A forever fund for animals

Every dollar you give helps animals forever.

Most donations are spent once and they're gone. ArkPlace never spends yours. We invest it permanently, and every year the earnings go to animal sanctuaries, humane societies and the people who rescue animals. This year, next year, and a hundred years from now.

Watch our founder

Secure giving through Do Good Points Foundation, a 501(c)(3)

A young rescued dog looking directly into the camera

Never spent.

100% of your gift stays invested. Only what it earns is given away, every year, for as long as there are animals to help.

How it works

Three steps. One promise: we never spend the principal.

ArkPlace is built like the great perpetual trusts of Milton Hershey and Benjamin Franklin, but for animals. The gift stays whole. Only what it earns is given away.

Step one

You give

Your gift goes into the ArkPlace Forever Fund. Not into a campaign, not into a mailing, not into next quarter's budget. Into the fund.

Step two

We invest it, permanently

The principal is invested for the long term and never spent. Not by us, not by a future board. That restriction is the entire point of ArkPlace.

Step three

The earnings save animals

Every year we grant the dividends and interest to sanctuaries, humane societies and rescuers doing the hands-on work. Every year. Without end.

Why forever

A donation that is spent is a donation that ends.

The largest animal charities raise enormous sums and spend nearly all of it the same year it arrives, on staff, on overhead, on the next appeal to raise more. That work matters. But when the money is gone, the giving stops and the asking starts again.

ArkPlace is built the opposite way. We are trying to build the largest permanent fund for animals in the world, so that a hundred years from now, animals are still being helped by a gift someone made today.

The usual way

Given once. Gone once.

Your $100 buys food, medicine or a night of shelter. Real good, done immediately, and then the money no longer exists. Next year the need is the same and the ask starts over.

One year of impact.

The ArkPlace way

Given once. Working always.

Your $100 is invested and never touched. Each year it produces a grant for animals. Smaller than $100 at first, but it never stops, and the fund keeps growing so the grants grow too.

Year 1. Year 20. Year 100. Still giving.

What we're building toward

$10,000,000

in the Forever Fund
held permanently, never spent

$450,000

granted to animals every single year
this year, next year, in the year 2150

That's the whole plan. Not ten million dollars spent. Ten million dollars kept, doing the work of a fresh half-million-dollar donation every year, forever, without anyone ever having to ask again. We're at the beginning of it. Every gift now is a founding gift.

Annual grant figure is an estimate based on our 4.5% distribution rate. Returns vary; the promise not to spend the principal doesn't.

Your impact, forever

See what your gift keeps doing.

Move the slider. Every number below is an estimate, calculated from the long-term rates we publish openly. Nothing hidden, nothing rounded up.

Your one-time gift

$1,000

$25$1,000,000

These are estimates, and we'll always say so. They assume a 7% long-term average total return and a 4.5% annual distribution, leaving roughly 2.5% a year to grow the fund and outpace inflation. Real markets move up and down; no one can promise a return. We publish the figures we plan with so you can judge them for yourself.

Or give $25 a month

Monthly gifts are how a fund like this actually gets built. $25 a month adds $300 to the fund every year, and each year's worth keeps earning for animals after that.

$45

granted to animals in the first year, and every year after that

Year 18

the year your gift has already given away more than you gave, and the principal is still whole

$3,180

total granted to animals over 50 years, while the fund itself grows to $3,437

Your gift, never spent Given away to animals The crossover year

Our story

Why we started this.

We didn't set out to build another animal charity. We set out to build the one thing animals have never had: an endowment of their own: money that is theirs permanently, that no downturn, no burnout, and no bad year of fundraising can take away.

Hear it in ninety seconds, from the people who started it.

Scott & Natalie Heistand

Co-founders, ArkPlace · Prescott, Arizona

Where the earnings go

To the people already doing the work.

ArkPlace doesn't run shelters. We fund the ones that do: the small, chronically underfunded organizations that show up every day and never have enough. Our grants are unrestricted, because they know what their animals need better than we do.

Rescued cattle in a sanctuary pasture at sunset

Animal sanctuaries

Sanctuaries take in animals for life, which means a lifetime of feed, vet care and shelter funded by donations that arrive once. A perpetual grant is exactly what a lifetime commitment needs.

Three rescued puppies looking toward the camera

Humane societies & shelters

Local shelters absorb every surrender, every hoarding case, every disaster, usually on a budget that hasn't grown in years. Steady annual funding lets them plan instead of scramble.

A rescued cat resting indoors, looking at the camera

Rescuers & foster families

Most rescue happens in ordinary homes, paid for out of ordinary pockets. We fund the people who quietly carry the cost of saving animals nobody else will take.

Transparency

The hard questions, answered plainly.

A fund that promises to hold money forever should expect to be asked why. Here's everything, including the parts most organizations leave out.

Isn't holding money the same as hoarding it?

It would be, if we held it and gave nothing. We don't. Every year the fund distributes its earnings, in good markets and bad, and we publish what went out and to whom. What we refuse to do is spend the principal, because the principal is what makes next year's grant possible, and the grant a century from now. The reserve isn't withheld money. It's the reason we can say yes during the years when everyone else's donations dry up.

If you never spend it, how does anything reach animals this year?

Through the distribution. Our policy is to grant 4.5% of the fund annually. On a young fund that is a modest sum, and we'd rather tell you that than inflate it. As the fund grows, the annual grant grows with it, permanently, and without another dollar being raised.

What stops a future board from spending the principal?

This is the right question, and the honest answer is that governance is the whole ballgame. The Hershey Trust survived a century because its restriction was written to be nearly impossible to undo, and it still faced attempts. ArkPlace is being structured with the same intent: the principal restriction is permanent, distributions are formula-driven rather than discretionary, and the fund is held and administered separately from operations. We publish our governing documents as they are finalized.

Who handles the money right now?

Donations are processed and receipted by Do Good Points Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 85-4368754), which holds the Ark Place Fund. Your gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law and you receive your receipt directly from them, not from us. We never touch your card details.

What do you pay yourselves?

Nothing. ArkPlace is founder-run and unpaid. That is a statement about today, not a promise about forever. If that ever changes, it will be published here in plain numbers before it changes anywhere else.

Should I give here instead of to my local shelter?

No. Give to both, and give to them first if you have to choose. Your local shelter needs money this month. ArkPlace is for the gift you want to still be working in 2075. They're different jobs, and any organization that tells you otherwise is selling you something.

Founding gifts

Give once. Help animals for the rest of time.

We're at the beginning of this. Every gift made now is a founding gift. It will still be working for animals long after all of us are gone. That's not a slogan. It's just how the math works.

Talk about a legacy gift

Tax-deductible · Processed by Do Good Points Foundation, 501(c)(3) · One-time or monthly