Get involved
There is a place for you in this work.
Whether you have an afternoon, a spare bag of cat food, a professional skill or the means to make a lasting gift, you can help keep cats safe and keep them with the people who love them.
Ways to help
Start wherever you are.
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Adopt
Meet adoptable cats at Frisky Business Palm Springs Cat Café. Our team will help you find the right match and guide you through adoption.
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Volunteer
Volunteers are part of daily life at Frisky Business, with one or two on shift most days. Every volunteer completes an application and agreement before their first shift.
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Donate Cat Food
Unopened cat food is always welcome. Because changing food can upset our cats’ stomachs, donated food goes to our community cat pantry, which feeds about forty outdoor cats every week.
Food can be dropped off at Frisky Business Palm Springs Cat Cafe
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Visit and spread the word
Every visit to Frisky Business supports the cats in our care, and every share helps a cat be seen. Follow along and tell a friend.
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Partner with us
We want to work with veterinarians, shelters, rescues, and domestic violence, recovery, hospital and housing organizations to build safe referral pathways for crisis foster care.
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Donate
A gift of any size keeps a cat fed, safe and cared for. If you would like to make a larger or lasting gift, we would welcome a conversation about what it could make possible.
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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Because the work has outgrown what a small business can carry. The café’s small margin already pays for our foster and hospice care, but it can’t pay for more cats, dedicated rooms or a sanctuary. And a business belongs to its owner; a nonprofit belongs to its mission. We want this work to outlast us.
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The Foundation is newly refocused, but the work isn’t new. Frisky Business opened in December 2022 and has been doing this ever since. The Foundation has been a California nonprofit since 2023 and is a 501(c)(3) public charity.
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Not in any way you’d notice. The café, the cat lounge and the adoptable cats stay the same. Behind the scenes, everything you spend there will support a nonprofit.
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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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Some, over time, and only openly. Claire owns Frisky Business and will sell it to the Foundation below its independently appraised value, paid in monthly installments with no interest. The board approves the sale without Sonny taking part, and it is reported publicly on our annual IRS return. When you give, you choose: the cats’ care, the rooms next door, bringing Frisky Business into the Foundation, or where it’s needed most. Gifts given for a specific purpose are used only for that purpose.
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Please support your shelter too. We work alongside The Palm Springs Animal Shelter, not in competition with it. We fill the gaps a shelter isn’t built for: keeping a cat while its person is in rehab, in hospital or in a safe house, and caring for cats too old or ill to be adopted.
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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.
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It is our long-term vision, not our next step. We will build it only once our foster and hospice programs are established and funded, and we will name its location when that decision is final.
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.