Little Man Fund

We created the Little Man Fund to honor the memory of our founder’s beloved kitty. As with countless homeless animals, Little Man showed up on Sande’s door, emaciated, hungry, and bedraggled. With some much-needed TLC, Little Man blossomed and the relationship this once stray kitten forged with Sande’s husband inspired the Show Your Soft Side campaign.  

We hope to pay it forward by supporting the army of selfless caretakers who trap, feed, and care for thousands of community cats, who, through no fault of their own, call Baltimore streets their home. Beginning in 2022, SYSS will award quarterly Little Man Grants to caretakers who are actively engaged in TNR or who feed community cats. Q2 applications may be submitted beginning March 15 through 5pm on May 1, 2023. Winners will be announced by May 15, 2023.

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Little Man Fund Guidelines

Little Man Grants were created to alleviate the significant financial burdens on community cat caretakers and recognize these selfless and unsung animal heroes in and around Baltimore. We support and salute these unsung heroes and hope our Little Man Grants ease their burdens. Please review the following guidelines before submitting an application for funding.

  1. Little Man Fund grants are restricted to caretakers who reside in (or feed and/or TNR colonies in) Baltimore City and Baltimore County.
  2. Show Your Soft Side (SYSS) will award two $500 Little Man Grants per quarter, which may be used to purchase traps, equipment, supplies or food. Grant funding may also be utilized for small capital projects to repurpose a garage, basement or room used to house feral cats before or after surgery or when injured. In addition to awarding cash grants, SYSS will distribute a Tru Catch trap to two meritorious applicants each quarter.
  3. Requests for proposals will be posted each quarter on SYSS’s social media pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
  4. Applicants may submit more than one application per calendar year.  Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis and SYSS will use its best efforts to allocate funds responsibly each quarter. SYSS reserves the right to deny funding for any reason, but will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, sex, religion, age, national orgin, sexual orientation, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, person appearance, marital or family status or other status protected by law.
  5. Within 60 days of receiving a Little Man grant, a grantee shall provide an itemization to SYSS, including receipts, detailing how funding was utilized. Itemizations may be mailed to: Show Your Soft Side, 1501 Sulgrave Ave., Suite 100-K, Baltimore, MD 21209 or may be sent to us here. 

Funding Request Form

All fields are mandatory. Fields left blank may cause your application to be deemed incomplete and ineligible for consideration.