Nonprofit profile: Wildlife Rehabilitation Center

Wildlife Rehabilitation Center

Phil Jenni is executive director of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville, a veterinary hospital for orphaned and injured animals that also provides education for veterinary and pre-vet students. This year, the organization expects to treat about 9,000 animals from 180 species, ranging from spotted blue salamanders to trumpeter swans to bobcats.

Q: Why is your work important?

A: What sets us apart is the very notion of taking care of wild animals, particularly what some people think of as common back-yard animals, for instance squirrels. We're not really making an impact on the population of animals. We're saving that one animal. We're an emergency hospital, so we don't make judgments about the quality of the animal.

We really move from a culture of hope and compassion and kindness. We're able to provide people with a place where they can act on their instincts to assist. It might be a small thing, but it has, I think, a way of shaping culture. People who rescue animals, it's something they remember all their lives.

Q: What is your biggest accomplishment?

A: Probably being able to create a $2 million new wildlife center that frankly is the envy of other wildlife centers across the country. Our staff has grown, the organization has grown, from $200,000 in our last few years at University of Minnesota [where the center was located until 2002] to about an $800,000 organization today. Since 2002 it has not been the best environment for nonprofit organizations. But every year since 2002, more people have given more money to us. We're funded almost entirely by members of the public.

A: The next stage in our growth is, how do we expand appropriately to be sure that we're not maxing out this facility and at the same time making it a better situation for our patients and our volunteers? More than half of our patients are orphans. They're not sick or injured, they just don't have a parent to raise them, so we do that. It's not the best use of the resources. So what we're trying to do is develop an off-site facility that would be primarily used for healthy orphans. They need room to grow and frankly less contact with people. That would then free up space here to be a much more teaching hospital.

Q: How can people get involved?

A: First response, I'd get fired as an executive director if I didn't say, "Give us money." That's obviously the one thing. But you have to have the kind of programs that people believe in and the kind of management that inspires their trust and the money will come. We have a lot of volunteers, about 600 volunteers. There are opportunities listed on our website. "Like" our Facebook page, all that stuff. We have a fabulous Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and our website's pretty good. □