Recommendations

A moratorium on all new bird intakes must be enacted until every bird currently housed at FTB, BF1, and other overcrowded facilities has been placed. All hospitalized birds at FTB should be evaluated by an avian specialist to assess their health, and then assigned to appropriate foster homes. Some of Mickaboo’s assets should be put towards securing a location to house birds safely while longer-term placements are identified. The $40,000 to $50,000 we spend each month on boarding should be used to employ a full-time caretaker and behaviorists to care for the birds. A CEO and professional fundraiser must also be hired.

To restore organizational integrity and effectiveness, Mickaboo must begin with restructuring its leadership. The current board should be retired and replaced with qualified, independent members possessing expertise in areas such as avian medicine, nonprofit law, fundraising, digital communication and animal welfare. A professional CEO must be hired to provide strategic direction and operational oversight. The board should adopt formal governance policies—including term limits, conflict-of-interest rules and transparent documentation practices—to foster accountability, ensure continuity and rebuild trust amongst volunteers and donors.

Operationally, Mickaboo must prioritize transparency and consistency. Accurate records of finances, adoptions and medical care should be maintained in ASM. Leadership must implement preventive veterinary care policies and conduct critical reviews of long-term hospitalizations and costly boarding cases. Birds should only be accepted when foster homes are available, and intake policies should reflect both capacity and need. A separate entity should be established to manage wild conure care, ensuring compliance with wildlife regulations and avoiding resource diversion from companion birds.

Mickaboo should modernize its infrastructure and communication platforms, starting with a full website redesign and transition to online education. Educational classes should be streamlined and made more accessible, with multiple levels targeting bird care, species-specific needs and behavior training. Volunteers should receive formal onboarding and training, and content should reflect current avian care standards. A professional fundraiser and behaviorist should be hired to improve financial sustainability and reduce behavioral-related bird returns.

Improved application and vetting procedures are also critical. Applicants must be evaluated promptly and consistently, with mandatory follow-ups and home visits. Foster periods should be more structured, and fosters who fail to engage should no longer receive placements.

Finally, Mickaboo must acknowledge its operational reality and align its mission statement to accurately represent its function as a shelter and long-term sanctuary. It must then build long-term solutions—including aviary facilities and emergency intake holding spaces—to reduce dependency on boarding and vet facilities, improve bird quality of life and realign with its stated mission.

Detailed Recommendations

A discussed above, a moratorium on all new bird intakes must be enacted until every bird currently housed at FTB, BF1, and other overcrowded facilities or homes has been placed. All hospitalized birds at FTB should be evaluated by an avian specialist to assess their health, and then assigned to appropriate foster homes. Some of Mickaboo’s assets should be put towards securing a location to house birds safely while longer-term placements are identified. The $40,000 to $50,000 we spend each month on boarding should be used to employ a full-time caretaker and behaviorists to care for the birds. A CEO and professional fundraiser must also be hired.

Restructure the Board

Mickaboo’s board must be restructured and current members must be retired. We recommend recruiting board members from outside of Mickaboo, who have no ties to the organization, and consulting with an experienced professional to oversee the following:

Redefine the Board’s Purpose and Responsibilities: Clarify Mickaboo’s mission, vision and goals. Develop a list of roles and responsibilities for board members. Review and reconsider the board’s size and structure.
Identify Skills and Expertise Needed: Conduct a skills gap analysis to identify areas of needed expertise. We recommend the following backgrounds for board members: avian behaviorist, board certified avian vet, fundraiser, social media professional, tech support professional, animal rights specialist, non-profit lawyer, human resources professional, and public relations professional. Ensure diversity in backgrounds, perspectives and professional experience.
Recruit and Vet Potential Board Members: Create clear roles and expectations for board members, including time commitments. Create a governance committee to screen and recommend candidates.
Provide Orientation and Training: Develop an onboarding program to familiarize new board members with Mickaboo’s mission, programs, finances and governance structure.
Establish Governance Practices: Review and recreate bylaws to guide the board’s structure and operations. Create meaningful policies for conflict of interest, whistleblower protection and board member removal if necessary. Set term limits to encourage fresh perspectives while maintaining organization experience.
Promote Engagement and Collaboration: Set clear goals and expectations for board members, including attendance, committee participation and fundraising efforts. Hold regular board meetings with well-prepared agendas and provide timely updates on organizational performance.
Encourage Accountability: Conduct annual evaluations to assess the board’s effectiveness and individual member contributions. Encourage open communication and constructive feedback among board members and between the board, staff and volunteers.
Prevent Conflicts of Interest: Implement clear conflict-of-interest policies that require board members to recuse themselves from decisions involving individuals or entities with whom they have personal or financial ties. Document processes for identifying, evaluating and addressing conflicts. Provide regular training, ensure ethical leadership and periodically review policies.
Create a Succession Plan: Plan for board member turnover by identifying and developing potential future leaders. Ensure a smooth transition for key roles like the board chair and committee heads.
Foster a Culture of Accountability: establish formal channels for volunteer feedback, complaints and conflicts between staff and volunteers.

Improve Organizational Transparency

Comprehensive Record-Keeping: Accurately document all costs, invoices, medical records and adoption fees and integrate into ASM.
Improved Board Minutes: Leverage AI for board meeting note taking, enhance meeting minutes for clarity and detail, with a commitment to making them publicly accessible.
Financial Transparency: Publish tax returns and financial statements regularly, and maintain financial records using dedicated financial software. Make monthly financial reports available to organizational leaders.
Independent Oversight: Engage an external oversight organization for third-party whistleblower reporting and compliance support to help ensure accountability, provide impartial assessments and address concerns raised by stakeholders.

Address Mission Drift

Establish a Dedicated Wildlife Organization: Create a separate entity to focus on the specialized care of wild conures, as Mickaboo did for pigeons and doves. This organization should act to revisit the hard realities of appropriate euthanasia for some of these birds; liaise with wildlife authorities to align with the legalities and broader concerns that overlap with wildlife and these wild conures; raise public awareness of the problems being seen in these birds (Bromethalin toxicosis, lead, etc); find solutions to reduce problems in these birds and other species.
Acknowledge Mickaboo’s Operational Reality and Acquire a Physical Location: Align the mission statement to accurately represent Mickaboo’s evolving function as a shelter and long-term sanctuary. Eliminate boarding at commercial facilities. Build aviaries for birds that are better suited to that environment, and other necessary facilities as temporary locations for emergency intakes.

Improve Bird Care

Prevent Overcrowding: only intake birds if a foster home is available.
Prevent Extended Hospitalizations: Conduct critical reviews of the ongoing cases of birds who have been boarded or hospitalized for greater than one month, address the circumstances, negotiate more cost effective options and press to re-home or place these birds, thereby curtailing significant costs, while ensuring a better quality of life for the birds themselves. Unless medical boarding is absolutely necessary, assign these cases to fosters capable of ensuring timely veterinary visits
Create Veterinary Care Policies: Establish clear, evidence-based veterinary care guidelines—including preventive care protocols—to avoid unnecessary or questionable procedures, particularly in complex cases. All medical decisions should be guided by board-certified avian veterinarians, not influenced by personal relationships or internal politics.
Prioritize Medical Cases: Refer challenging medical cases to certified avian veterinarians.
Behavioral Support: Deploy behaviorists to work directly with individuals considering surrendering birds for behavioral reasons, aiming to address and resolve issues in advance.
Specialized Plans for Challenging Birds: Develop tailored care plans for birds with unique needs, prioritizing their well-being and placement in suitable environments.

Manage Extended Foster Periods

Minimum Fostering Period: Require all new birds to be fostered for at least six weeks before adoption to ensure health, and allow assessment and proper adjustment.
Training and Behavior Management: Train foster birds in basic husbandry and behavior management to address issues before placing birds in permanent homes.
Foster Adoptions: Allow fosters three months to decide if they wish to adopt the bird before listing it for public adoption.
Active Foster Involvement: After three months, fosters must actively promote their birds for adoption by sharing weekly photos, videos and updates for use on social media.
Rein in Rogue Fosters: If fosters refuse to communicate with coordinators or allow PAs to visit birds, their birds should be adopted to them or returned to Mickaboo. No other birds should be placed with them.

Reduce Returns and Foster Movements

Commitment to Stability: Fosters must commit to keeping birds until adoption, with movements allowed only for health issues or similar unforeseen circumstances. Document expectations on the website and go over foster and adoption contracts with the PA before leaving the bird.
Comprehensive Applicant Education: Before adopting or fostering, ensure applicants are fully informed about potential challenges with specific species. Assess applicants’ plans for life changes (e.g., family additions, new jobs) and discuss in detail how they would handle these transitions.
Problem-Solving Support: Encourage applicants to work with behaviorists to address challenges instead of returning birds. Limit returns to situations where all other solutions have been thoroughly exhausted.
Foster Follow-Up: Investigate reasons for foster birds remaining un-adopted for more than six months and take corrective actions.

Streamline Application Processes

Efficient Application Processing: Optimize the application process for quicker turnaround times while improving applicant preparation.
Online Classes: Transition all educational classes for applicants and fosters to an online format for greater accessibility and efficiency.
Vetting Processes: Assign home visit responsibilities to paid behaviorists to eliminate delays caused by lack of volunteer home visitors. Require phone screeners and home visitors to schedule appointments immediately upon assignment and inform the application coordinator of the schedule. Ensure reports are written promptly after each phone call or home visit.
Timely Application Review: Species coordinators and the approvals board must review and finalize applications as soon as they receive necessary documents.
Clear and Immediate Communication: Notify applicants immediately of any issues or concerns to avoid delays.

Improve Vetting Processes

Standardized Policies: Clearly define and publish adoption policies, including acceptable practices, geographic restrictions and other key criteria. At the same time, allow room for individual circumstances.
Pre-Adoption Evaluation: Ensure all changes to a bird’s potential environment or care plan are completed before placing the bird. Require species experts or behaviorists to accompany birds to adoptive or foster homes, and finalize placements only if confident of compatibility.
Experience-Based Evaluations: Acknowledge and respect applicants’ prior experience with birds during the vetting process.
Mandatory Follow-Ups: Conduct follow-ups at regular intervals after placement until the bird’s well-being and adjustment are assured. Implement a plan for retrieving birds placed in unsuitable conditions.
Mini Home Visits for New Placements: Require a quick home check for every new bird placement to ensure the environment is safe and appropriate, the cages are clean and capacity is not exceeded. Fix issues before leaving the bird.
Species Specific Vetting: if a candidate wants to adopt a species that’s different than what they applied for, require at least a phone call before proceeding.

Improve Education and Communication

Update Infrastructure: Allocate funds for upgrading to a modern server and a user-friendly teaching platform.
Online Classes: Transition all educational offerings to an online platform for accessibility and convenience. Design courses around current avian standards of care, with short multiple-choice tests at the end of each unit and a short written assessment at course conclusion. Expand educational offerings to include species-specific care and considerations, fundamentals of basic husbandry and advanced training techniques.
Volunteer Training: Develop specialized training classes for volunteers to ensure consistent standards of care and communication.
Website Revamp: Revamp the website for improved functionality, ease of use, information and accessibility.
Social Media and Content Creation: Recruit volunteers skilled in creating video and photo content to show birds in foster care. Share engaging content such as favorite bird recipes and training sessions.

Restructure the Organization

Mickaboo should be restructured to reflect its dual role as both a sanctuary and a network of foster homes, creating an operational model that promotes clarity, accountability and efficiency across all areas of the organization. At the top, a Board of Directors composed of professionals with expertise in avian veterinary care, behavior, animal welfare, nonprofit law, finance, public relations, technology and human resources would provide strategic oversight. Reporting directly to the board, a paid CEO with experience in nonprofit management would be responsible for overseeing daily operations and long-term planning. Under this leadership, Mickaboo should be organized into three core divisions: one focused on its original mission of rescue, foster care, public education and adoption of companion parrots, supported by two additional branches dedicated to fundraising and development and sanctuary operations.

To strengthen its financial foundation, Mickaboo should hire an experienced fundraising professional to lead and expand development efforts. While some fundraising activities are already in place, a dedicated expert could significantly improve their reach and consistency. By pursuing a broader range of opportunities—such as grants, recurring giving, sponsorships and digital campaigns—a skilled fundraiser could help diversify income and ensure long-term stability.

A dedicated physical facility would further support Mickaboo’s mission by consolidating specialized training, emergency intake, long-term care and foster support in one efficient, self-sustaining location. Centralizing these services would reduce reliance on costly external boarding, shorten recovery timelines and ensure birds receive consistent, high-quality care. The facility could serve as a hub for onboarding fosters, offering hands-on experience in behavior and medical support within a structured environment. It would also enable in-house veterinary assessments, behavioral evaluations and temporary housing, easing overcrowding and improving the flow of birds through the system. In the long run, this model would reduce expenses, expand organizational capacity and raise the standard of care.

Beyond direct care, the facility could function as a regional training center for aspiring and current avian professionals. Through partnerships with veterinary schools, behavior academies and credentialing organizations, Mickaboo could offer structured programs for those pursuing careers in avian behavior and medicine. The site could host practicums for behaviorists-in-training, giving them experience with diverse species and real-world cases under professional supervision. Veterinarians could attend workshops focused on integrating behavior into treatment plans—a critical but often overlooked aspect of avian health—and receive support in pursuing board certification through case studies, supervised practice and continuing education aligned with ABVP standards. Veterinary technicians would benefit from training in handling, emergency care, husbandry and client communication. These programs would raise regional standards of care while generating revenue through tuition, certification fees and development grants. By investing in education, Mickaboo could expand the pool of qualified professionals and create a new generation of informed advocates for birds.

To fund the development and ongoing operation of this facility, Mickaboo could pursue a diversified strategy combining one-time capital campaigns with sustainable revenue streams. A targeted capital campaign could engage major donors, foundations and corporate sponsors to support the purchase, renovation and outfitting of the space. This effort could be anchored in a compelling vision of reducing suffering, increasing adoptions and building long-term capacity. Additional funding could come from grants offered by animal welfare organizations, veterinary education programs and emergency relief funds that support infrastructure and training.

Mickaboo could also offer naming opportunities for rooms, aviaries or programs, appealing to donors seeking a lasting legacy. To maintain operations, the organization could run monetized public programs—such as care and behavior classes, vet tech workshops and children’s events—priced for accessibility but designed to generate steady revenue. Membership tiers with exclusive benefits would encourage recurring donations, while partnerships with avian brands could bring in sponsorships or in-kind support. Online platforms like GoFundMe, Patreon and social media could support targeted campaigns around specific goals. Finally, developing a planned giving program would allow supporters to include Mickaboo in their estate plans, contributing to long-term financial health. By combining startup capital with sustainable income, Mickaboo can build a lasting foundation for its expanded mission.