You need to have money first, to become a non-profit.

Ironic, isn’t it? The whole point of non-profits is that they don’t make any money, and yet, you need a sizable wad of cash to become one.

It starts out small. Pick a name, pay $10 to the town clerk to register it. Pay $50 to the state to register as a non-publicly-traded company. Another $50 after you’ve registered to confirm registration. Another $50 to register as a charity to be able to hold fundraisers (a yearly fee which can be waived if you’re receiving less than $50K/year, which I’m sure I’ll never reach). Then there’s the task of becoming a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit, which carries a fee of $600 for filing (though for some reason, different websites estimate more or less to the tune of $300 in either direction, as if that’s not a big difference). This process can take months or years. Lawyers need to get involved, who you also have to pay.

I have gotten started, though, with the local paperwork. I figure I’ll do the cheapest and easiest first and work my way up. In the meantime, I’ve been looking into getting funding as an individual, which is ridiculously difficult. There exist only a handful of grants for individuals that aren’t for researchers or scholarships for students, and a great many of those are either way too big (restoring an entire wetland ecosystem, creating a captive breeding program to study genetics), or else they’re too small (super-specific to a particular region, species, or intended activity). I have found at least a couple of leads, though, which I’ll be exploring in my free time (which you’d think I’d have more of, being semi-laid up right now due to injury and unable to do all my normal athletic pursuits, but things keep coming up).

Progress is being made on my rehabber application process, though. I’ve gotten a vet to sign off on being my official veterinary support. I’ve taken my pet turtles to him before and he’s only about a 20 minute drive away (less, if there’s no traffic). He agreed to sign the paperwork and we had a conversation about what that relationship would look like. Basically, a vet can choose to charge or not charge a rehabber for bringing in wildlife, or anything in between (only for medicines, only for surgeries, flat fee per patient regardless of diagnosis/needs, etc.). It’s entirely up to them. When we talked, my vet said he wouldn’t charge for bringing in wild turtles, nor for their medicines. Only if they were severely injured and he needed to send me to a higher level specialist would I get charged, and by that specialist, not by him. So, that is really good news. Vet bills can be really high, and that was something I was quite worried about. Now I can spend that money on other supplies.

The only down side is that he wants to see every patient, all the time, and measure out all the doses and do all the procedures himself. He said he won’t send me home with more antibiotics, for instance, than that particular patient needs, which means I won’t have anything on hand for when I get a turtle outside of office hours that needs treatment. It basically means that if I can’t get an appointment with him right away, a turtle languishes without care for hours or even days until he’s in the office and has the time to look at them. I don’t know how much of an issue this is really going to be, especially in my first year when nobody even knows I’ll be certified (because the DEEP updates their website in January, you know, two months before they administer the certification exam). It also means that my role is more just day-to-day long-term care rather than learning any actual emergency treatments. I think for now, for my first year, I’ll probably be fine with that, and if I need to, I’ll go looking for another vet later on.

I will be getting some relevant training soon, though. Next weekend I’m going to a turtle-specific rehab seminar led by my mentor and the person who trained her. It will hopefully cover all the things that the regular certification class doesn’t cover related to turtles (which is pretty much everything).

And finally, I did want to thank the people who already donated to my cause, and to ask anyone who can spare a dollar to donate for me to help with my turtle rehab expenses, either at my PayPal money pool, or my gofundme. Every little bit helps.