People, Pets, and Purpose
Steven Mornelli, Founder and CEO of Waggle.org
Steven Mornelli was doing quite well for himself in the financial services field when he learned that about half a million pets lose their lives every year because of what's called "economic euthanasia." Setting out for change, Steven founded the nonprofit Waggle as a platform where pet owners could raise money to pay for their pets' medical care. Waggle also works with animal shelters, veterinarians, and is even collaborating with the HASS project. Listen in to learn more about Waggle and their work with Human Animal Support Services.
Find Human Animal Support Services Online:
Steven Mornelli was doing quite well for himself in the financial services field when he learned that about half a million pets lose their lives every year because of what's called "economic euthanasia." Setting out for change, Steven founded the nonprofit Waggle as a platform where pet owners could raise money to pay for their pets' medical care. Waggle also works with animal shelters, veterinarians, and is even collaborating with the HASS project. Listen in to learn more about Waggle and their work with Human Animal Support Services.
Find Human Animal Support Services Online:
Welcome to another episode of People, Pets, and Purpose, our podcast about the human-animal bond and what really matters. And as always, I'm your host Diaz Dixon, the Maddie’s Advisor for External Affairs and Partnerships for the Human Animal Support Service project. Today, I'm super excited to be bringing another superstar for you guys to listen to today. Our guest is Steve Mornelli, who was doing quite well for himself before. He was doing fine in the financial world, financial services field, and he learned that there were about half a million pets every year that were losing their lives because of what is called the economic euthanasia. And he set out to change that, and these pets' lives. Steve founded the nonprofit Waggle, as a platform where pet owners can raise money to pay for their pet's medical care. Waggle also works with animal shelters, veterinarians, and is even collaborating with the HASS project. We're super stoked and excited to have Steve on the show today to talk about why he started Waggle, what his organization actually does, and how you as listeners out there can get involved. So welcome to PPP, Steve.
Steven Mornelli:Thank you so much for having me. I'm really pleased to be here and have this opportunity to speak with you and your listening audience.
Diaz Dixon:Yeah, well, we are super excited to have you and I can tell you, the audience is always excited to listen to people from different worlds that connect with making this world a better place. That's exactly what you're doing. And I'd have to imagine you were doing quite well, you know, working in the financial service sector. What happened that shifted for you that made you decide to tackle the issue of economic euthanasia? And can you explain what economic euthanasia
Steven Mornelli:I can, and thank you for starting there. is? Because when I started Waggle, I had no idea of the term"economic euthanasia." I hadn't heard terms like "compassion fatigue," nor did I know that over a million pets, the number has been revised upwards from when we started, actually, over a million pets are lost every year because people can't afford the cost of veterinary care. That they're often handing their dog or their cat over, they can no longer have that pet, and take care of them, or even care for them, for sometimes as little as $100. And that is just saddening, of course, something I was not aware of. And when I heard that, I was like, this is the right place for me to take my career.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome. That's awesome that you could just look and see that and start putting those things together. Well, for our listeners, how would you explain Waggle and how it's different from other crowdfunding platforms?
Steven Mornelli:First and foremost, what we do, no one's doing at scale. There's no nonprofit like this. There are other crowdfunding sites that we've all heard of. GoFundMe, of course. There are other websites that one or two that are peers, but none of them are nonprofits, which means they've got investors behind them. So, that means a chunk of that money that donators are giving is going someplace other than animals, right? We're not doing that. So we're nonprofit, we're, we've scaled to take care of pets across North America. But essentially what we do is different at its core than these other organizations do. There's two things: one, we're really trying to solve a problem, right? If you think about GoFundMe, and I'll mention that name, $3 billion a year goes across that platform, that means, and there's investors behind this, that means that they're, they're not solving a problem, they're actually interested in having more transaction than less. They're not trying to put themselves out of business. The greater the volume, the greater the number of causes that they're supporting, right? That's important to them. That's how they, that's their business model, it's how they make money. We're different. We're trying to solve one problem in the veterinary space, to bring awareness to this issue that these, that there's so many people that can't afford the cost of veterinary care, and they need help. That's, that's at its core, the difference between us. We're not trying to do everything for everybody. We're trying to solve this problem in the animal welfare space. The second half is, and this is really important, we send that money directly to the veterinary hospitals. And that's it. We know who these pets are. We know who the people are for our donors. There's a safety and security in everything we do because we receive that invoice. We know, we know where the money's going. And that is a huge difference.
Diaz Dixon:That's impressive. So you're able to verify the, who's on each end, as well as the campaigns?
Steven Mornelli:Yeah, essentially. So when someone comes on Waggle.org, and they launch a crowdfunding platform, when that campaign closes, when they've raised their funds, we have to know, we have to receive that invoice, has to come from an authenticated veterinary hospital. We go to great steps to know, is that a boots on the ground sort of brick and mortar veterinary hospital in a local community. We contact the administrator, we verify the emails. You can imagine in this world, right, when there's so many shenanigans going on, we're doing everything that we can to make sure that money is going to the right place for the right cause, that that pet exists. Every dollar that is lost to a fraudulent transaction means that dollar's taken out of the system that you can help, can help pets, right? That donors come in, they put their money in a good place. With these other platforms, God knows where the money went, right? We're not doing that.
Diaz Dixon:That is really cool. Because that is, essentially you're really building trust upon the systems that you've instilled. How do you continue to build trust and keep transparency as you're growing? Because I can imagine that you're growing pretty fast. And accountability with donors.
Steven Mornelli:That's, that's exactly right. So what we do, we do over and over again, right? Again, we're not trying to solve 1,000 different things, we get better and refining our systems all the time, putting checks and balances in place, authenticating more hospitals. And, think about it, when a hospital comes in, and we've authenticated them, it's even easier the next time, right? So we, that hospital, maybe they did one, two, three, maybe they received five different payments from us. Then they know who they're dealing with, Waggle.org, on that side of the equation. And that's really important right? The first time, right? They, they may never, have never heard of Waggle. And for the right reasons. They say, wait a second, who are you guys, right? They come to our website and piques their interest. And then we have a conversation. And when they get that first check, then they know, right, so the trust and awareness builds.
Diaz Dixon:That's cool. That's cool. How big is Waggle right now? How big is your platform?
Steven Mornelli:So we're, we're handling thousands of pets in an individual year. And I'm pleased to say that we have about over 1200 veterinary hospitals and about as many rescues and shelters nationally across, across the US and Canada. And that number grows organically and I can walk through how a campaign is launched and what it looks like. But by having thousands of hospitals of rescues and shelters, what that allows us to do is to continue to drive awareness about our partnerships with organizations like HASS that they can, they can join us, get involved, there's already a network there of places nearby, local, that they can work with. And by the way, even if a member organization, if one of the HASS rescues says wait a second, our veterinary hospital isn't on Waggle right now, we make that really easy for them, we don't charge them anything. It's free to join. It's simple. And we, we bridge the gap between their veterinary needs and that local provider.
Diaz Dixon:That's amazing. That's amazing. What, what is the capacity, Steve, for you? You know, if we're looking at, obviously, we have a ton of listeners and people are coming in making recommendations. Is there a cap on what the capacity for Waggle is at any given time?
Steven Mornelli:No, there really isn't. And that's the beauty behind the way we set the platform. There's a huge technology investment that we did from the get go. My background was in data and analytics and science. So I understood just enough to put these pieces together, hopefully, in a smart way that allows us to scale. We were pretty cutting edge in everything we did. And I think you know, here we are five, six years in. And I think it's paid off in the sense that, you know, all systems are go and the curve is sort of accelerated as we bring on more nonprofit organizations and welfare organizations. And we partner with everything from celebrities, to social media influencers, that allows us to put more and more funds to work to support these great organizations.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome. You know, and it's, it's great, because as you continue to grow, we know that we're going to be saving more pets. And I know you started this because you wanted to prevent pets from dying because simply their owners couldn't afford veterinarian care. Do you think it's working? Are you seeing an impact? And how do you measure that success?
Steven Mornelli:Oh, my God, yes. Right. Like, you know, we have, sort of have this ethos where we say, you know, unlike GoFundMe, or unlike some of our peer organizations that maybe your donors and rescues are aware of, for us the the ultimate win is if we can put ourselves out of business, right? And it sounds counterintuitive, right? But you know, I didn't start Waggle, I came out of a much different industry, I didn't start this to, for no other reasons. I want to enjoy my life, make a difference, have impact, and how we measure that is the number of pets. You can see them on our website, the success stories that continue to accrue and build and, and sometimes that success can be as little as$100, $200. It might make the difference in your neighbor keeping their pet, right,or your family member or your friend. It doesn't have to be, you know,$10,000. In fact, we cap at$2,000, the amount that can be raised on our platform. Well, your listener, a donor, might say, well, oh my God there, we know of these cases that are 10, 20 $30,000. You're absolutely, they're absolutely right, right. We just chose to do the greatest amount of good with limited number of assets, right? There's only so many dollars in the world. Let's help the greatest number of people stay together with their beloved animal. That's, that's, that's what our business is.
Diaz Dixon:And a great business it is. Are there any stories that you can share with us? Do you have a story that pops out, that jumps out at you?
Steven Mornelli:Yeah, I do actually want, and thank you for asking that. You know, there was, this was a few years ago, but it just sticks out in my mind. It was a lovely woman here in New England, that we interviewed. She's actually in one of our featured videos. And when we went out, and this is when I used to actually go out and had the time to to visit and do an early shoot, right, of video and photography. And we met with her and her dog Kusa had been injured by another dog. And the woman said to us, you know, Steve, I never thought I was going to be that person raising money on a crowdfunding platform. She was wealthy enough, affluent enough to live a nice lifestyle. She had a house, she was married at the time, all things were fantastic. But as precarious as life is, and we've all been there at one point, one thing led to another. She fell off her horse, she hurt her back, that led to one, led into back injuries and surgeries. And then she ended up getting divorced. And then she couldn't make her mortage and had to leave her house, and on and on. And everything collapsed in an instant. And she didn't have the friends and family to help, she didn't have money in her account. It literally, she said, I am that person, I never ever, for the life of me, thought I would be in this situation. And here I am. And that dog, who by the way, that's actually was the dog protected her, she was being attacked by another dog. So this dog stood in, stepped up, protected her, the dog was her, in her worst moment in her life. And here came Waggle. And we were able to fund her pet and get that, that dog the medical care she needed. And it, what spoke to me about this was that it could be any of us, right? I think probably everybody on this call, if something happens, okay, yeah, we can write a check, right? It's gonna, we're going to do whatever we can to help your pet. But what if you really, really can't? What if you, what if you just don't have those funds, that's the people. We're the last resort. And that's just I think it for, for me and for the team, is what motivates us, and I just, God, it, it's a fantastic feeling when that happens. And here it is five years later, and it still gives me, you know, chills down my spine. I think we made, we actually made that difference and helped.
Diaz Dixon:Oh, man, what a beautiful story. I could actually, as you're telling this story, I just visualize it. And you know, the ongoing impact that you have, by being able to help pick someone and their pet up. That is truly looking out for one another, you know, and paying it forward and giving people an opportunity, creating an avenue that they come in and be a part of these beautiful stories. Thank you for sharing that.
Steven Mornelli:And we see it every day. And you just, you just, you just hit the nail on the head, right? Like, we have donors, right? When you pick up the news, right? It doesn't particularly not a good point to pick up the news. But look at all the bad that's happening in the world and go to some of the major websites, go to Al Jazeera or CNN or BBC, it doesn't matter. Take your, take your pick. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, has the same bad news across the board, right?
Diaz Dixon:Yeah.
Steven Mornelli:But we'll we'll launch a campaign. And it'll be our Waggle pet of the month, for example. And you will see thousands of people step up. They don't, they don't know the dog or cat, they don't know the pet owner, they just see something where they can commit sometimes as little as $10, and feel fantastic and make a difference. And they can do it with security and transparency. That is what I'm most proud about. And it makes, it's uplifting to me to watch these people and you know, they don't know who they are. I just find it fascinating, right?
Diaz Dixon:Yeah, you know, and what you're doing is you are using values as a bridge. And you're pulling together people who don't know each other, creating connectivity, just like when you're talking about when we see on the news, all the stuff that divides us or that feels really negative, we're seeing bad things that are going on. This is, this is a great place to be able to go and do something that's powerful and feels good. I love it. I love it.
Steven Mornelli:Well, and that's, you said the right words, you know, bridging the gap, right? Because when these campaigns finish, when these, these, when a campaign closes, it's very important for us in every single case, before we make that payment, we we require that a pet update be submitted. Now oftentimes, they don't know the complete outcome, but we want to, you know, they'll come in they'll just say, my God, thank you. You know what, my pet is getting surgery next week. You facilitated this, it wouldn't have happened. We bring that story in every single case that that campaign closes before we make that payment. We bring it back to every single donor. And, uh, that is that important critical loop that tells that story and lets people know the difference that they're making.
Diaz Dixon:Awesome. Go Waggle. Well, and you're partnering with, and they're in hospitals and shelters, and you even mentioned celebrities. So, doing a little Google stalking on you, I see that you've partnered with like the country superstar, Miranda Lambert, which is awesome. Are there other celebrities and influencers that you're working with to reach more people and more pets?
Steven Mornelli:Yeah, we've been doing it since the inception. You know, Mayim Bialik, Big Bang Theory. Miranda Lambert, of course, we've had Andy Cohen, Tricia Helfer.
Diaz Dixon:Wow!
Steven Mornelli:The list goes on, there's a page at our website. And it's, it, what we like about it so much is they're great partners, right? These, these people are talking about giving back, right? They don't ask anything from us. That, for them, the benefit is they know that, let's say for example,
Diaz Dixon:The power of compounding impact. they were to and write a check or multiple checks. It's really hard. One, it's not their business. Then, even if you're a social media influencer, right, if you're not as big as Miranda Lambert, but what if you're just, you know, you have a great audience on Instagram or Facebook, and they want to give back and we see this all time. Maybe it's a micro influencer, it's next to impossible for them to get involved at a grassroots level and do what we do, right, to check the hospital, check the invoice, know that these dollars are not being defrauded, right? This is our business, this is what we do. We make it easy for them to get involved, right, they can, they, sometimes they can fund with a check, sometimes they can post on their behalf and just in on our behalf and raise awareness and funding that goes into their fund. And you know, it's a way for, it's a way for an influencer, a foundation, a corporate, if they have a, see, a corporate social responsibility initiative to get involved. We've had groups like Maddie's Fund, and others, anybody can get involved. And here's the critical part of what they do, right? If they put $1 into the Waggle platform, we turn it into $2. And then we send it to the veterinary hospital. Right? We do that through the form of matching grants. Miranda Lambert's a great example. If you go out to our web page, and you look at Miranda's landing page, you're gonna see dozens of pets that they've helped. What happens is, there's a matching grant applied, much like we have with the HASS organization through Maddie's Fund. That one dollar comes in, it incentivizes the donor, knowing that if they put$1, put their dollar in, it's going to be matched by Miranda's dollar in that case, right? So now we've got $2 that we're going to send to that veterinary hospital. It's sort of venture philanthropy, right? Donors become venture philanthropists, they're doubling their money. Everybody wins. The veterinary hospital wins, the rescue wins. Miranda and MuttNation, her wonderful organization, wins, that pet wins and on and on. There's no law. So this is one of these great examples where the sum of the parts is actually greater than the whole, right. Like, there's no laws for it. It's extraordinary.
Steven Mornelli:Yes!
Diaz Dixon:It's, it's really cool. And you know, we're at a time where we need as much help as possible with everything. You know, there's a vet shortage, as well. I could see Waggle probably having, by creating this extra impact and bringing people in, probably has an impact and a positive impact on at least helping some veterinarian services, would you, would you say?
Steven Mornelli:Oh my God, yes. So, when, when in the very early stages, when I mentioned at the top of the call, and I would go out visit the emergency hospitals. Some of them said, this was the inception of Waggle, right? Like, they didn't know anything about Waggle, and I had to explain it to them. And we had some hospitals say to us, if you help us reduce the number of pets that we put down every week by 10%, we're in. Right, like we'll sign up tomorrow. We don't charge anything, right, we're in. And that's when the light went on, when I realized I had not heard of terms like, and I'm, probably most of your audience has, right? So I was late to, late to this game, of compassion fatigue, right. So this, think about these, these young men and women that go into this field because they have big hearts, they want to help animals, and all of a sudden, the stress of being a veterinarian hits home or they have to put down so many pets, they watch economic, they watch firsthand these pets have to be put down and they're watching that separation from that individual. That's what I, it just, it just keeps me up at night. Right. So this is why we have Waggle. I didn't know terms like compassion fatigue. I did not know that veterinarians had the highest suicide rate of any profession in the United States. In fact, there was a, an extraordinary piece, just the other day on BBC, if you Google"economic euthanasia veterinary," you'll see it out there, just came out the other day. It is a huge toll, right, on this profession and we get involved there to help these veterinary hospitals' root cause, right, we can make a difference.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome. I'm gonna check that out on BBC as well, because I know that the statistics are overwhelming. So when we're looking at, and oftentimes our, our answers, and the support can come from unlikely places. You know, no one would have thought, 10 years ago, Waggle was the answer to, one of the solutions to this. So it's really cool. And when you're putting together these partnerships, Steve, with the vet hospitals and the shelters, how do the shelters get involved? How do they come into the fold?
Steven Mornelli:Well, it starts with, you know, awareness, right, because, you know, time and again, we'll reach out and they hadn't heard of us, right, now that's becoming less frequent. The name has gotten bigger and more rescues are aware of us. But how the model has generally worked and I, it's from an organic perspective, right. That's how it started here in New England was literally some emergency hospitals in Connecticut. But it turns out that every emergency hospital has typically a large geographic footprint. They support five or six, seven rescues, right, they discount their services. And that's how it began, right. So we started at emergency hospitals, they would introduce us to their local referring vets, right, the mom and pop veterinarians in their, in their industry. And they in turn, would make introductions to the rescues and shelters. And they in turn, right, would spread the word out to the general public. And it just grew by word of mouth. And then as the successes started to come in, that's when we'd pique the interest of more rescues, the influencers would come in, and it sort of just grew from, from there. So I'd say when, when, and I should point this out, when someone comes in, whether it's a rescuer, or an individual at large, when they create a campaign, there's a very easy step, they'll start to type in the name of the local veterinarian. Right. And they might very well they might have already been verified, authenticated in our system. But if they're not, our system communicates to that veterinary hospital. They could be out in Hawaii, right? We're going to find out about them, that pet owner or rescue makes that introduction by just, by filling in the the administrator's email. And we make it easy for everybody involved as to spread the word through our system itself.
Diaz Dixon:That is great. That's great. And sounds like as you've grown, you've had to tackle a lot of these things. And in shifting with shelters, and the different cultures that all the shelters have, from state to state, and veterinarian places, I'm sure, what, what has changed since you have, since you started a decade ago?
Steven Mornelli:That's like, you know, it's a tough question. Right? It's a, the common thread that I would say that has remained consistent is the, the ethos of the animal welfare community, right? As we all know, right? They all have different, they all have their own different cultures. Some are a little flaky, which is kind of fun, which makes them unique to deal with. And that has remained a constant. The common thread is, you know, the love and passion that these people have for their jobs. And that's what, that's what makes our job easy, right? Because when you go out and you talk to any of these audiences, we've just talked about, and you tell them what you're doing, and you say, listen, get involved, the more people that get involved in what we're doing, the more people win. We're not taking anything, like, go, let's go back, let's talk about those, you know, those organizations that I mentioned, the for profit, those hiding under the terms of "B Corp," or "do good" organization, right? Google "pet crowdfunding" and you're gonna see some of these names. Donors need to ask themselves a question: are you a nonprofit? Start with that. Are you a 501(c)(3), or are you a quote unquote, do good organization? When you see that, the flag has to go up, and you say, okay, wait, where are the investors? Okay, oh, you got a private equity firm, you got a venture capital firm, right? Go find the names, right? The rescue, these rescues that are out there that are listening to me right now, they probably know a few of those names. And then you, they have great platforms they're doing so, how much money is coming out of that system and going into the investor's pocket? That's the goal.
Diaz Dixon:Yeah. Yeah. Because how much money is actually making it to the people in need, the pets that are in need?
Steven Mornelli:That's right. That's right. So it's a tough subject. It's, we try to keep it as light as we can. You see it in our communications, you see that on our website. We're not sensationalizing these pets to drive a dollar. And when you click on a campaign that we send to a donor, and we say, hey, you know, Fluffy needs help for a broken leg, it, when you come to our site, you're gonna see the treatment. It's gonna speak about the treatment, it's gonna talk about the care that pet needs. We're not going to shove a bottle of shampoo in your face and say, hey, go buy, go, go buy a bottle of shampoo for this rescue, right? Now, we'll add products. We're going to do that because we want to, we want to give donors another pathway to give support, but a lot of times rescues don't need that, right? They don't need more product, what they need is help with veterinary care and that's our, that's always going to be our primary point and our ethos. Let's get the pet funded, then great, if we, if we got to send dog food to the rescue, absolutely. Let's, let's, let's do everything we can to get more pets fed, right? Let's bring more organization to do that, but we're not going to shove dog food in your face on the
Diaz Dixon:Right, right. Makes total sense. Yeah. Well, what's website. up next for Waggle, Steve? What's, what's uh, can we expect anything new in the horizon?
Steven Mornelli:Yes, we are, we're doing an overhaul of the rescue interface when they hit our software, we have work to do there, we know it, right? So, it's been a little bit clunky in the early stages, we want to make it easier for rescues. We want to make it streamlined, we want them to be able to see their payments. And that's, it's a big lift, right? So we're putting a lot of investment and time and energy in that, we want to talk to more rescues and get their perspective on what's important to them before we build it, right? It's a great example, right? Instead of go build it first and ask them later, we want our rescues and partners to get to weigh in and say, okay, here's what we really want. And we're gonna listen to them. And then we're, we're, over the next six months that will roll out, we will add an e-commerce portion to that. So we give donors more opportunity set to contribute. Maybe they, they want to give a dollar to Fluffy first, but then they want to give a dollar to dog food. Well, let's, let's help. Let's think about that. Right? It's wellness and prevention for these rescues. If we can help all of these nonprofit organizations get the care and feeding for the pets and give awareness to this cause it's again, what we do, then great, you know, we've we've taken we've grown the pie a little bit bigger than it was before.
Diaz Dixon:Yeah, and multifaceted, that's good, because we have to think about the preventive side, as well. Supportive as well as the direct help. I love it. I love it. And because this podcast that we are sitting on today is about the personal pieces, as well as the direct pieces on pets, I got to ask you a little bit on your personal piece. Since you have come in to doing this and you took on this mission and made this big shift to devoting yourself to helping pets stay alive, how's life been for you? Has there been any, any changes for you personally?
Steven Mornelli:Oh my God, 100 times better, right? Like I, you know, I was in different industries. I was originally an engineer, and I graduated in mechanical engineering around the same time that the tech bubble crashed, which was great.
Diaz Dixon:Great timing on that one.
Steven Mornelli:Oh yeah, great timing. Then I went to New York and I was working in sort of quant research, they call it institutional equity research. And then we had, we had the financial crisis 2007, I rode that one to its conclusion. Then I moved to Europe and I was in sort of the banking side. And then we had the sovereign debt crisis. And then I exited that. So, you could have actually made money by shorting some of my my choices, right? I mean, I say that with sort of a giggle, I wish I, I say to my girlfriend all the time, I wish I had done this 30 years ago. She says, but you didn't have the mix of experiences and background that allowed you to launch. But she's right, right? I got to it late. But to answer your question, you know, the difference is the reason you know, in 2017, when I was looking for ideas, right, that's how this all started. I was like, you know, I want to get up, I don't want to sit around and make a little old lady more money on on her stock holdings, right, her equity, her portfolio, right, and explain this. It had no meaning, it had no impact. It wasn't doing a damn thing. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna lay, I'm gonna retire in 20 years and look back and go, you didn't, what do you do? Well, I made I made some, some bank a little bit more money or insurance company or some little lady, you know, I'm like, that's not me. It never was, right? This, you know, yeah, it allows you to pay the mortgage, right? We have, we all have to keep the lights on our team has, right, but we look for those people that would just want to live the life they want to live, to live where they want to live, to touch upon other people's livelihoods and you know, impact them. I've said the word many times, but it's real. And if we all can do that, if we can find that pathway. I meandered and bounced around, you know, 20 different places before I landed here. You just keep moving forward until you find what works and I'm happier now than I ever was. Yeah.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome, that's awesome. You know and for you to be happier and then think of the amount of people, amount of families that are being impacted at the same time. And I, I know personally, I can talk about something that you would not brag about but I'm gonna brag for just a second because Waggle and HASS have a partnership as well. And Waggle provide, has provided $50,000 in grants to HASS pilot shelters for veterinarian treatment for owned pets. And then Maddie's Fund provided another 50k. It was such an incredible opportunity. Is, is there any money still available, in that particular?
Steven Mornelli:There is, and and we, this has been a part of the purpose here is to let people know what we are, who we are, what we're trying to do, and to start that first campaign, right? Money left on the table unless you use it and that means, go to Waggle. When that pet in your care needs help, come here first, right, and share, right, share the story. And you know, it's it's I will say there was a libertarian bent to this right, like we can't just write checks, right? That's an unsustainable model. If, if when someone looks at Waggle and they say okay, Waggle, come write me a check, no, no can't do it. But what I can do is I can bring other organizations into this mix, right? The voice in some cases in other cases, other organizations are lending dollars like Maddie's Fund, great example, great partners. Okay, great. Now we got money to put to work now. Mr. and Mrs. Rescue, Mr. And Mrs. Pet Owner, right, come in, start your campaign, we're going to ask you to do something. We're going to ask you to, to share that story with your friends and your family. We can't take you all the way there, we can take you along the way there, we'll give you tools, tips, advice, sometimes matching dollars, like we have here, right, gets a lot of incentive leverage. It's a shared responsibility to get over that goal line. And it's how we built it. And it's what we believe in.
Diaz Dixon:What a beautiful thing, and all enhancing community at the same time, giving everyone an opportunity to be pulled in. That's just, great stuff. Great stuff. So, you know, what else? Is there anything that I'm missing that we should know about Waggle, Steve? Or I even want to say about you?
Steven Mornelli:Well, yeah, you know, if you're, you know, this, the primary audience here or there's a rescue space, but ultimately, there will be people out there that will hear this story, that want to participate. And what we say to them is, you know, yes, help an individual pet, but we also have the Forever Fund. It's a really easy way to make a monthly donation, it can be as small as $10. And it keeps the lights on, it allows us to do what we're doing. It has to be sustainable. And I always look at this, as people say, well, you're in philanthropy, yes. But it's also a business, in the end, we have to pay for software, we have to do all the things, we have to pair people, lots of volunteers, all these things contribute, all your organizations out there knows, but it's, it's a lifeline, right? It's the currency that allows us to do what we do and help these pets and provide Waggle matching grants. You're gonna see, you know, a thousand of them out there on our website, that these dollars allow us to create these matching grants. It's, it's critical that this was part of the equation and I asked our, I asked donors that might hear the story to get involved, right, you're gonna, you're gonna feel fantastic.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome. And how can we find you? What's the easiest way to find you guys?
Steven Mornelli:Waggle.org, right. It's as simple as that. Come, look, read, lurk for a while, and then join, participate.
Diaz Dixon:Fantastic. I can tell you, when we are done with this podcast, I will be logging in myself, and making a donation. You've been truly inspirational. And I love what you're doing, and the impact, creating an avenue for people to be able to support others that you don't know, but you do know are in need. And they're vetted. You know, so it's a, it's in this world where there's so much fraud, scams out there. It's, it's nice to have a friend in Waggle.
Steven Mornelli:Oh, thank you for the kind words. I love to hear that, makes feel great.
Diaz Dixon:Good stuff. And, you know, we're gonna wrap up here today. I got to thank you, Steve, for coming on. You know, it's, this is a different podcast than we've ever had because you are exposing us to another world that impacts People, Pets, and Purpose. So thank you for coming on.
Steven Mornelli:Yeah, thank you for having me. Thanks for all the great questions and making it easy on me. I really applaud it.
Diaz Dixon:Oh, it's easy conversation with you. And you guys out there listening, you know to go to Waggle.org. Let's go check it out. Let's dive in. And again, I want to thank you all for coming in and listening to the podcast that is People, Pets, and Purpose. This podcast is really heavily devoted to the human-animal bond and what really matters in a world where we need more human kindness and pet kindness. So, in the meantime, be well, and we will see you next time.