The Kenneth A. Scott Charitable Trust is a private foundation focused on preventing cruelty to animals and promoting the humane treatment of animals, particularly companion animals such as dogs and cats, and other species of animals commonly kept as household pets. The Foundation also supports efforts to protect the well-being of urban-suburban native wildlife, captive exotic wildlife, farmed animals, working animals, and non-human animals generally.

Organizations in Ohio and portions of the other seven states in the Great Lakes watershed (including IL, IN, MI, WI, Western PA, Upstate NY, and Northeastern MN), reflecting the origin of Mr. Scott’s assets.  The Trust will not consider unsolicited requests from organizations based in other parts of the country, or fund activities taking place outside the USA.

Prior to beginning the application process, please submit a one-page letter of inquiry (LOI) by email only to the Executive Director, Karen Kannenberg at director@kennethscottcharitabletrust.org.

Eligible activities:

The Trust invites proposals for projects to advance the quality of life for owned, homeless, or wild animals or to address root causes of animal cruelty and neglect. The highest priority is helping organizations go beyond the “basics” with projects that will provide an enhanced quality of life for homeless and suffering animals today and in the future.  

The following activities are illustrative of the types of supported projects:

• Animal Adoption, Behavior Training, and Fostering projects to increase the number and percentage of successful adoptions from shelters or rescue groups, or other non-capital means of expanding shelter capacity.

• Continuing Education & Training for agency staff or volunteers, to improve the delivery of care (generally in a multi-agency conference or training format), and initiatives to improve and diversify recruitment and retention of volunteers and staff.

• Humane & Wildlife Education in schools and other community settings, particularly with under-resourced or culturally isolated youth, or adult educational campaigns, such as re: keeping cats safely indoors, getting pets ID’ed and vaccinated, or co-existing with urban-suburban native wildlife.

• Medical, Rehabilitation, and Wellness Care for Animals, as in initiating the practice of shelter medicine or wildlife medicine at animal shelters or nature centers, improving access to affordable veterinary care for owned companion animals in under-resourced urban/rural areas, or giving special attention to pets of socially vulnerable populations -- lower-income households, domestic violence victims, senior citizens -- or to retirees from racing or other careers.

• Pet & Feral Animal Population Control through Spay/Neuter programs targeting assistance based on need, generally for owned pets of lower or fixed-income households, for incentive programs encouraging adoptions from public shelters, to help shelters implement a spay/neuter-before-adoption policy, or humanely control numbers of free-roaming community cats or dogs.

• Equipment directly benefiting homeless or injured animals (matching funds may be required for amounts over $10,000).

• Information Technology upgrades ($5,000 maximum, limit of one request in 5 years).

• Other Animal Care Initiatives, such as disaster and emergency planning, preparedness, and response training; special enforcement expenses associated with patterns of animal cruelty in hoarding cases, puppy mill seizures, and dogfighting; projects that celebrate the human-animal bond with companion animals; or wildlife protection focused on native species typical of the Ohio and Great Lakes region, especially involving challenges at the interface between human civilization and the lives of wild creatures.

Preference will be given to organizations established for more than five years with an annual budget exceeding $50,000.