Tiplings Company

What it reported doing in 2025

Tiplings foster and adoption program serves over 400 cats during a calendar year and is second in cats adopted in the county only to the publicly funded municipal shelter. However, while the current trends in animal welfare may be focused around data and numbers, those numbers often paint an incomplete picture. For example, while the nearest shelter did adopt out 556 cats the last year, they euthanized 234 for medical and/or behavioral reasons; rescues are critical to fill the gap between the resources available to a publicly funded municipal shelter to ensure the cats in need of those additional resources but able to make meaningful recoveries and be adopted are given that chance. This year Tiplings took chances on cats like Duncan, who is deaf but still somehow always more talkative than any other foster cat. We took chances on cats like Meep-meep who had a previously broken, crooked tail, missing fur, and was from such a crowded and dirty hoarding situation she seemed happy in a stainless-steel cage bank because it was genuinely an upgrade from her previous living situation. We took chances on cats like Oskie, who needed a tail amputation but whose affectionate nature more than compensate for a missing tail. We spent months carefully monitoring Lunchbox while he outgrew a heart and GI condition and all the medications he used to need for them. Our volunteers crawled on the floor to socialize Izzy, Charlotte, and Casper, who are in loving homes now but were unsocialized at an age that risks the euthanasia list at most shelters and that is exactly where Casper and Charlotte were headed before being pulled to our rescue. Despite our submission for this 990 including only September through December and including all the administrative start-up costs for a new nonprofit, over 90% of our expenditures are program service expenses directly related to caring for the animals whose lives we are trying to improve. We have a dedicated and knowledgeable team of volunteers who help ensure we use our resources well. For example, we have volunteers with education and work experience in the scientific and veterinary fields who conduct vaccine clinics, test stool samples, and assist fosters with basic supportive care so that we have additional veterinary funds that can be spent on items some rescues are not able to provide that increase survival rates and improve outcomes. For example, we were able to keep the medication neupogen in stock this year, which turns the grim mortality rate, which is sometimes as high as 90 to 100% to a 90% survival rate for panleukopenia when administered promptly. Tiplings volunteers spend weeks socializing cats and kittens and getting them healthy. Other volunteers staff two adoption events each week to ensure that all our cats, even those not classically adoptable, find homes. Yet more volunteers clean the adoption cages and care for and entertain the cats so they can meet members of the public and find loving homes. Tiplings volunteers drive countless hours so the limited spay and neuter resources in our county don't limit the number of cats that can be helped; significantly helping to reduce overpopulation in our area.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 65.2%; rating input score 65
• Program expense ratio: 91.5%; rating input score 92
• Fundraising efficiency: $50.87 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 79; 79th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: Limited
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Limited
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 3 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 43
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Fail
  • Document-retention policy: Fail
  • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 28.7%; rating input score 76; 76th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.79; rating input score 24; 24th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 58; 58th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: Limited
• Revenue growth: Limited
• Asset growth: Limited