Couple Donates $93-Million to Foundation Dedicated to Improving Care of Pets

Dave Duffield, founder of the software company PeopleSoft, and his wife, Cheryl, have donated $93-million to a foundation they established in 1999 to promote the well-being of pets. The Duffields had previously donated $200-million to the foundation. The money will be used to expand the grant making of the foundation, known as Maddie’s Fund, which works to discourage animal shelters from euthanizing healthy cats and dogs.

Maddie’s Fund, in Alameda, Calif., already dwarfs other grant makers that give solely to animal welfare. As of last August, the foundation had awarded $33-million over five years to shelters, veterinary hospitals, and other organizations. It routinely donates more than the 5 percent of assets that private foundations are required by federal law to give each year, says Rich Avanzino, the foundation’s president.

The new donation comes shortly after Mr. Duffield resigned, in December, as chief executive of PeopleSoft, the Pleasanton, Calif., company he started in 1987. The company merged that month with Oracle Corporation, following a hostile takeover bid. At the time of his departure, Mr. Duffield had about $600-million in PeopleSoft stock, according to David Ogden, a former employee. Mr. Duffield, 64, is now working to develop a new software company.

Small Grants

The new money will help the foundation start a grant-making program designed to broaden its impact and encourage collaboration among animal-protection groups. The new grants will be mostly one-time-only awards and might be as small as $2,000 — a contrast to most of the foundation’s other grant programs, which offer charities money for 10 years and are typically for multimillion-dollar sums.

The foundation’s grant making will continue to focus on its goal of a “no-kill nation,” which aims to find homes for all shelter animals that are healthy or can be treated with veterinary care. The no-kill movement has caused controversy in the animal-welfare world, at least among animal-control groups or people who think it is overly ambitious, conceded Mr. Avanzino.

“Many people in our movement had heretofore believed this was an impossible dream, and there just weren’t enough resources,” he says.

To reach its goal, the foundation is helping veterinary schools put more resources into training their students for jobs in shelters, where they have to know not only about animal health but also how to work with large groups of animals and cope with challenges like shortages of staff members. Maddie’s Fund is also trying to encourage collaboration among animal-welfare groups in the hopes that doing so will raise the visibility of efforts to save the lives of dogs and cats.

Its biggest project to date is in New York, where it plans to donate up to $15.5-million over seven years to a coalition of 80 animal-welfare groups. The coalition’s main priority is to guarantee homes for all healthy animals in New York shelters within the next five years.

Marcello Forte, executive director of Animal Haven, one of the members of the coalition, says the grant is designed to give incentives to charities that succeed. Groups that find homes for more pets than they did the previous year will receive $150 for each additional animal they save.

He says that while grants of that scale don’t necessarily change the way entire organizations operate, they do produce results. Maddie’s Fund, Mr. Forte says, “doesn’t hand the check to any one group and say, Here’s $20-million, go build something…. But obviously there’s a carrot dangling in front of us, and it creates an atmosphere in New York for us all to succeed.”

Close Involvement

Even as the foundation expands, the Duffields still have a big hand in deciding what form grants should take, says Mr. Avanzino. Maddie’s Fund has seven paid staff members, but the Duffield Family Foundation — a precursor to Maddie’s Fund that operated from 1994 to 1999 — was run solely by the Duffields. They decided to transform and expand the foundation into Maddie’s Fund to honor their miniature schnauzer, Maddie, following her death in 1997. Mr. Duffield also hoped to lower his own philanthropic profile and make gifts “in the name of Maddie,” Mr. Avanzino says.

Three of Mr. Duffield’s children from a previous marriage serve on the board of trustees, including his daughter Amy Zeifang, who is the chair.

Mr. Avanzino says of the family: “They are the principal moving force in its policy, in its direction, and how its resources are going to be spent.”

While animal welfare has been the overwhelming focus of the family’s philanthropy, Mr. Duffield has directed his largess to benefit other areas as well. He has donated $43-million to Cornell University, his alma mater, for a new science building.