Ruff Start Boxer Rescue
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 462515658
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2021–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2018
- Location
- Wallace, MI, USA
- Phone
- 7155871911
- Rating
- 35
- Verdict
- REVIEW
- Rating confidence
- Limited
- Sector
- Animal Protection and Welfare
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $154,519
- Expenses
- $0
- Assets
- $35,066
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Melody Linsmeier (President)
People named in this filing
- Dennis Linsmeier (Treasurer)
- Hope Hansen (Director)
- Melody Linsmeier (President)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Our animal rescue concentrates on saving boxer dogs and boston terrier dogs from puppy mils aka commercial breeders and backyard breeders. We also take in owner surrendered dogs. This entails vetting, rehabilitating and caring for them until they are ready to become happy, human-loving pets. All animals are spayed or neutered and receive a full vet workup from nose to tail. This includes sometimes major dental work at times, tumor removals, etc. Our organization adopts these dogs nationwide to loving and nurturing homes that strive to fix the broken spirits of animals kept in cages only to produce puppies for pet store sales. We strive ourselves as having one of the best rehab programs for boxers from the puppy mills in the entire country and our volunteers and members pour their heart and souls into helping to rehab these damaged souls into wiggle butts who will find forever homes.
What it reported doing in 2025
Main objective is to spay & neuter every dog that comes into rescue
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 78% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.
The verdict
REVIEW - The filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filed totals do not add up.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 5
- Transparency & Controls: 82
- Sustainability: NotEnoughData
- Growth: 0
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 8.3%; rating input score 8
- Program expense ratio: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: Limited
- Total-asset coverage ratio: Limited
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: Limited
Growth
- Program expense growth: -56.2% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -1.6% per year; rating input score 0; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -7.5% per year; rating input score 0; 13th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 8.3% of revenue deployed
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $13K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 3 of 5 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
- Schedules: 2 filed schedules
- Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 8/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part I part ii net assets crosscheck did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part III program expenses within total did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.