Built by people who do TNR.

How ColonyCat started

A while back, Tara posted in a Facebook group asking if anyone could help her build an app. Steve's wife Jodi tagged him in the thread.

What followed was several hours of back-and-forth on Messenger, a whole lot of cat photos, and more than a few nights of very little sleep. Out of that, ColonyCat was born.

Tara had the vision: one place for the people doing the quiet, essential work of caring for community cats. Tracking colonies, planning TNR, logging feedings, coordinating volunteers, instead of scattering it all across notebooks, group texts, and memory. Steve had the technical skill and the desire to help, so he built it.

Today it's run by the two of them as ColonyCat, LLC, a small team that does TNR themselves and answers your email personally. This one is for the trappers, the feeders, the fosters, and everyone who shows up for the cats nobody else does.

Our principles

Built for grassroots groups. Most TNR happens in driveways and back lots, run by two-to-five people with day jobs. ColonyCat is designed for that group, not for a 200-person nonprofit with a paid tech team.

Privacy first. Your records are yours. No advertising, no creepy tracking, no selling your data. We use a small set of vendors to make the service work (Cloudflare hosts everything, Resend sends our email, OpenStreetMap maps your colonies, ProPublica verifies your 501(c)(3) status) and nothing else.

You can leave. One-click download of every record, every photo, every activity entry. 30-day grace window on every delete, so you can change your mind. No retention games.

Verified charities get a break. 501(c)(3) rescues with a verified EIN get 25% off whichever paid plan they choose. We want to make this affordable for the groups doing the most.

Talk to us

Questions, feedback, feature requests, or just want to say hi: hello@colonycat.org. We read everything.

A note from our founders

ColonyCat wasn't a random idea. It came out of years of hard work and a lot of lessons learned.

When you work or volunteer in rescue, there isn't much time left in the day for yourself. We wanted something that keeps track of what's happening across different groups, who's volunteering, and what each person is able to do, instead of it all living in flooded social media threads and memory.

We do what you do. We know what you sacrifice. We just hope we can help your group find an extra hour in the day.

Tara

Tara had the vision. I had the tools to build it. The more I learned about what rescue groups take on, the more I wanted to get this right for them. Watching ColonyCat come together, and seeing real groups put it to work, has been some of the most rewarding work I have done in a long time.

Steve