Rolling Dog Farm

Rolling Dog Farm is fundamentally an operating foundation — a direct-service animal sanctuary for disabled dogs (and, via its companion site BlindHorses.org, blind horses) founded by Steve Smith and Alayne Marker in December 2000 in Montana and relocated to Lancaster, New Hampshire in 2010 — not a traditional grantmaking institution seeking applicants. Despite holding $9.12 million in assets and carrying an IRS "is_grantmaker: true" classification, its own tax filings show that the overwhelming share of its ~$440,000-$507,000 in annual reported "giving" is program-service expenditure on its own sanctuary operations (staff, veterinary care, animal husbandry), not third-party grants. Across the 13 fiscal years reviewed (2011-2023) plus a 2024 figure from Instrumentl, actual grants disbursed to outside organizations totaled roughly $5,500 combined, appearing in only 3 of those years (2020: $2,000; 2021: $3,000; 2023: $500), against $0 in 2012-2019, 2022, and 2024. Grant seekers should treat any outside funding from Rolling Dog Farm as incidental and relationship-driven rather than the product of a formal, competitive program. There is no grants page, published RFP, LOI process, or "how to apply" section anywhere on rollingdogfarm.org — the organization's own database record lists application_instructions as "__none__" with application_form_url, opportunities_url, and grants_page_url all blank. The two known outside grants (to Riverside Rescue in Vermont and Valley River Humane Society in North Carolina) read as founder-directed courtesy gifts to peer rescues, plausibly arising from personal relationships Smith and Marker have built in the sheltering world, not an open call for proposals. First-time applicants should not submit unsolicited proposals through a portal — none exists. The more realistic path is a direct relationship: engage with the organization's public content (blog, newsletter), reference specific animal-placement or veterinary-partnership needs, and approach as a peer sanctuary or shelter rather than a generic nonprofit seeking a check. With combined officer compensation of $160,205-$174,886 across the years on file for a lean two-to-three-person leadership team, expect correspondence to go directly to Smith or Marker rather than to a grants department — there isn't one.

Total assets grew from $2.37 million (2011) to $9.12 million (most recent record), nearly quadrupling over roughly 13 years, driven by steady contributions ($390,050-$1,033,961/year) plus investment income that peaked at $243,986 in 2023. Total revenue ranged from $455,854 (2020) to $1,042,091 (2023). "Total giving" — the organization's Part IX operating/program-expense line — has stayed remarkably flat at $439,599-$507,416 per year across all 13 years on file (average roughly $470,000/year), reflecting the steady-state cost of running the physical sanctuary (feeding, housing, and veterinary care for a rotating population of disabled dogs and horses) rather than a scaling grants budget. Actual third-party grants (grants_paid) are separate and minuscule: $0 in 8 of the 13 years on file, spiking briefly to $2,000 (2020), $3,000 (2021), and $500 (2023) — a combined identifiable total of about $5,500 in outside grants against roughly $6.1 million in cumulative reported program spending over the same years. Per the grantee database, only 3 tracked outside grants exist: two to Riverside Rescue (Vermont, $4,000 combined, purpose "Operations") and one to Valley River Humane Society (North Carolina, $1,000, purpose "Operation") — an average grant size of $1,667, both operating-support gifts rather than program or capital grants. The foundation's own record leaves typical_grant_size, funding_cycle, and geographic_focus fields entirely null, consistent with the absence of a structured program. Officer compensation climbed from $65,230 (2011) to a peak of $174,886 (2021) before easing to $160,205 (2023), tracking overall organizational growth, with the two named officers (Smith and Marker) each drawing $67,496 in the most recent year captured. In short, this is an asset-rich but grants-poor foundation: a $9.12 million balance sheet signals capacity for major giving, but 13 years of filings show almost none of it flowing externally — it is almost entirely reinvested in direct animal care. Grant seekers evaluating Rolling Dog Farm on assets alone will substantially overestimate its accessibility as an outside funding source.

All five organizations cluster tightly in the $8.8-9.5 million asset band, placing Rolling Dog Farm within a recognizable tier of small-to-mid animal-focused private foundations rather than as an outlier. Unlike Charlies Acres, which maintains a public website with programmatic detail, three of the four peers (Linda Rambler Conservancy Trust, Angela D Collier Foundation, Lalli Charitable Foundation) have no public web presence at all — reinforcing that this asset tier of animal foundation tends toward closed, non-solicited giving rather than open, competitive grant programs. Applicants should assume every foundation in this cohort requires a warm introduction rather than a cold application unless direct evidence (a working grants portal or published RFP) proves otherwise.

Rolling Dog Farm's recent activity is entirely direct-service, not grantmaking. In December 2025, the sanctuary took in Winnie, a blind foxhound from Massachusetts whose owner had lost housing and could no longer care for her. In the first week of January 2026, it welcomed Camille, a blind dog transferred from a Georgia shelter. Its most recent formal donor communications are the 2023 Annual Report and a Winter/Holiday 2024 newsletter, both still the latest editions available on its website as of this research. No news, blog post, or filing found indicated any 2025 or 2026 grant awards to outside organizations, consistent with the $0 external grants recorded for 2022 and 2024. Leadership has remained stable and unchanged since founding: Steve Smith (Executive Director) and Alayne Marker (Operations Director) have run the organization together since its 2000 launch as Rolling Dog Ranch in Montana and its 2010 relocation to New Hampshire, with Laura Whale serving as an uncompensated board Director. Historical media coverage was extensive but is now over a decade old — USA Today (2007, 2009), People Magazine (2007), the Today Show (2007), AARP Bulletin (2008), an ASPCA honor covered by the Missoulian (2009), New Hampshire's Union Leader (2012), and earlier features in the Spokesman-Review (2006), Dog Fancy (2009), and Bark Magazine (2006), plus a 2006 KSPS TV Spokane segment on founders Smith and Marker. No comparable national press coverage has recurred in 2025-2026; current public activity is limited to routine animal-intake updates on the blog and newsletter rather than programmatic or funding news.

There is no formal grant application to optimize for timing, format, or review criteria — the organization's own record lists application_instructions as "__none__" and leaves application_form_url and opportunities_url blank, and no grants page exists on rollingdogfarm.org. Do not submit a cold, formal proposal package; there is no process to receive or route it. The two documented outside grants — to Riverside Rescue (Vermont, $2,000 average per grant) and Valley River Humane Society (North Carolina, $1,000) — both read as small, direct operating-support gifts to fellow animal-rescue organizations, suggesting the realistic path is peer-to-peer outreach rather than institutional grant-seeking. If your organization is a rescue, shelter, or sanctuary — especially one working with disabled, senior, or otherwise "unadoptable" animals, or operating in New England — lead with that specific alignment; it is the closest match to Rolling Dog Farm's own niche and to its only known outside gifts. Keep any request small and concrete: historical outside grants ran $1,000-$2,000 each, so framing an ask in that range is far more credible than pursuing a four- or five-figure program grant based on the $9.12 million asset total, which is overwhelmingly committed to the organization's own animal-care operations. Correspondence should go directly to Executive Director Steve Smith or Operations Director Alayne Marker via the site's Contact Us page — there is no grants officer or committee to address. A common mistake would be treating this foundation like a typical mid-size private funder with a review cycle; with $0 in outside grants recorded in 8 of the last 13 tax years on file, there is no predictable cycle to time an approach around, and persistence or follow-up is unlikely to change the outcome. Because Smith and Marker run a lean, hands-on two-person leadership team (each drawing $67,496 in the most recent year on record) devoted to daily animal care, the most effective alignment language references concrete shared work — e.g., a specific disabled animal placement, a veterinary partnership, or a transfer arrangement — rather than generic nonprofit funding language about "advancing animal welfare." Given how thin and inconsistent the external-giving history is, this foundation should be treated as a long-shot, relationship-only prospect rather than a core part of any funding pipeline.