Sponsor a Horse
Spread the love and sponsor a Sanctuary horse. When you sponsor a horse, you guarantee their future – ensuring they will never again want for warmth, care, food or friends.
THESE BABIES NEED YOUR HELP
All these horses have suffered terrible abuse and need your help. Sponsoring a horse is an incredible opportunity to have a real impact on the life of horses who have faced neglect, abuse and exploitation. Your sponsorship allows us to rescue, recover and rehabilitate at-risk horses and make them safe forever.
HOW SPONSORSHIP WORKS
There’s nothing better than knowing you’re making a real difference to the life of an abused or neglected horse.
How do I sponsor a horse?
Here’s how it works:
- Choose the horse from the Naturaliste Sanctuary website. Click through from the https://naturalistesanctuary.org/sponsor-a-horse/ webpage to the individual horse page. Here you’ll find everything we have on the horse – back story, basic details (age, sex, colour, height), it’s traiged condition, full health assessment, treatment plan and itemised treatment cost.
- Click “Sponsor Here!” and go through to the sponsorship page.
- Fill out your contact and payment details. We have payment options available through Afterpay for some treatment plans.
- Sign the sponsorship contract.
- Once this is done, we’ll contact you to discuss how you want to proceed. If you live locally, and you’d like to be involved in the horse’s recovery, we’d love to have you involved.
How will I know how much individual sponsorships cost?
- Treatment Cost Calculator (TCC) provides the Sanctuary with accurate, real-time estimates of healthcare and feed costs for every horse we rescue and recover.
- The calculator determines the current cost of all services, medications, interventions, feed and transport involved in rescuing and nursing our babies back to health.
- We find the TCC provides highly accurate estimates for triage, treatment, ongoing veterinary assessments, farrier, dentistry, medication, feed costs (including forage, specialist feeds and supplements) and assisted transportation.
- We set the sponsorship cost based on TCC outputs and fix the cost so that sponsors.
- It’s important that sponsors know exactly how much a horse costs to treat BEFORE they sign up.
- The cost calculator was developed with leading universities and specialist vets from around the globe.
Why is fixed cost better for the sponsor?
Horse owners know that equine veterinary and care bills are sometimes terrifying and getting eye-wateringly worse with each year. The Sanctuary faces the same challenges so we have devised a way to keep our treatment costs to an absolute minimum.
- In recent years, Australia has witnessed a notable increase in veterinary costs.
- From the increased cost of diagnostic testing to medical and technological advancements to the rapid increase in basic forage, there are many factors that may influence higher horse veterinary and feeding costs provided by veterinarians.
- To keep treatment costs to an absolute minimum, we have relationships with leading veterinary professionals, universities, specialist feed and medical suppliers and animal welfare institutions worldwide which provide their expertise and services on a fixed-cost basis.
- This means we can fix our treatment, feed and bedding costs annually and calculate them using the Sanctuary’s Treatment Cost Calculator.
- It also means that once we agree with our various experts on the treatment cost of a sponsored horse, the cost won’t change unless, of course, we’ve over estimated the treatment plan cost and then we return the difference to you.
What happens once I’m a horse sponsor?
You are provided with :
- A complete background of the rescued horse,
- an assessment of his or her health and welfare status,
- the full treatment plan – once the medical team has agreed the assessment,
- an itemised cost breakdown and potential payment schedule, if appropriate, and
- all the supporting documentation related to the care of the sponsored horse.
You’ll also receive:
- a framed sponsorship certificate (unless you just want the .pdf version which saves us a bit of money), and
- weekly recovery emails, with photos, so you can see the progress your horse is making.
Once a quarter, we hold a sponsor’s-only debrief morning tea where we exchange treatment and management ideas and discuss treatment options with some of the best equine medical experts across the globe. If you can’t attend, happy for you to Teams in!
Can I be involved in my horse’s recovery?
- We invite you to be as involved in the horse’s recovery as you’d like – stable care, grooming, assisting in veterinary or farrier procedures, rugging (and de-rugging), meal preparation, leading and re-training, even social media updates of your horse’s progress,
- if you’re not experienced with horses, we provide training, and
- once a quarter, we hold a sponsor’s-only debrief morning tea where we exchange treatment and management ideas and discuss treatment options with some of the best equine medical experts across the globe. You can Teams in if that suits or come for (calorie-free) cream cakes and coffee.
How much of the sponsorship money goes to saving my horse?
100%.
Unlike many Australian charities, we apply all horse sponsorship funds directly to the horse being sponsored and return excess sponsorship funding, if any, back to the sponsor when the horse is well.
We fund our administration, management and operating costs from other activities such as sales of merchandise, Harvest Days and other fundraising events, DunsBros performances and other for-profit entities such as the the Naturaliste Cafe and our gourmet company, Naturaliste Gourmet.
Any donor or sponsor funds goes directly to the purpose intended – horse sponsorship rescues horses, tree sponsoring buys trees and plants them, donations to hay or fencing funds buys hay and erects fences and so on.
Why are evidence-based protocols important?
- We use evidence-based protocols, manuals and checklists to help rescue practitioners to efficiently deliver triage, recovery, rehabilitation and re-herding therapies to at-risk horses.
- This means when horses are rescued and brought to the Sanctuary, they are triaged by Sanctuary staff and the veterinary team to determine a treatment plan using standard diagnostic and triage procedures.
- Trained volunteers follow the treatment plan and the evidence-based protocols which results in consistent and more precise care for the rescued horses and decreased treatment cost.
- Our veterinary team signs off on on the assessments within the protocols to ensure horses are correctly diagnosed.
Are joint sponsorships available?
- Of course. We invite community, family, joint or corporate sponsorships.
- You can also gift a sponsorship to someone. There’s a place on the sponsorship contract to nominate that person.
- As we’re a registered charity, sponsorships are tax deductible.
SPONSOR ONLY BENEFITS
We are so grateful to, and thankful for, the people who sponsor and save our rescued babies, we have packaged a load of great Sanctuary benefits exclusively available during the year* and only to horse sponsors.
Exclusive Access
- Harvest Day passes – 4 per year (general visitor price $25 per adult).
- Christmas at the Harvest Garden (general visitor price $35 per adult).
- Ethology Afternoon Teas – 4 per year (general visitor price $35 per adult).
- Cinema at the Sanctuary – 1 per year (general visitor price $55 per adult).
- Early access to our exclusive heirloom seedling catalogue a month before the general public,
- DunsBros and Leeuwin performances (general visitor price $12.50 per adult).
- Naturaliste Shop discounts – 15% discount on all merchandise items – on-sale items excluded.
- Banquet in the Breezeway – 10% discount (general visitor price $150 per adult).
- Nup-to-the-Cup Melbourne Cup luncheon – 10% discount (general visitor price $150 per adult).
- Sanctuary run events, including catered events, guided estate walks, experience days and family events – 10% off.
- All Harvest Garden plant purchases – 15% discount.
Giveaways
- Naturaliste Sanctuary sponsor cap (these are limited edition and available only to Sanctuary sponsors).
- A framed sponsorship certificate (unless you just want the .pdf version which saves us a bit of money).
Connection
- Weekly recovery emails, with photos, so you can see the progress your horse is making.
- Once a quarter, we hold a sponsor-only debrief morning tea in the conservatory where we exchange treatment and management ideas and discuss treatment options with some of the best equine medical experts across the globe. If you can’t attend, happy for you to Teams in!
*Annual pass starts from the first day of sponsorship and is valid for one calendar year.
SUCCESS STORIES
Sponsoring a horse is the most effective and rewarding way to help give an abused or injured horse a safe future. Thanks to your generosity, these horses are now thriving in their new home:
See all our success stories here!
LIKE TO GET INVOLVED AT THE SANCTUARY?
DONATE
Naturaliste Sanctuary relies on charitable donations to fund its work. All of your donations are applied directly and fully to rescue activities. More information is here!
FOSTER
Fostering a horse means becoming their family. You provide essential assistance with everyday tasks – medical procedures, feeding, grooming, stable care – while the horse is recuperating at the Sanctuary. More information is here!
SPONSOR
A gift that changes lives. By sponsoring a rescued horse you will be part of the rehabilitation journey, receiving regular updates about how your horse is recovering. More information is here!
VOLUNTEER
We have loads of fun, rewarding and interesting volunteer roles from horse rescue to working in the Naturaliste Garden to undertaking much needed projects in the Naturaliste Shed. We’d love you to join us. More information is here!
Join us at Harvest Day
REPORT ABUSE
Worried about a horse? If you’re concerned about a horse’s welfare, you can report this to us online. We’ll get back to you immediately.
