Adoption, crisis foster care and hospice care for cats
Every cat deserves a home, a safe place to wait, and care to the very end.
The Von Cleveland Foundation helps shelter and rescue cats find homes, fosters cats for people going through a crisis, and cares for cats at the end of their lives, because no animal and no person should ever feel stuck, lost or alone.
Three ways we help cats, and the people who love them.
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Adoption
We give shelter and rescue cats the visibility they need to find a home, by letting people meet them as individuals at Frisky Business Palm Springs Cat Café.
175+ cats adopted since December 2022
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Crisis foster care
When someone goes into rehab, has surgery, escapes an unsafe home or loses their housing, we care for their cat at no cost until they can be together again.
10 of 10 cats reunited with their person.
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Hospice care
Cats too old or too ill to be adopted spend their final months with us, warm, safe and loved. In time, this grows into the Von Cleveland Sanctuary.
10 hospice cats cared for so far.
The space next door, and room to say yes.
Today our foster and hospice cats share space with an adoption lounge full of visitors. Hospice cats need quiet. Cats fostered for families escaping danger need privacy. And with the shelters full, we are already caring for more cats than the café was built for.
Our landlord has offered us the space next door. With it, we can open dedicated foster and hospice rooms, run as formal programs of the Foundation, and say yes to more of the families and cats who need us.
Why give
For nearly four years, Frisky Business has quietly done the work of a rescue organization, paid for by its own café and a generous community of regulars and volunteers.
We’re not asking you to fund an idea. We’re asking you to help something that already works do more.
It’s already proven
175+ cats adopted. Nine of nine crisis-fostered cats reunited with their person or placed in a loving home. Ten hospice cats cared for to the end. All funded by the café itself.
It’s built to last
Bringing Frisky Business into the Foundation means this work belongs to a nonprofit with an independent board, not to one small business or two people. Your gift builds something permanent, and it’s tax-deductible.
Questions donors ask
Straight answers to fair questions.
These are the questions people ask us most, including the hard ones.
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You wouldn’t be. You’d be donating to the cats and the families we help. For four years, Frisky Business has done the work of a rescue organization, paid for by its café and cat lounge entrances: 175+ adoptions, crisis foster care and hospice care. Moving that work into the Foundation is how we make it permanent, accountable to an independent board, and able to grow. Your gift goes to the care, not to the café’s running costs, which the café already covers.
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It pays for cats in crisis foster care and hospice care, and helps us open dedicated rooms next door. About $125 keeps one cat safe and cared for for a month. Today the café covers these costs from a small margin; your gift lets us help more cats than the café can afford alone.
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Yes. The Von Cleveland Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 93-2577900. Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and every donor receives a written acknowledgment for their records.
Why we exist
No one should have to choose between getting help and keeping their cat.
Hospitals, treatment programs and safe houses care for people, but rarely for the animals those people love. The Von Cleveland Foundation exists for that space.
Two months of recovery
Before entering rehab, a woman with no money for boarding came to us. We cared for her cat for two months, then watched them reunite.
Five months of healing
Facing major surgery and a long recovery, another person had no one to look after their cat. We cared for that cat until they could go home together.
A safe new beginning
When a mother and her children fled domestic violence for a safe house, her cat couldn’t follow. We had the cat neutered, vaccinated and microchipped, and found it a loving new home.
THE DAY SHE WAS FOUND
MONTHS LATER AT FRISKY BUSINESS
From rescue to home
A phone call, a garden tarp, and a mother cat with her kittens.
A man called Frisky Business after finding a cat and her kittens under the tarp over his garden furniture. Our founder, Claire Von Cleveland, went out, trapped the mother and gathered the family into a carrier. The Palm Springs Animal Shelter placed them together in a foster home, and each kitten went on to a loving family.
Then Sunshine came to the café. Six months later, she found a home of her own.
It took a phone call, a shelter, a foster home and a cat café to bring Sunshine home.
An invitation
This is the beginning. We’d like you to be part of it.
The people who support the Foundation now will shape what it becomes. If you would like to talk about building crisis foster care, sustaining adoption at Frisky Business or laying the groundwork for the sanctuary, we would welcome the conversation.