Person and dog on a cliff in Angel Canyon

Grants for Best Friends Learning Advancement alumni

The Binky Incentive Award celebrates your commitment to learning and thoughtful planning — helping you build a stronger, more sustainable organization so you can save more lives.

We're thrilled to offer grants between $1,000 and $10,000 to help newer Best Friends Network Partners make an even bigger impact thanks to the Binky Incentive Award. If your organization has formed within the last five years and you’ve completed at least one Best Friends Learning Advancement course, this opportunity is for you.

Qualifying for the Binky Incentive Award

To qualify for the Binky Incentive Award, your organization must meet the following requirements:

  1. Be a Best Friends Network Partner in good standing and created within the last five years. Not yet a partner? We’d love to have you — join us here.
  2. Have a founder, officer, director, manager, or key personnel who has successfully completed at least one Best Friends Learning Advancement course.
  3. Submit a solid action plan showing how you’ll use the funds to make an impact for the animals and ensure your organization will be sustainable in the future.
Start My Application

Applying for the Binky Incentive Award

Applications are accepted any time and reviewed quarterly.

Ready to take the next step? Fill out the application to get started. If you have questions, email us at binky@bestfriends.org

Start My Application

The Bickfords: Making The Binky Incentive Award possible

Mickey and Peter Bickford have spent a lifetime championing animal welfare. In 2004 they established The Binky Foundation in honor of their beloved cat, Binky, who lived a beautiful life for 18 years despite her rare enzyme deficiency. The devoted, daily care that Mickey and Peter provided to Binky deepened their understanding of the bond between people and animals.

Inspired by this connection, the Binky Foundation focused on supporting small, emerging animal welfare organizations that often struggled to find resources. This has evolved into the Binky Incentive Award, established at Best Friends in 2026, continuing the Bickfords’ legacy by empowering dedicated organizations like yours to grow and thrive.

Person typing on a laptop with a small kitten relaxing on their lap

Start your application

If you're ready to strengthen your organization, expand your lifesaving work, and help more animals, apply for the Binky Incentive Award today.
Start My Application
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Learn with Best Friends

If you’re looking to complete a Best Friends Learning Advancement course or are pursuing a professional certificate, you can start learning today with one of our courses offered in partnership with Southern Utah University.

Learn with Best Friends

Painting of Binky the cat lying on an orange cushion
Painting by Judith Wolfe

In memory of Binky, whose legacy lives on.