Help Save affoGATO Cat Cafe!
Donation protected
Attention: affoGATO Cat Café is in danger of permanent closure without your support!
We are a small family-owned business in the heart of Tremont, consisting of three co-owners. The three of us were inspired to start this project several years ago, and thanks to the vital support of our family, friends, and community, we were able to succeed in our dream of creating a wonderful space for rescue cats to get socialized, and have found homes for over 460 cats! Everything at affoGATO is handled personally with love and care, from painting the walls ourselves in the days before opening, to steaming the milk for your lattes, to matching up adopters with their new best friends. We are incredibly grateful for every bit of support we’ve received throughout our journey, which we work every day to repay as best we can. It would devastate us to let down those who have brought us this far. However, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed us back to the starting line, which is why we are asking for your help to let us continue our work of saving cats and serving coffee.
In order to prioritize health and safety after our district enforced a lockdown order, we kept our high-traffic business closed until financial extremity forced our hand. On a personal level, that meant going more than five months without income during our typical busy season. And professionally, we were unable to provide sufficient support to our staff or local vendors, along with the loss of our overall community momentum. Since reopening, we’ve taken very strict measures to keep our patrons and neightbors safe, often at the expense of income. We project that affoGATO has had roughly an 88% loss of revenue compared to last year, due to the impact of COVID.
We tried to put off asking for help for as long as possible, and have thrown all the ideas we could at the problem because we know there are so many individuals and small businesses in need. However, our business savings are now empty, and with COVID-19 cases on the rise, and reduced capacity due to our safety measures, guest visits continue to drop drastically. (We are glad people are staying safe at home, please don’t feel guilty about that! We care very deeply about everyone’s health, especially during such difficult times.)
Even the smallest donations can help keep our doors open to continue housing rescue cats until they find their forever homes.
Over the past two years, we have felt the overwhelming support of the community. It brings us joy seeing you all at the café, and getting updates about you and your cats. We are so thankful to each and every person that has helped us to live our dream of helping cats and slinging coffee, and we take nothing for granted. We hope to weather this storm, but regardless of the outcome, we have nothing but love for all of you and appreciate each and every moment at the café.
ABOUT AFFOGATO CAT CAFE
We are proud to have found homes for over 460 shelter cats since opening last year, with almost 200 this year alone!
As Cleveland’s first and only cat café, affoGATO’s mission is to improve our city by creating a safe, comfortable haven for adoptable cats, cultivating a fun and inclusive space for cat-lovers to work and play, and teaming up with other local businesses and artists for the betterment of the community as a whole.
We are currently providing to-go coffee, tea, and snack service from our outdoor café counter. We always love seeing our friends, neighbors, and their adorable dogs who stop by! We place a high value on supporting our local community, and thereby source most of our goods from other small local businesses, who also have outstanding missions and community focus. (Ex: Rising Star Coffee and Storehouse Tea)
At the moment, we are still hosting limited reservations in our cat lounge with the safest precautionary measures we could think of. However, our capacity is less than half the usual amount to allow for social distancing, and we no longer allow drink service inside due to our strict COVID prevention policies. To maintain the cats’ visibility to their adoring fans and potential adopters, we’ve added a free livestreaming service, multiple times a week, to help prospective adopters get to know the adoptable cats, all while still staying safe. (Plus, providing virtual “cat therapy” during a hard year!)
As before the pandemic started, we continue to honor our policy of 100% of the adoption fees going directly to the animal shelter we work with, so they can continue their lifesaving rescue and adoption work. This means our only income for affoGATO comes from our cat lounge visits, café sales, and now (hopefully) your donations. This is the biggest reason why we are having such a challenging time during the pandemic. Much of our time and effort is spent on the overall cat adoption process, where no revenue is made (though of course seeing a cat go home with their purrfect owner is its own wonderful reward). Our coffee sales and cat lounge visits are usually enough to supplement for the work we put into adoptions, but right now it’s just not enough to keep us running at the quality of service we want to provide for you.
Cat Profiles
Cat Lounge Hangouts
Twitch Livestreams
YouTube
TRANSPARENCY (USE OF FUNDS)
We three co-owners have not paid ourselves since our closure in March because we wanted to save as much as we could to weather through the oncoming storm. We are unable to pay employees, but a couple of our wonderful team members and friends have also chosen to return as volunteers. But despite these cuts, between our business rent, loan payments, and other expenses, our savings were barely enough to help us buy the supplies we needed to re-open the space after our 5-month hiatus. All of the donations to this GoFundMe will be used for the purposes below:
1. Enhancements to make winter café service possible:
In order to continue supporting our cat lounge and adoptions, and to continue our support of the other small local businesses we work with, we want to serve guests throughout the chilly winter season. Since our indoor café space is too small to safely and effectively serve customers, we would like to instead continue our outdoor to-go café service.
In order to do so, we will need to buy and install:
- 1 exterior Dutch Door: estimated $2500-$3000
- 1-2 outdoor electric heaters: estimated $300 each
This estimated pricing is based on online sources, but if possible we would love to purchase this equipment locally.
2. Rent and Utilities:
We have continued to pay our full rent and utilities of roughly $3,000 per month throughout the pandemic -- including during the five months when we were closed to the public. However, our business savings have run out, and we are now struggling to make payments at the end of each month. Unfortunately, like most small businesses, we filed a claim with our business insurance and were denied.
Therefore all remaining funds not spent on winterization will be spent on rent, utilities, and supplies for the cats, so we can keep the cat lounge open and keep our cats safe and happy while we help search for their forever homes!
FYI: affoGATO is not a non-profit, so donations are not tax-deductible. However, they are very much appreciated! Thank you for reading, and for your support!
We are a small family-owned business in the heart of Tremont, consisting of three co-owners. The three of us were inspired to start this project several years ago, and thanks to the vital support of our family, friends, and community, we were able to succeed in our dream of creating a wonderful space for rescue cats to get socialized, and have found homes for over 460 cats! Everything at affoGATO is handled personally with love and care, from painting the walls ourselves in the days before opening, to steaming the milk for your lattes, to matching up adopters with their new best friends. We are incredibly grateful for every bit of support we’ve received throughout our journey, which we work every day to repay as best we can. It would devastate us to let down those who have brought us this far. However, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed us back to the starting line, which is why we are asking for your help to let us continue our work of saving cats and serving coffee.
In order to prioritize health and safety after our district enforced a lockdown order, we kept our high-traffic business closed until financial extremity forced our hand. On a personal level, that meant going more than five months without income during our typical busy season. And professionally, we were unable to provide sufficient support to our staff or local vendors, along with the loss of our overall community momentum. Since reopening, we’ve taken very strict measures to keep our patrons and neightbors safe, often at the expense of income. We project that affoGATO has had roughly an 88% loss of revenue compared to last year, due to the impact of COVID.
We tried to put off asking for help for as long as possible, and have thrown all the ideas we could at the problem because we know there are so many individuals and small businesses in need. However, our business savings are now empty, and with COVID-19 cases on the rise, and reduced capacity due to our safety measures, guest visits continue to drop drastically. (We are glad people are staying safe at home, please don’t feel guilty about that! We care very deeply about everyone’s health, especially during such difficult times.)
Even the smallest donations can help keep our doors open to continue housing rescue cats until they find their forever homes.
Over the past two years, we have felt the overwhelming support of the community. It brings us joy seeing you all at the café, and getting updates about you and your cats. We are so thankful to each and every person that has helped us to live our dream of helping cats and slinging coffee, and we take nothing for granted. We hope to weather this storm, but regardless of the outcome, we have nothing but love for all of you and appreciate each and every moment at the café.
ABOUT AFFOGATO CAT CAFE
We are proud to have found homes for over 460 shelter cats since opening last year, with almost 200 this year alone!
As Cleveland’s first and only cat café, affoGATO’s mission is to improve our city by creating a safe, comfortable haven for adoptable cats, cultivating a fun and inclusive space for cat-lovers to work and play, and teaming up with other local businesses and artists for the betterment of the community as a whole.
We are currently providing to-go coffee, tea, and snack service from our outdoor café counter. We always love seeing our friends, neighbors, and their adorable dogs who stop by! We place a high value on supporting our local community, and thereby source most of our goods from other small local businesses, who also have outstanding missions and community focus. (Ex: Rising Star Coffee and Storehouse Tea)
At the moment, we are still hosting limited reservations in our cat lounge with the safest precautionary measures we could think of. However, our capacity is less than half the usual amount to allow for social distancing, and we no longer allow drink service inside due to our strict COVID prevention policies. To maintain the cats’ visibility to their adoring fans and potential adopters, we’ve added a free livestreaming service, multiple times a week, to help prospective adopters get to know the adoptable cats, all while still staying safe. (Plus, providing virtual “cat therapy” during a hard year!)
As before the pandemic started, we continue to honor our policy of 100% of the adoption fees going directly to the animal shelter we work with, so they can continue their lifesaving rescue and adoption work. This means our only income for affoGATO comes from our cat lounge visits, café sales, and now (hopefully) your donations. This is the biggest reason why we are having such a challenging time during the pandemic. Much of our time and effort is spent on the overall cat adoption process, where no revenue is made (though of course seeing a cat go home with their purrfect owner is its own wonderful reward). Our coffee sales and cat lounge visits are usually enough to supplement for the work we put into adoptions, but right now it’s just not enough to keep us running at the quality of service we want to provide for you.
Cat Profiles
Cat Lounge Hangouts
Twitch Livestreams
YouTube
TRANSPARENCY (USE OF FUNDS)
We three co-owners have not paid ourselves since our closure in March because we wanted to save as much as we could to weather through the oncoming storm. We are unable to pay employees, but a couple of our wonderful team members and friends have also chosen to return as volunteers. But despite these cuts, between our business rent, loan payments, and other expenses, our savings were barely enough to help us buy the supplies we needed to re-open the space after our 5-month hiatus. All of the donations to this GoFundMe will be used for the purposes below:
1. Enhancements to make winter café service possible:
In order to continue supporting our cat lounge and adoptions, and to continue our support of the other small local businesses we work with, we want to serve guests throughout the chilly winter season. Since our indoor café space is too small to safely and effectively serve customers, we would like to instead continue our outdoor to-go café service.
In order to do so, we will need to buy and install:
- 1 exterior Dutch Door: estimated $2500-$3000
- 1-2 outdoor electric heaters: estimated $300 each
This estimated pricing is based on online sources, but if possible we would love to purchase this equipment locally.
2. Rent and Utilities:
We have continued to pay our full rent and utilities of roughly $3,000 per month throughout the pandemic -- including during the five months when we were closed to the public. However, our business savings have run out, and we are now struggling to make payments at the end of each month. Unfortunately, like most small businesses, we filed a claim with our business insurance and were denied.
Therefore all remaining funds not spent on winterization will be spent on rent, utilities, and supplies for the cats, so we can keep the cat lounge open and keep our cats safe and happy while we help search for their forever homes!
FYI: affoGATO is not a non-profit, so donations are not tax-deductible. However, they are very much appreciated! Thank you for reading, and for your support!
Organizer
Mandy Miller
Organizer
Cleveland, OH