In September, the MSL program and the Donald Pritzker Entrepreneurship Law Center (DPELC) kicked off the annual DPELC-MSL Speaker Series. The series brings a variety of leaders to the law school to talk about their path and experience as an entrepreneur. This year’s first installment was an event for animal lovers – it featured Heather Owen, the executive director and co-founder of One Tail at a Time (OTAT), an animal rescue organization in Chicago. Like other entrepreneurs, Heather saw a need and set out to innovate within the animal rescue infrastructure. OTAT grew from a small initiative staffed by Heather and a few volunteers to an organization that now generates more than one million dollars in annual revenue. Although it is a non-profit, OTAT’s challenges and successes mimic stories of for-profit startup entities.

In her description of OTAT’s success, and its struggles on the road to success, Heather noted two critical factors: a strong team and flexibility in design and development.

Team

• A good team is essential in every aspect of development — from day-to-day operations of an organization to addressing major challenges faced by a company. In the case of OTAT, the challenge of exponential growth in demand for pets has required a strong and creative working team.
• People with different strengths can contribute to an organization in a variety of ways. OTAT’s board is composed of professionals with diverse skills who each have a unique contribution to make to the team.
• Maintaining motivation among team members is very important, but can be a challenge, especially when the work seems never-ending and the problems seem insurmountable. With animal rescue, it is important to have a strong team leader as the work changes and its goals shift.

Flexibility

• Staying progressive and open to change can set an organization apart. In animal rescue, organizations typically focus on finding new homes for pets. OTAT is not only about helping pets find new homes, but unlike many other organizations, it supports families so they can keep their pets and provide for them.
• Being flexible as a business evolves is difficult, but critically important. As needs change, organizations need to be flexible and change too. OTAT used to partner with other organizations for things like veterinary care. However, the organization was flexible enough to see that providing these resources in-house would be an improvement. OTAT now has its own veterinary clinic. While it is important to keep focused on core goals, an organization has to be flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. One of OTAT’s primary goals is placing animals that are not regularly adopted in good homes, but achieving this goal has required flexibility during the pandemic, when the demand for pets and pet adoption rates have grown to record levels.

As many of you know, a number of MSL staff members have rescued pets; Director of External Outreach Evan Goldberg actually adopted his beloved Domino from One Tail at a Time! Evan, Domino, and the entire MSL community were thrilled to have the opportunity to learn from Heather Owen about her personal entrepreneurship experience; Heather clearly loves what she is doing and her work at OTAT is inspiring.

For more on DPELC-MSL Speaker Series and animal shelters, check out Business Skills for Non-Profits with Paula Fasseas from PAWS.