First Steps / Forward Steps Grants

First Steps / Forward Steps Grants is sponsored by The Binky Foundation. The Binky Foundation offers streamlined grant programs for fledgling animal welfare organizations, including shelters, rescue groups, and TNR programs. These grants provide initial financial support.

Our Grant Program | The Binky Foundation Our Grant Program Philosophy Although there are many organizations nationwide that are involved in various aspects of animal and habitat protection, most are focused on “big picture” issues. Yet frequently the smallest efforts properly focused can become the seeds from which substantial efforts grow.

At The Binky Foundation we recognize that the resources for starting an initiative are often the hardest to obtain. Thus, our grant program is focused on assisting young organizations seeking to take those initial steps that are critical to achieving a significant benefit or advancement toward protecting animals and their habitats.

As one of the few funding organizations that considers grants to new animal welfare organizations, The Binky Foundation seeks to encourage new groups, in addition to having a passion for helping animals, to understand the hard truth that running a successful animal welfare group is also a business requiring skill sets and planning. First Steps/Forward Steps Grant Program Tiny receives the best letter ever!

(Tiny Cat Animal Rescue) For the six years prior to January 1, 2026, The Binky Foundation offered a streamlined grant program for small recently formed animal welfare organizations – no-kill shelters, rescue groups, TNR programs and others – providing at its option $1000 “First Steps” grants to such entities meeting the program’s three-step criteria designed to help them recognize that running such an organization requires a certain level of business acumen and planning as well as a passion for animals.

See “First Steps” Grants below for the current status of the program. In addition, The Binky Foundation considers follow-up “invitation only” grants to prior First Steps grant recipients that have demonstrated the value and efficacy of its business plan, and success in striving for a sustainable model (See “Forward Steps” Grants below).

We are sorry to report that our First Steps Grant Program has been discontinued effective as of January 1, 2026, a victim of its own success.

Please see the letter from our Founders explaining this difficult decision and the exciting new collaboration with a National animal welfare organization to ensure the continuation of the spirit of the First Steps Program, and also to preview the refocusing of the Binky Foundation to continue to provide “helpful tools for new groups to acquire the business skills and planning practices necessary for transforming a keen passion for helping animals into a sustainable animal welfare organization.

” The full text of the Founders Letter to the Friends of The Binky Foundation is accessible here . However . .

. Binky Incentive Award Program Although our First Steps Grant Program is closed, we are pleased to report that the Nationally recognized animal welfare organization, Best Friends Animal Society , in collaboration with our founders, has introduced the BINKY INCENTIVE AWARD program designed to assist newer animal welfare organizations achieve a more sustainable future through education, training and planning.

Here is the link to the program webpage. We are excited to support this program to help ensure that the spirit of our discontinued First Steps Grant Program lives on. Here is a link to the BINKY INCENTIVE AWARD program offered by Best Friends.

The Foundation will continue awarding follow-up grants at the Foundation’s discretion to prior First Steps grant recipients that have demonstrated the value and efficacy of its business plan, and success in striving for a sustainable model. These follow-up or “Forward Steps” grants are by invitation only. First Steps grantees that received their grants more than 12-months ago may be invited to apply for a follow-up Forward Steps grant.

The awarding of any further grant to a prior grant recipient, and the amount of any such grant if awarded, is at the sole discretion of The Binky Foundation. The follow-up Forward Steps grants to prior grant recipients is by invitation only . there is no application form for Forward Steps grants.