Gail from True Innocents Equine Rescue (www.tierrescue.org) gave us the heads up about the Ralph and Virginia Mullin Foundation. This is an organization that will assist groups devoted to animal welfare wishing to become 501(c)3.

I was doubtful: Special Horses isn't your run-of-the-mill kind of equine welfare organization, even though, at this point, we certainly had established ourselves as making an impact. We still applied, and surprise! we received one of their grants-in-aid - which included assisting us become incorporated, help with the bylaws, and help with the form 1023 submission to the IRS. This was a pretty lengthy procedure - Colleen and I were working on the by laws and mission in June and July, 2009, and we submit our final papers in late July to the IRS. The legal counsel associated with the Foundation were just absolutely terrific in helping us through the process.

Meanwhile, we continued on with the next fundraiser. We were always looking for something different, and conceived a "Trash or Treasure" auction...people would donate items they had received that were, in their eyes, less than stellar gifts...but as you know, some people's trash becomes another person's treasure!

This was probably our most overarching fundraiser, involving several groups, as well as a different site for the auction. And it was not easy! We did raise quite a bit of money for the groups, but realized we needed to tweak some things to make it easier on all concerned. But that is part of the process - the evolving, and being responsive.