SUMMIT ASSISTANCE DOGS
Creating life-changing partnerships between people and dogs
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Summit serves people living with mobility disabilities by providing a highly-skilled canine partner to assist them in their daily lives. People living with mobility disabilities frequently experience discrimination by being assigned or denied certain perceived abilities, skills, or character orientations. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act assures equal opportunities in education and employment for people with disabilities and prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, people with disabilities remain overrepresented among America’s poor and undereducated. Assistance dogs give their partners an increased sense of confidence and can alleviate social isolation by providing an avenue for people to relate with our clients. Every one of our clients speaks of how their horizons have been broadened due to the increased confidence, safety and independence they experience when accompanied by a service dog.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Mobility assistance dog training
Summit carefully selects puppies to enter our intensive service dog training. The dogs that are chosen to complete the program and be paired with a partner go through more than 2 years of testing and training. They receive hundreds of hours of intensive training, pass vigorous health exams, and graduate from our program knowing up to 60 commands.
Prison program partnership
Since 2010, Summit has partnered with the Monroe Correctional Complex, where carefully screened and selected inmates train many of our dogs. Older puppies and shelter dogs are placed with inmate pairs for up to 6 months. During that time, Summit trainers work with the inmates twice a week, honing their dog-training skills. The inmates learn job skills, social skills, communication, and responsibility. At the end of each session, a formal graduation ceremony is held at the prison, and the dogs that are nearing readiness for placement with a client return to Summit for advanced training with our professional trainers.
Team training
Clients who are selected to be paired with a trained service dog attend a two-week intensive program at Summit to learn about working with their new partner. They learn how and when to use commands, general canine care, service dog etiquette, and service dog laws. Following the classroom portion, Summit trainers travel to the client’s home to continue working with the team in their home and work spaces. Finally, each client must pass written and practical exams before graduating with their new canine helpmate. Each team visits with a staff trainer annually for the life of the dog. Many of our clients live with progressive disabilities, meaning that the dog may need to learn new skills in order to continue to meet the client’s needs. We are committed to providing quality service to our clients for life.
Where we work
External reviews
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Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Summit Assistance Dogs creates life-changing partnerships by training and providing highly-skilled mobility assistance dogs for people living with disabilities. By assisting with tasks such as retrieving items, opening and closing doors, and turning switches on and off, our dogs help their partners live with greater independence and confidence. These companions can also help diminish depression, anxiety, and loneliness. While it takes more than two years and many helpers along the way, we provide dogs free of charge to our clients, as many people living with a disability are challenged with high medical costs and sometimes loss of employment.
We believe all people and animals deserve to reach their highest potential, and that frequently this is best achieved in partnership with one another.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Assistance dogs require 2 full years of care and training before they are ready to be matched with a partner. From age 8 weeks to 12 months they typically reside in foster homes with our dedicated puppy raising volunteers who provide them with the early socialization and basic training that all our dogs need to succeed. From age 12 to 18 months, many of our dogs enter our prison program where they receive excellent care and intermediate level training with carefully selected inmates. From 18-24 months, our dogs reside in the homes of our staff trainers, who work to refine the dogs’ skills and provide them with the extensive public access training they require to graduate.
Our organization has recently purchased land on which we plan to build a training campus. It’s a critical component of our strategic growth plan to meet the high demand for service dogs in the Northwest. A training campus, along with increased annual revenue, will allow us to expand the number of dogs we can train, thereby allowing us to create more partnerships.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Summit Assistance Dogs has experienced steady growth and built a solid reputation for providing outstanding service since it's founding. Executive Director Sue Meinzinger founded Summit in 2000 and has become a regional expert in the service dog field. Sue graduated from The Assistance Dog Institute in Santa Rosa, where she gained an education in training assistance dogs for people living with disabilities. Today, Summit employs 10 people, including 4 professional trainers, and has the annual support of more than 150 volunteers and 1,500 donors. With a diverse funding base and 1,500+ loyal supporters, we believe we can achieve our goal of building a permanent campus that will enable us to create many more life-changing partnerships between people and dogs.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Summit has successfully placed more than 90 assistance dogs since our founding and we currently have 30 qualified applicants on our waiting list. Summit commits to providing quality service to our clients for life and we evaluate our success by tracking the number of service dogs we place each year, the number of clients who receive continued support from our team both before and after receiving a service dog, and the results of partnership programs such as our Monroe Correctional Facility partnership program. We are also an accredited member of Assistance Dogs International, a coalition of assistance dog programs dedicated to setting standards and sharing best practices.
Today we have reached a critical juncture in our ability to meet the needs of our clients. Without a campus, we are greatly limited in the number of dogs we can accommodate, making it impossible to serve the increasing number of people applying to our organization. We have 30 applicants on our waitlist and have historically been able to place a maximum of 8 dogs per year, resulting in many people waiting 4-5 years to receive a service dog. This lengthy wait time is due to the fact that we must house all of our dogs in volunteer and staff homes, which are in limited supply. A permanent campus will enable Summit to bring many more dogs into our program, allowing us to change the lives of many more people.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
SUMMIT ASSISTANCE DOGS
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Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as: