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“We exist to help as many cats feel safe and happy as possible. We do this by uniting cat lovers in celebration of Everything Cat with our tee shirts, sponsoring rescue cats, and through our tribe of cat lovers we bring awareness to issues affecting our feline friends.”
As of September 2024, 106 trucks of donated products have been shipped to our recipients which have provided over 16.4 million meals to 136,707 cats in shelters across the United States.
This achievement underscores our strong partnership with Greater Good Rescue Bank, reaffirming our dedication to feeding and supporting cats in need.
For more information about our finances, legal compliance, and how we donate funds, visit our About page here.
For every shirt purchased on our online store, and every shirt sent to our AdvoCAT members, we sponsor food for a cat through a rescue organization. Our goal is to reduce the number of euthanized cats from the current 4,000 per day - one day at a time, and one cat at a time.
We want our impact to be measurable. Because rescue organizations have different costs, we measure our impact in terms of Days of Life Saved. This means when we provide funds to rescue organizations, we measure it in terms of how many days of food the funds provide for a shelter cat.
Of course, food prices can change (with inflation, the economy, etc.) - we strive to maintain this level of impact and will adjust our sponsorship amounts if costs increase. In any case, we’re measuring in terms of Days of Life Saved, not dollars or percentages. If we see the price of food go up we will increase the amount we donate to ensure our impact.
We are also transparent that we are not a non-profit entity. We view most non-profits as financially unsustainable. We believe that the best way to make an impact is by all our AdvoCAT members joining in our mission, and our community being sustainable for the long term.
Our shipping times depend on when you ordered. If you're ordering a product from our online store, it is custom printed for you so please expect that it will take a little longer than ordering an off-the-shelf product. We'll email you with shipping updates. For other items (such as sponsor shirts), we send those out once per week. For monthly members getting quarterly shirts, please read below.
Gift cards are sent via text message as a discount code that can be used on our website at www.catbandit.com . Please make sure to provide a valid cell phone number to receive your gift card. If you have not received it, email us and we'll send it to you.
We fulfill our mission in three ways:
Every quarter we send an amazing, artist-designed T-Shirt to our members. These shirts fulfill our mission by getting the word out and getting us new sponsors!
If you're a new member, when you get your shirt depends on when in the quarter you signed up. We ship them in October, January, April and July. All members who are active in those months will receive a shirt.
You can wear it proudly - or gift it to someone to get the word out. The point is to make people aware of the cat rescue crisis!
“Non-profit status” which allows for tax deductions is a based on IRS Section 501(c)(3). At the core of what we do is to raise awareness for cat rescue (through both memberships as well as awareness sponsors who contribute for that purpose), then donate a portion of proceeds to rescue organizations as described above. We do this by building our community of AdvoCATs and sending them t-shirts that equip them to spread our message - and save more cats. If you've seen the impact that organizations like Tom's Shoes are making, we are making an impact in the same effective way.
We sell shirts as a core part of what we do. Unfortunately (just like with Tom's Shoes), the IRS doesn’t view our shirts as qualifying for non-profit tax treatment - legal counsel has advised us that under Section 512 of the IRC, shirt sales are considered UBIT and would remain taxable under Section 11 of the IRC. This is why we cannot be a 501(c)(3). Because of this, your sponsorships, purchases and memberships are not tax deductible.
That said: we’re transparent about the impact you'll have by telling you how many pounds of food we are giving. Our charitable distributions are under what is known as a “Commercial Co-Venture Agreement,” which is a way we ensure our giving is legally compliant and we do not misdirect funds that are committed for charitable work. Instead of hiding behind complex IRS “Form 990” filings for you to figure out what we're doing, we simply and clearly lay out the impact you will have. We've put in place accounting to ensure we are meeting those promises. You can read more here. We’re interested in members who want to make an impact, not look for tax deductions.
