The Cat Museum of New York City
We are the Cat Museum of New York City’s co-founders, and we need your help to launch! Our goal is to help the community of cats and those who care for them, and we think the best way to support the humans who rescue and care for cats is through public education—specifically, through art.
We have been researching the issues affecting cats—speaking with shelters, volunteers, rescuers, nonprofit and community leaders, pet owners, veterinary professionals, and many others—and have come up with a plan to make the biggest impact to benefit cats and these folks systemically.
New York City is one of the cultural capitals of the world, and our goal is to create a physical institution here (as well as a virtual suite) supporting the work of cat rescuers, no-kill cat shelters, and cat nonprofit organizations. We hope to do this with the help of cat lovers from this city that we love as well as others from around the world.
We need your help in creating this museum. Our passion for cats can work to actively benefit the cats of the city and the world by supporting those individuals and groups who care for them, be they volunteers at no-kill shelters or those who are part of trap-neuter-return organizations, veterinary professionals, or artists who have been inspired by cats.
For those unfamiliar with trap-neuter-return programs (often abbreviated as TNR), these compassionate individuals and organizations humanely capture feral cats residing in colonies. After spaying or neutering the cats in targeted areas, they are returned to their colonies instead of being euthanized. By doing so, the future population of cats within these colonies can be reduced from conditions that cannot sustain a good quality of life for the cats, humans, birds, and others in the local ecological environment.
We have been preparing to create the Cat Museum of New York City as a brick-and-mortar space featuring cat art exhibitions and programming that will educate the public and connect the community of those who care for cats.
The space will host:
An art gallery featuring local and global feline-friendly artists
Events that are educational (workshops on cat adoption, rescue, fostering, and TNR), cultural (cat-relevant artists and authors), and entertaining (where proceeds will support cat rescue efforts) for adults and families
A gift shop with products—made by partnering with cat-friendly artists and local/sustainable small businesses—that support cat culture or that donate part of their profits to cat rescue efforts
A library
And more
Help us to develop this space by donating now. We are currently working on becoming a registered tax-exempt entity, with status from the IRS to become a 501(c)3 nonprofit (which is both complicated and expensive). Anything above and beyond our initial goal will help us with the next steps.
Your contribution by PayPal will help us with startup administrative costs as we register the Cat Museum of New York City as a nonprofit and plan our next phase.
Note: This proposed project’s initial campaign is supported through the fiscal sponsorship of the Independent Media Institute (IMI).