Horsing Around

Not long ago there was a nonprofit called Light-In-The-Dark Charity whose primary mission was to care for animals. Serving as a local shelter, it provided sanctuary, veterinary services and adoption procedures for all types of animals. Located in Kentucky’s “horse country,” however, it tended to have a disproportionate share of it's business caring for and either adopting out or disposing of horses. In addition to horses, Light-In-The-Dark Charity also handled pigs, rabbits, foxes, cats of all kinds and domestic and wild dogs.

As the founder of Light-In-The-Dark, Sam Whinney was a thoroughbred horse lover through and through. He didn’t care so much about the more traditional dogs and cats that went to families with small children. He was much more interested in having a major influence on the horse population of the county and the state.

Due to Sam’s influence and tenacity in pursuing support from his friends and business associates, Light-In-The-Dark charity received about 75% of its support from a combination of horse training firms, local veterinarian practices and pet food and supply vendors around the state. These gifts enabled Sam Whinney to set up a pretty impressive array of barns, a first rate clinic, and a large riding stable with a suite of plush offices on twenty acres of land among the beautiful rolling hills of Kentucky.

Several of Sam’s “customers” were the racing stables in the tri-county area. They sent Sam all their old, tired horses to be put out to pasture; they sent horses that were lame to be fixed and returned. They also sent fillies that would never have made it on the racing circuit over to Sam so they could be adopted by the sons and daughters of wealthy local businessmen. Oh, Sam had it sweet in this symbiotic relationship, and so did the racetrack and racing stable owners.

QUESTION: Does Light-In-The-Dark animal charity really provide a service to the public and is it one that deserves tax-exempt status because it saves the government money? This is the traditional argument for the tax exempt status of the nonprofit sector in our society. But does it always hold water?

Sam Whinney would have argued, of course, that it does. He would have said that if it weren’t for organizations like his, fewer kids could have experienced the responsibility and challenges of owning a horse. And if government had had the responsibility to dispose of all those old horses, it would have cost them a mint.

Sam also insisted that his work with other kinds of animals was a service to the public as well. The stray hogs, the proliferating rabbits and raccoons, the feral cats, the dogs running in packs – all these were taken in by his shelter and either disposed of or given out to the locals (for a small fee, of course). He also provided some road-kill pickup to local public safety units. So he felt he was doing the public a service. Apparently the local units of government thought so, too, because Sam’s project received regular grants of support from the three counties for animal pick-up and disposal.

But what do you think, dear reader? Is this a case where we have a unique and multi-faceted kind of personal enrichment at the taxpayer’s expense, or is a real service being provided that would otherwise fall to government? How many of the 40,000+ nonprofits that come on line each year are really set up to do what government can’t do and business won’t do?