A cheque to a rescue would have bought us a reputation in a week.
The trade
Partner with an established rescue and their credibility becomes yours immediately. The cost is that when someone asks what their $2 did, the true answer is "it entered a general fund and the charity spent it on something". Perfectly respectable. Just not evidence.
What owning the chain gets you
- A real receipt — an amount, a date, a shop.
- Our own photographs — that food, that place, that day.
- Nowhere to hide. A missed month is published as a miss.
What it costs us
Speed, mostly. Our impact page stays at zero while an operation gets built, where a partnership could have been announced immediately. It also does not scale the way writing a cheque does.
What we are not claiming
That we are better at cat welfare than an established rescue. We are almost certainly worse — they have vets, foster networks and decades of practice. If your goal is purely efficiency, donate to a rescue near you. Our claim is narrower: if you were buying a bracelet anyway, this one comes with an accounting you can check.