x breed, sex, and age.’ And when she finds one she bids on it, and it’s not meat price. She’s been the intermediary for pretty expensive (for auctions) horses. There was a horse I was interested in at one and she was pretty straight up with me; she had other clients looking at the same one too and she didn’t think it was going to go for less than 12k she was pretty close on the number and another client purchased that horse and used her for quarantine.
I think if she had her way she would focus only on the ones in bad shape, but that doesn’t pay the bills. Having someone pay her for quarantine for the horse they purchased from the auction does.

[Angela_Freda]

@StormyDay

Having someone pay her for quarantine for the horse they purchased from the auction does.

The “head” of CBER ended up doing that, on fields the rescue paid to fence and put sheds on, I believe. Plus I think they were not great about truly quarantining new arrivals away from older ones, in order to avoid potential disease spread.
That was well after I saw the light with that one and had walked away.
AC4H did the same I believe.

Nothing truly new under the sun, not even ways to scam