My Nonprofit Reviews

I wrote a review of Mickaboo a couple of years ago, and I am still volunteering and am involved in even more ways. Mickaboo works hard to ensure that our birds go to the best possible foster and adoptive homes. This means that every applicant receives a home visit from a Mickaboo volunteer before being approved to foster or adopt. When Covid hit, we switched seamlessly from in-person to virtual home visits and continued approving applicants and finding good homes for our birds. We continue to receive surrendered and lost and found birds, to provide top quality veterinary care to those who need it, and to find them good homes.

Mickaboo is amazing. Our mission is the rescue of lost, abandoned, or surrendered companion birds. We are an all-volunteer organization - we have no paid staff and no facility. Our income comes from donations and grants, and is spent on veterinary care for our birds. Mickaboo volunteers are located all over the San Francisco bay area and the central valley. Many spend dozens of hours a week on Mickaboo responsibilities.
I first learned about Mickaboo after, simply by chance, I found a budgie. When no one claimed him, I decided to keep him and quickly realized he needed a buddy. I went through the Mickaboo approval process a year ago and when I was approved, I adopted another budgie. The two birds are now the best of friends and their cheerful noises fill the house.
I am now the Budgie Intake Coordinator and have also fostered a number of interesting birds, so I have worked with many of Mickaboo’s other volunteers. I have found them to be kind, friendly, and willing to generously share advice and suggestions with us newbies. We are all focused on the birds, not on our egos, and on finding knowledgeable, approved caregivers for our avian friends.
Mickaboo volunteers go to extraordinary lengths fulfill our mission of caring for companion birds. We take in birds whose owners have to surrender them, and find them good foster and adoptive homes. I personally have driven all over the Bay Area and even as far as San Luis Obispo to pick up and deliver birds. Other volunteers recently rescued 12 birds, whose owner was elderly and could no longer care for them, from a filthy outdoor aviary in the central valley, in the pouring rain. We also pick up and find homes for companion birds when they are found and brought to animal control centers.
To become a Mickaboo volunteer requires taking a Basic Bird Class, passing a phone screen interview, and passing a home inspection. The class is, of course, offered by Mickaboo volunteers. Other classes are offered on other aspects of avian ownership. Volunteers hold fundraisers, auctions, and adoption events (even virtually these days) to raise funds for the care of our birds and to find homes for them. The amount of organizing and record-keeping is staggering, but it is all done by volunteers.
At the moment we have about 300 birds in the care of foster parents, who are financially responsible for the purchase of food and supplies for their birds. Mickaboo funds their veterinary care. Our veterinary expenses are approximately $40,000 a month, even with the “nonprofit discount” many veterinary practices offer. It is obvious how much fundraising must be done.
I have worked with several animal-related nonprofits, but Mickaboo is the best-run, most highly-organized, most focused-on-the-mission organization I’ve been involved with. Plus, our volunteers are without exception fun to work with, accommodating, helpful, and friendly. I very much enjoy working with Mickaboo, and I feel that my small contributions are appreciated. My expectations have been greatly exceeded. And all because I happened to find one little lost budgie!

I found a lost budgie a few months ago, and it slowly dawned on me that he was probably lonely. So I contacted Mickaboo, took their comprehensive and informative bird care class, survived the telephone interview and home inspection, and was accepted to adopt another budgie! I found Hollister on the Mickaboo website; he, too, had been lost and found, and was being fostered by a volunteer in Daly City. I made arrangements to adopt him, and when I brought him home my other bird was so excited and happy. I put them together in a nice, big cage and they are best buddies. I am so grateful to Mickaboo for their thoroughness in being sure that adopters are well qualified and knowledgeable so that their birds go to safe and loving homes. They've been nothing but professional and helpful.