Meet Aaron Fisher | Nonprofit Founder and CEO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aaron Fisher and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aaron, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The CEO and Founder, Aaron Fisher, taught elementary school for seven years, spent more than 12 years volunteering and working in animal welfare, and has been working with youth from under-served communities since the early ’90s. He first arrived in Atlanta in 1993 to attend Emory University, and his love for the city has only grown since.

The idea for Atlanta Rescue Dog Cafe (ARDC) was born from these experiences. His students were often too young to volunteer with animals (but really wanted to learn more about pets). Yet, no single organization was primarily dedicated to educating the community about animal welfare, how to care for pets and be safer around animals. Our programming now reaches more than 1,000 participants a month!

Despite so much good that’s been accomplished for Atlanta’s pets, the number of animals entering area shelters continues to increase, as does the incidence of animal cruelty. Yet, few local rescue groups offer the educational resources to help prevent pets from entering shelters in the first place. Simply put, we’re not going to spay/neuter, shelter, or adopt our way out of the pet overpopulation and animal cruelty problems. ARDC addresses the root cause of these issues through innovative educational programs that focus on the critical aspects of prevention and healthy human-animal interactions.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
No other organization does what ARDC does. While there are lots of animal welfare and rescue organizations out there doing amazing work, their main focus is on caring for pets once they enter the shelter system (where, inevitably, some animals will have to be put down due to lack of space, time in the shelter, or resources). ARDC is the only organization whose sole focus is on helping to keep pets in loving, forever homes, off the streets, and out of shelters. Essentially, we strive to prevent pets from ever “becoming rescues” in the first place through offering innovative responsible pet care, pet therapy, community-building and humane education programming.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We’d like to dedicate our Shoutout to the many amazing Atlanta Rescue Dog Cafe (ARDC) volunteers, interns, donors, community partners and supporters who’ve helped make our humane education, pet therapy, and community-building programs possible. Simply put, “it takes a village,” and we couldn’t do what we do without these incredible people and organizations.

Website: https://therescuedogcafe.org/

Instagram: instagram.com/atlantarescuedogcafe/

Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/atlantarescuedogcafe

Facebook: facebook.com/atlantarescuedogcafe/