Denver Dumb Friends League is a nonprofit organization focused on advocating or providing services for animals. It is based in Denver, CO. It received its nonprofit status in 1942.

Throughout the League’s 110-year history, many inspiring individuals shaped the organization—and animal welfare—into what it is today. From Jean Milne Gower in 1910 to Dr. Apryl Steele in 2015, who we are, what we do and what we offer is thanks to many people along the way.

A legacy more than 100 years in the making
If we hop in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback machine to Sept. 8, 1910, we’d learn that William Howard Taft was the President of the United States, Mary and John were the most popular baby names, and the Denver Dumb Friends League was incorporated under the laws of Colorado.

That’s right. more than 100 years ago, Mrs. Jean Milne Gower founded the League after learning about a similar organization in London, which she visited and sought advice to start an animal shelter here.

The motivation for incorporating likely stemmed from negotiations with city authorities to take over the city dog pound, an arrangement that became effective on Sept. 1, 1910. According to a 1911 newspaper article, the League was picking up stray dogs in Denver and housing them in Edgewater, but the city of Edgewater took the League to court for disturbing the peace, and the shelter had to move.

In 1912, the League contracted with a well-known and reputable boarding-kennel owner to run our first shelter in downtown Denver until 1920. At that time, a new facility was built on 11 lots at South Santa Fe Drive and Louisiana Street. As the incoming animal population grew, so did our need for space, and a larger shelter was built at the same site and opened in 1949. In the mid-1960s, pet receiving stations were opened in Arvada and Littleton to handle the growing number of animals. But, by 1972, this shelter was inadequate to handle its burgeoning population, and the League purchased 20 acres near Quebec Street and Evans. With construction completed in 1974, the new shelter opened, and the League still operates from this location today.

Those familiar with the League back in 1983 might recall cat and small dog adoptions through our Lakewood satellite facility. The League accepted an offer from the Animal Assistance Foundation for rent-free use of its Lucky Star Cat Shelter, and in the 1990s, the shelter evolved into an extended care center for animals recovering from illness or injury before closing in 2003.

To meet the ever-growing demand for animal welfare, in 1986 the League used an estate gift to expand the Quebec Street Shelter. And, in 1999, the organization undertook a major capital campaign to build a shelter for Douglas County and to again significantly enlarge the Quebec Street Shelter, which is now known as the Leslie A. Malone Center. In 2002, the Buddy Center opened in Castle Rock.

Throughout the metro Denver community, the Dumb Friends League is a familiar name. Perhaps lesser-known but as critical to the welfare of animals throughout the state is the Colorado Humane Society (CHS), a program of the League. Since 2010, CHS works to prevent and investigate cases of animal neglect and mistreatment and promote animal welfare throughout Colorado, giving pets and equines a second chance.

Abused and neglected horses, ponies, donkeys and mules that have been removed from their owners by law enforcement officials were able to find the rehabilitation, care, training and new loving homes they needed when the Dumb Friends League Harmony Equine Center opened in Franktown in 2012.

The year 2017 was a big one for the League. The Dumb Friends League Veterinary Hospital at Yuma opened in Denver to provide free spay/neuter surgeries for all cats to reduce pet overpopulation. And, we embarked on a major renovation and construction project at the Leslie A. Malone Center. The $40 million Building a Better Way Home project and capital campaign upgraded the oldest and most heavily used parts of the facility while expanding and enhancing other critical areas of the shelter. The state-of-the-art shelter provides the architecture and infrastructure to exponentially increase our collective impact on animal care, treatment and well-being for years to come.

As history shows, the League has always had its pulse on animal welfare needs.
When the demand for veterinary services to underserved pets increased dramatically, the organization was ready to help. In 2018, the Dumb Friends League Veterinary Hospital at Yuma opened in Denver to prevent and alleviate suffering in pets whose caretakers would otherwise be unable to provide this care.

The Dumb Friends League Veterinary Hospital at CSU Spur opened in early 2022 to help expand access to veterinary care in Denver. The hospital, which operates in partnership with Colorado State University, provides low-cost services to the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods and beyond. It features a one-of-a-kind public-facing educational space allowing visitors to observe veterinary teams at work.

The Dumb Friends League is poised to build on the legacy of its organization’s strengths and commitment to end pet homelessness and animal suffering. We’re proud of our history, community and the good we all do together.

Denver Dumb Friends League

The pet food bank feeds hungry pets, helping to keep pets out of shelters and with their families.

The Colorado Pet Pantry is a Denver/Boulder nonprofit that feeds hungry pets and keeps them with their families. Info: eileen@coloradopetpantry.org

Colorado Pet Pantry

The mission of the IEF is to support and operate elephant conservation and education programs both in managed facilities and in the wild, with emphasis on management, protection and scientific research.

Vision Statement: We are the catalyst for creating a sustainable future where elephants thrive by linking people and elephants for their mutual long-term benefit.

Mission Statement: IEF creates a sustainable future for elephants. We generate and effectively invest resources to support elephant conservation, education, research, and management programs worldwide. 

Through our passion, expertise, knowledge, and partnerships we inspire and engage people to ensure a vibrant future with elephants everywhere.
 
Working out of 7 base camps throughout Aceh Province, the Conservation Response Unit (CRU) teams of skilled, conservation-management trained mahouts and their elephants are the frontline workers protecting wildlife and habitat. And they need our help.

Things to Know About IEF

IEF was formed in 1998 by managers and directors of facilities that manage elephants in human care.

IEF has provided almost $5 million to elephant conservation and research programs internationally since inception.

IEF has supported over 150 elephant conservation and research programs.

The current board has over 350 years of accumulative experience in wildlife and elephant handling, management, research and conservation.
Since inception, over 85% of funds raised have gone to conservation and research programs.
Board members receive no compensation for time spent on IEF business.
IEF has supported Elephant Conservation Centers in Sumatra since 2000.

IEF produced the Elephant Husbandry Resource Guide in 2004, the most recognized document on elephant management. The second addition is being worked on now.

IEF awards conservation and research grants annually.

International Elephant Foundation

To improve the welfare of animals in Asia, resulting in better lives for both the animal and human communities.

Soi Dog Foundation (Soi Dog) was established in 2003 in Phuket, Thailand, to help the street dogs and cats who had no-one else to care for them. Over 70,000 strays roamed the island, with the numbers growing alarmingly due to a lack of spay and neuter programmes to control the population. Soi Dog was created to provide a humane and sustainable solution to managing the stray population and to address their medical needs. Funding then, as it does now, came entirely from individuals who shared, and continue to share, the vision of our founders.



Soi Dog Foundation

Community arts institutions in NYC; the sole provider of arts education in four disciplines (music, dance, theater & visual arts).

HSA’s mission empowers young people mainly from under-served communities in Harlem to find and develop the artist and citizen within themselves.  Our environment teaches discipline, stimulates creativity, builds self-confidence and adds a dimension of beauty to our students’ lives.

The Harlem School of the Arts

IAmProSe is an organization whose vision is to eradicate and prevent domestic violence within the Black community. 

IAmProSe is an organization whose vision is to eradicate and prevent domestic violence within the Black community. IAmProSe empowers members of the Black community to prevent, deter, and abolish domestic violence against Black women within communities. IAmProSe is currently based in Texas.

Black women are not provided the same preventative services or culturally specific resources they need to survive as compared to the resources received by other demographics. Either the resources and services provided are “general data and information,” or the resources are disproportionally distributed away from Black women to other demographics, even though Black women are statistically most in need of such services. 

Black women are three times more likely to be victims of violence/abuse than any other racial group. They are disproportionately at risk for death by domestic violence and have a three times higher homicide rate than white women and two times more than other marginalized racial groups. Even though these statistics are staggering, Black women are the last to receive adequate services.

Currently, IAmProSe offers the following services:

-Grassroots community support organizers. IAmProSe supports the community by
providing culturally competent methods of addressing domestic violence in the Black
community.

-Educational training community & protective institutions. IAmProSe provides
education, training, and deep cultural expertise tailored to address the failures within
the community to eradicate domestic violence within the Black community.

-Grassroots Black advocacy. Addressing through advocacy the inaccessibility of
domestic violence services and protections for Black survivors.

These services are currently being provided on a small scale due to immediate need, with the goal to expand these services in 2023.

IAmProSe

Empowering young women of color ages 7-17 to embrace the current tech marketplace as builders + creators.

Black Girls CODE is devoted to showing the world that black girls can code, and do so much more. By reaching out to the community through workshops and after school programs, Black Girls CODE introduces computer coding lessons to young girls from underrepresented communities in programming languages such as Scratch or Ruby on Rails. Black Girls CODE has set out to prove to the world that girls of every color have the skills to become the programmers of tomorrow. By promoting classes and programs we hope to grow the number of women of color working in technology and give underprivileged girls a chance to become the masters of their technological worlds. Black Girls CODE's ultimate goal is to provide African-American youth with the skills to occupy some of the 1.4 million computing job openings expected to be available in the U.S. by 2020, and to train 1 million girls by 2040.

Black Girls CODE

Black Sisters in STEM (Black SiS) helps Black Gen Z women breaking into STEM careers share, learn, and get hired.

Vision: Reinventing the path for Black women in early career stages pursuing STEM-based careers.

Black women constitute only 2 percent of STEM jobs. A statistic that has been stagnant since 2018. Black Women represent the largest unserved market and largest disruptive force in business. Black women struggle at every stage of the STEM pipeline. It’s not due to lack of desire, or capacity, it’s to lack of support.

Black Sisters in STEM (Black SiS) is on a mission to unleash the global brilliance of Gen Z Black Women by reinventing their journey towards STEM based careers. We are building and upskilling the largest talent marketplace of Black Gen Z women to systematically address the racial wealth gap and create generational socio-economic growth. In short, we help Black Gen Z women breaking into STEM careers share, learn, and get hired.

We have built an empire of ~8k Black women from 33 countries and 200+ schools. Growing membership at 75% YoY. Most importantly, earning our fellows $4M+ in compensation packages. From Lagos, Nigeria to Atlanta, GA we are building a career community the world has never seen.


Black Sisters in STEM (Black SiS)

Fighting for racial justice through litigation, advocacy, and public education. Est. 1940.

The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.

NAACP Empowerment Programs

EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration in the US and challenging racial and economic injustice.

Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. We challenge the death penalty and excessive punishment and we provide re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people.

EJI works with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment. We are committed to changing the narrative about race in America. EJI produces groundbreaking reports, an award-winning wall calendar, and short films that explore our nation’s history of racial injustice, and we recently launched an ambitious national effort to create new spaces, markers, and memorials that address the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, which shapes many issues today.

EJI provides research and recommendations to assist advocates and policymakers in the critically important work of criminal justice reform. We publish reports, discussion guides, and other educational materials, and our staff conduct educational tours and presentations for thousands of students, teachers, faith leaders, professional associations, community groups, and international visitors every year.