Meet April Josephson

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful April Josephson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

April, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Finding your purpose is one of the biggest challenges in life. When we are young it is difficult to know what we will really like long-term, or make a decision regarding our future pursuits that will impact the entire course of our lives. Few people have a strong sense of purpose from day one. I had certain strong ethics and beliefs, but did not know how to translate them into action.

There were things starting with childhood that I took an interest in, as an activity, or as a potential area in which to pursue further education. At the time, I had no idea that they would affect my future and drive me to find my purpose.

Looking back, I realize that everything we do will elicit a certain feeling. Those things that we do or see which spark an interest or a strong positive feeling are the best areas to pursue to stay true to ourselves.

In my case, I have always felt strongly that I wanted to support the underdog. When I read the US Constitution—especially the Bill of Rights—I decided that I wanted to go to law school to protect the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves. I never expected that those underdogs who couldn’t speak for themselves would literally mean dogs in need.

Once I was in law school, and saw how competitive and formal it was, I developed a strong distaste for that environment. I am by nature a creative person, and couldn’t see myself in a traditional law firm. It drove me to seek an alternative career path—utilizing my legal education in a different manner. I chose to work in business and as a transactional attorney to try to help people.

Then, I adopted a rescue dog. The more I learned about their plight, the more I got involved with dog rescue. It took me awhile to realize that I had found my purpose.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

After becoming a lawyer, having a long career in business, receiving my MBA degree, and being a serial entrepreneur, I developed the idea of a unique nonprofit home-like pet adoption center—The Pet Adoption Center of Orange County (PAC-OC). It is also a community resource for education and prevention in Orange County. Utilizing my experience, and operating on a shoestring budget, my dedicated, all-volunteer team and I have built a rescue facility that runs as a rehabilitation center, or halfway house between a shelter or other unfortunate situation, and a forever family. Our brand is “Pets. Family. For Life.”

The PAC-OC focuses on giving the dogs in our care proper medical treatment, training, socialization, exercise, and anything else they need to become an adoptable family member. As the Executive Director and currently the only employee, I handle adoption matching to ensure that the family is the right fit for the pet, and will not be returned to a situation like the one we rescued them from.

We work with our local cities to provide education, low-cost pet services, and adoption events including the South County Pet Expo, cosponsored with the City of Lake Forest and Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner’s office.

We hope that with enough community support our efforts grow, and will expand this innovative business model with the engagement of like-minded people, making a broad difference in animal welfare attitudes and outcomes.

As the PAC-OC evolves, we have seen the business community take an interest in our efforts. We offer something that traditional rescue organizations and shelters don’t. I am focusing our current efforts on expanding our services into this market through the launch of a corporate sponsorship program. Options include participation in weekday corporate events, group puppy therapy sessions, educational talks, adoption events, donation drives, and group volunteer opportunities.

As of late last year, we are also collaborating with a local nonprofit food pantry to collect and provide pet food to those in need. Sometimes merely providing food is enough to keep pets with owners who are struggling financially. We are also working on a collaborative effort to bring much-needed low-cost spay/neuter services to Orange County.

The one big challenge that we have is that we lost our principal funding for the facility due to the pandemic. This has made it difficult to increase the focus on our programs, since we have to spend a good deal of our efforts raising funds just to stay open. I am optimistic that as we pursue the corporate programming area and our other expanded services, we will be able to build our brand, engage additional segments of the community, grow our donor base, and raise the funds we need to operate and expand our services. We are currently looking for a major sponsor who will receive naming rights to our center.

I am as passionate about the nonprofit sector and giving back to the community as I am about the pets that we rescue. I believe that my enthusiasm and authenticity drive the success of this venture—with the help of our amazing team of volunteers.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The qualities and skills that stand out to me are passion, education/analysis/critical thinking, and resilience. It makes it very difficult to pursue anything if you are not passionate about it and believe in it wholeheartedly. Passion will motivate you.

In order for me to dive into anything completely, I do my homework—educate myself in that area—so that I will do it justice. Both my undergraduate degree in Philosophy and my law school education have taught me critical thinking. I synthesize and analyze information in my head, after gathering appropriate data. This process guides me through all my decision-making. It may sound long and arduous, but the truth is that once you are skilled, you are able to do this very quickly for most important decisions.

Resilience is equally important. You will be knocked down and thrown curveballs all of the time throughout your life. You cannot let anything dissuade you. Get back up immediately, reassess, and continue to move forward.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

As with many nonprofits, the biggest challenge is always fundraising to keep operating. In our case, there are additional obstacles. One is the state of animal sheltering in the U.S—shelters and rescues are overflowing with animals. Meanwhile, there are many more families looking to give up their pets on a daily basis than to adopt pets.

Our second big obstacle is the loss of our principal funding that paid the rent—as of mid-2022. The foundation that was providing funding had naming rights to our facility. Both of these issues are aftereffects of the pandemic.

We have an incredible amount of community support for our cause. Yet, the vast majority of the community support is to volunteer, or provide donations of used items (items that we already have an overabundance of)— not to provide financial support.

Those who do support us financially like to see that their money goes to a specific purpose—such as paying for the medical care of one of our dogs. Thus, we struggle to pay the rent. People are just not motivated to donate for overhead to keep an organization operational—even though it is that financial foundation which allows the rest of the community impact to follow.

I’ve noticed an increase in requests from businesses to interact with animals over the past couple of years. This is the genesis of the corporate program that we are currently working on. We are doing our research to try to structure it to meet the needs of both the businesses and our cause.

Additionally, we are starting to spread the word about the naming opportunity for our facility.

My goal is that between our ongoing community efforts and outreach into new areas, such as this interview, that we will reach new audiences who might just happen to believe in the cause and want to join with us to make a positive impact.

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