Exploring Life & Business with Vanessa Vonland of Ahimsa House

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Vonland.

Hi Vanessa, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started going to Georgia State University feeling sort of aimless but with a solid goal – Whatever I chose to do with my life, I wanted it to make a difference. While my various areas of interest waivered, this goal always remained the same. While attending GSU I worked at my college radio station, Album 88. We had many public service announcements we would read on air for local nonprofit organizations – Ahimsa House, an organization that addresses the connection between domestic violence and animal cruelty – was one of those. I looked them up to learn more about them and their mission really spoke to me. As an animal lover and a survivor of an emotionally manipulative relationship in my early 20s, I couldn’t imagine ever being put in a position where I’d need to choose between my pet and my own safety.

Years after graduating, I was sort of floundering and working a series of part-time dead-end jobs. I was feeling disheartened at my lack of contribution to my community and decided I needed to volunteer my time somewhere. Ahimsa House was the first organization that came to my mind and I reached out about their open Direct Services Intern position. I was brought on the team and eventually hired full-time as a Victim Services Advocate in 2019. As an advocate, I was responsible for case management, crisis response, safety planning, volunteer coordination, and other duties as assigned. After 4 years in the advocate position, I was promoted to the Victim Services Coordinator. This promotion put me in more of a supervisory position of advocates, part-time staff, and volunteers. Other duties include creation, alteration, and enforcement of program policies, onboarding and training of new volunteers, maintenance of multiple informational databases, financial management and reporting, and stepping in to support the advocates as needed.

I celebrated 6 years with Ahimsa House in January. I’ve had the pleasure of watching Ahimsa House grow and save so many lives – human and animal – in my time here. I look forward to the opportunity to learn and grow with the organization and continue to do the most good we can for those in need. 2024 was our busiest year yet with 201 clients and their 328 pets. While it is sad to see the reality of the need for our services in Georgia, I’m happy that we have become so well known in the last 21 years and more folks in need are able to reach us.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Working with survivors in crisis can be very emotionally draining. We can also sometimes hear some pretty traumatic stories of animal abuse that are hard to stomach. Burn out is common in both the human-services and animal rescue fields and it’s important to recognize when you or your staff need a break. We speak a lot about self-care and I do my best to make sure that my colleagues feel safe alerting me when they need a break. Likewise, I am sure to voice when I am feeling overwhelmed and need to step away to take care of myself so I may continue helping others.

The last few years have also been especially draining as rising costs have made our decentralized model quite expensive and difficult to maintain. COVID-19 certainly changed the world and made our program look completely different than it had before. Many of our pet boarding facilities that offered their services to us free of charge either had to withdraw their generous assistance or closed their doors completely. Likewise, many vet facilities have raised their costs, making basic vetting care significantly more expensive than it was before. While our foster network is relatively large, we are frequently competing with other local animal rescues that post their euthanasia lists weekly. Not that there is any discouragement for our fosters to help other animal rescues, but it does significantly decrease the likelihood that our pets will have cost-free accommodations while they are with us. For the first time in 2023 we instituted a case capacity. Since then, other restrictions have needed to be put in place to ensure we would have the funding to continue operating.

We have also been seeing decreases in VOCA funds in recent years, which make up a significant portion of our government funding. 2025 has brought on additional uncertainty for some federal funding sources as availability and requirements change. We anticipate further changes that may affect us in the coming years.

While these things are challenging, our team is always brain-storming ideas to take care of ourselves and the people/pets we serve. We frequently collaborate with other organizations to advocate for assistance and do our best to go above and beyond for those who need it.

As you know, we’re big fans of Ahimsa House. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
As mentioned, Ahimsa House is a non-profit organization that addresses the connection between animal cruelty and domestic violence. Up to 71% of victims of domestic violence report that their abusers threatened, harmed or killed a family pet. In addition, half of victims report that they delayed seeking safety for themselves out of concern for a beloved pet. Ahimsa House removes this barrier to safety by providing safe-housing for the pets of victims escaping violence and reuniting them once it is safe to do so. We have a 24-hour crisis line in which we provide safety planning, crisis intervention, assistance with temporary protective orders (and including pets on those), legal advocacy and intake to our program. We also have an outreach program in which we raise awareness of this issue to the community and we train professionals such as domestic violence advocates, law enforcement, animal control, and prosecutors on this link and how to provide for earlier opportunities for intervention.

Ahimsa House is a little organization doing big things. With a full-time staff of seven operating statewide, we rely heavily on volunteers to assist with transporting pets to safety, fostering pets while they are in our care, answering our crisis line on nights and weekends, and attending outreach events to spread the word about our services.

While we are most widely known for our 60 days of boarding assistance while the human survivor is transitioning to safety, I am very proud that our staff is able to provide a number of other supportive services to those in need. Some of those services include hotel stays and rideshares to safety as needed, assistance proving pet ownership and court accompaniment, advocating to landlords and shelters to allow pets, and – most importantly – active listening, trauma-informed care, and someone you can trust when you really don’t know where to turn

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite memories from childhood always involve being on the water. Sometimes it was a trip to the beach; Sometimes the lake; Sometimes just a neighborhood pool. No matter where it was, I was always happiest in the summertime going swimming!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ahimsahouse.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahimsahouse/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahimsahouse
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ahimsa-house