Best Friends Pet Resource Center

Nonprofit finalist
Best Friends Pet Resource Center
Bentonville

NWA director: Jackie Roach
Year founded: 2023
Line of work: working to end the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters by 2025.
Website: bestfriends.org/northwest-arkansas

In 2017, animal advocates invited the national animal welfare organization Best Friends Animal Society to Northwest Arkansas to assess the region’s need for animal services.

Those early conversations culminated in March 2023, when the Utah-based organization opened the first-of-its-kind Best Friends Pet Resource Center in Bentonville. Since then, the organization has grown to a team of nearly 40, dedicated to making Arkansas no-kill by 2025.

Recognizing a need for innovative animal services, Best Friends aimed to create a progressive approach to sheltering, focusing on the bond between people and pets. The center is a testament to that commitment, designed not only for the welfare of pets but also as a haven for the community. The center embodies a new strategy in animal care by eschewing conventional cages and prioritizing relationships.

Jackie Roach, director of NWA strategic partnerships, said Best Friends measures its impact by the lives saved through adoptions and the support provided to struggling pet owners. The center offers vaccines, microchips, pet food and supplies to those in need and weekly community vaccine clinics. Its unique sheltering model sets it apart from competitors, focusing on collaboration rather than competition within the animal welfare sphere.

Northwest Arkansas has profoundly influenced Best Friends’ growth, with the community’s passion and innovation driving the organization forward. Looking ahead, Best Friends aims to continue its mission of ending unnecessary euthanasia in Arkansas and beyond, elevating animal sheltering to a respected discipline while strengthening the human-animal bond.

Philanthropy is integral to Best Friends’ business strategy. In its last fiscal year, the group granted over $300,000 to Northwest Arkansas shelters and rescue organizations, with another $100,000 to shelters throughout Arkansas.

The organization also provides mentorships, training, and a revenue-neutral veterinary clinic, ensuring access to vital veterinary care for local shelters and rescues.

“We offer a revenue-neutral business model in our veterinary clinic, which means that Northwest Arkansas shelter and rescue organizations can obtain spay and neuter surgeries and other vital veterinary care at a heavily reduced cost that impacts their bottom line, so they can devout those dollars to impactful programming,” Roach said.

In the next five to 10 years, Best Friends envisions continued innovation and advocacy, striving to transform animal welfare locally and nationally.

“Northwest Arkansas is known for innovation,” Roach said. “It makes sense that we would locate here to innovate in the sphere of animal welfare, where so much has remained stagnant for 150 years.”