Animal Friends' goals in 2015 are:• To facilitate a total of 10,000 low-cost spay/neuter surgeries; • To support the health of pets and our community by providing 14,000 low-cost vaccines through various on-site and community-based clinics; • To facilitate the admission, care, sheltering and ultimate placement of 2,400 cats, dogs and rabbits into lifelong, loving homes; • To affect the lives of 55,000 individuals through a wide array of supportive programs, services and activities that encourage the community to engage in our work; • To enhance our ability to serve the community by facilitating 260,000 hours of donated volunteer service while maintaining 100% integration of volunteers into our programs; • To engage in meaningful, mission-based collaborative efforts with local, regional and national organizations and municipal agencies to address multi-faceted community issues; • To provide intervention, rescue or safe haven to 2,500 animals through the investigation of 800 cases by our Humane Investigations team; • To provide necessary financial support and stability for the organization's operations and programmatic needs by raising a total of $5,600,000; and• To further engage the public in our work by increasing the number of visitors to our center to 47,500 and the number of visits to the organization's website to 650,000.

Animal Friends' programs are most successful when we focus on reaching as many pets and pet lovers as we can, so we always work towards creating programming that is effective in doing so. For example, in our Low-Cost Spay/Neuter and Vaccination Program, we work both at our shelter through our in-house clinic and outside in the community through our mobile surgery clinic and our partnerships with vet clinics in the community. In our Humane Education program, we offer field trip programming at our facility and also travel to schools to give presentations. We meet our goals by going out into the community to spread our message and by enticing potential adopters, donors, and volunteers to come back to our shelter and learn about what we do. It is vitally important for us to reach out to individuals in our area as much as possible so that they are aware of the diverse animal resources that we offer. In this way we are able to help as many citizens in our community, both two-legged and four, as possible.

Animal Friends has always been on the forefront of progressive programming and developing innovative strategies to reduce, and ultimately end, pet overpopulation. We have remained the premier animal resource center in Western Pennsylvania for the last 70 years. We are located in a 30,000 square-foot companion animal resource center complete with creative kenneling for homeless pets, spay/neuter clinic, classroom, resource library, over a mile of wooded walking trails, and more. In 2015, to further our commitment to pets and pet owners in our region, we are pleased to have taken the first step toward making our lifesaving vision a reality with the construction of The Howard Ash Animal Wellness Center. This exciting $8. 5 million project will center on the development of a fully-equipped public spay/neuter clinic and pet vaccination center targeting low-income families and underserved pet populations who are struggling to afford basic pet care. The building will also allow for the expansion of our community-based Chow Wagon pet food bank and an enhancement of our Humane Investigations Program. The new Animal Wellness Center is expected to open in early 2017. Our resource center and soon-to-be wellness center paired with our talented staff and volunteers make us uniquely capable of providing compassionate and affordable resources for pets and pet owners in our area.

Animal Friends measures our progress by keeping careful track of the people and pets we reach throughout the year. We record the number of Low-Cost Spay/Neuter surgeries and the location, gender, and species of each animal, as well as the program in which they were altered. We also pay attention to trends in our area such as estimated number of animals euthanized and estimated number of animals surrendered to shelters to indicate the progress of the Low-Cost Spay/Neuter movement. We know that until these numbers are lower, we can't slow our spay/neuter efforts. To ensure our other programs are equally as successful, we also keep track of members of the community that benefit from all of our various programs — from Pet Therapy to Humane Education, to Special Events, to Humane Investigations, and beyond. We report all of these findings in our Annual Report each year, and through this record keeping we are driven to not only meet our goals but to exceed them.

In 1943, at the height of World War II, a small group of Pittsburgh citizens came together in an effort to find homes for soldiers' pets when they left to serve in the war. After the war, still faced with the need for ongoing compassionate control of the pet overpopulation and placement problem, the group opened a shelter and incorporated. Since the beginning, the mission of Animal Friends has been to ensure the well-being of companion animals, while ending overpopulation, abuse, and unwarranted euthanasia. Today, Animal Friends is a 501(c)(3) organization in accordance with the Internal Revenue Code. In 2006, Animal Friends expanded our reach into the community with the completion of The Caryl Gates Gluck Animal Resource Center in Ohio Township. This new space allowed us to expand many of our programs, most notably, Low-Cost Spay/Neuter, Pet Therapy, Chow Wagon, and Special Events. Our spay/neuter surgery capacity increased to 8,000 per year and then, with the addition of our Mobile Resource Center and the ability to perform surgeries offsite and beyond our immediately surrounding area, we were able to expand our goal to 10,000 surgeries per year in 2012. With the construction of our new Howard Ash Animal Wellness Center, currently underway, it will be our goal to strive for a new goal of 15,000 spay/neuter surgeries per year. We know that these efforts will eventually lead to the end of the pet overpopulation and unwarranted euthanasia crisis in our area.