When we traveled to Southern Utah to visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, we went with a lot of questions.
The Casper Foundation was still at the beginning of our story, and we wanted to learn from people who had spent decades building theirs. What does meaningful change actually look like at scale? How do you grow without losing sight of the individual animals at the center of the work? And where can a foundation like ours make the greatest difference?
Walking through the sanctuary gave us a perspective that numbers alone never could.
We saw an enormous operation, but what stood out was how personal the work still felt. Every animal had a story. Every space had a purpose. And behind it all was a network of people, resources, partnerships, and programs working together toward something much bigger than any one organization could accomplish alone.
That stayed with us.
As a young foundation, it can be tempting to think impact means trying to do everything yourself. Our time with Best Friends reinforced something different: lasting change is built together.
For Casper, that means finding where we can be most useful. It means supporting the shelters and rescues already doing the work, using our platform to bring more people into it, building partnerships that expand what's possible, and staying focused on the barriers that keep cats from finding and keeping loving homes.
We also had the opportunity to spend time with Best Friends co-founders Silva Battista and Francis Battista. Hearing directly from people who helped turn an ambitious idea into a movement was a reminder that meaningful change rarely starts at scale. It starts with believing something can be better, then getting enough people to believe it with you.
We left Southern Utah inspired, but more importantly, we left with greater clarity about the kind of organization we want Casper to become.
We're still early. We're still learning. And that's exactly why experiences like this matter.
The goal isn't to become the biggest organization in the room. It's to understand where we can make a difference, find the right people to do it with, and keep creating more chances for cats along the way.
