Ep 680: Small and Mighty: Inside Jersey City's Feral Fixers TNR Club, with Robyn Alcock & Jen Scott, Co-Founders of Feral Fixers TNR Club (Jersey City, NJ)

"It's okay to be small and grassroots."

This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund, OcuTrap, and The Community Cat Clinic.

Robyn Alcock and Jen Scott joined host Stacy LeBaron to talk about Feral Fixers TNR Club, the Jersey City nonprofit they co-founded in 2024 alongside Kathryn Parker after years of trapping independently. In just two years, the all-volunteer group — who all keep full-time jobs — has helped more than 375 cats through TNR, rescue, and medical care. Much of the conversation centered on the realities of running a small "operational board" nonprofit: the governance lessons that shaped their early structure, why they held off on setting formal growth metrics in year one, and how nearly half of the cats they trap turn out to be friendly, adoptable animals rather than TNR candidates — a shift driven largely by the lack of low-cost spay/neuter access in Jersey City.

Stacy, Robyn, and Jen also dug into practical solutions: MASH-style pop-up clinic models from groups like Animal Balance and Slomba Shelter Solutions as ways to bring high-volume spay/neuter directly into underserved neighborhoods, and the fundraising path that took Feral Fixers from small individual donors to their first Mission Meow grant and a matching grant from United Spay Alliance's Community Cats Grants program at their two-year mark. It's a useful blueprint for any small, grassroots group trying to prove — as Robyn puts it — that it's okay to be small.

Press Play Now For:

• How a pandemic-era trapping experience and a childhood spent bottle-feeding strays led Robyn and Jen to co-found a Jersey City nonprofit
• Practical governance lessons for small, "operational board" nonprofits — board size, conflicts of interest, and keeping personal and organizational finances separate
• Why nearly half of Feral Fixers' TNR trapping efforts turn into friendly-cat rescues, and how that's reshaping their workload
• The transportation and appointment-access barriers keeping Jersey City residents from affordable spay/neuter
  MASH-style clinic models, including Animal Balance, as an option for bringing spay/neuter directly into underserved communities
• How Feral Fixers built its funding base through small donors, a Mission Meow grant, and a United Spay Alliance matching grant
• Stacy's framework for identifying and cultivating leadership-level donors as an organization grows
• Why "altered at intake" numbers matter for understanding a community's real spay/neuter gap

Resources & Links

• Feral Fixers TNR Club: https://feralfixersclub.org/
• Feral Fixers TNR Club on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feralfixersclub/
• United Spay Alliance Community Cats Grants: https://www.unitedspayalliance.org/community-cats-grants/
• Animal Balance: https://www.animalbalance.org/
• Slomba Shelter Solutions: https://slombasheltersolutions.com/