A Message From Our Board President

March 31, 2023

Thank you for being a Pets In Need (PIN) supporter, and for partnering with us to provide leading-edge, compassionate, and dynamic care for the pets and people who rely on us. Today, I am thrilled to share some big news: Our new CEO, Laura Toller Gardner, is here!

Laura joined our organization as CEO on March 20. She succeeds Interim Executive Director, Teri Dunwoody, who is excited to partner with Laura and will be resuming her role on the executive team as Director of Finance.

Laura brings to Pets In Need (PIN) a wealth of experience and success as a nonprofit executive, having led multiple mission-driven organizations to thrive under challenging circumstances and with diverse constituencies. In her decades of nonprofit leadership, she has held various executive roles overseeing fundraising and development, systems infrastructure, and marketing and communications. Most recently, Laura served at Peninsula Jewish Community Center as Chief Marketing and Business Systems Officer and, before that, at the YMCA of the Mid-Peninsula and the Harker School where she helped achieve unprecedented revenue and fundraising growth.

A seasoned leader whose 30-year career also includes for-profit experience, Laura approaches nonprofit impact-making through an entrepreneurial lens. As a commercial real estate advisor, she served conscientious investors while focusing on multi-family investments that balanced activism for affordable housing with wealth creation. She began her career in agency public relations after earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Southern California and more recently a Certificate in Non-Profit Executive Management from Georgetown University.

A lifelong animal lover and devoted cat co-parent, Laura has a deep volunteer background in Bay Area animal welfare. She’s served on the Board of Directors of several independent rescues, as a volunteer adoption counselor for Nike Animal Rescue Foundation, and as a foster parent and adoptions volunteer with Unconditional Love Animal Rescue. She and her husband James have three senior cats, Deva, Losang, and Purrsephone.

Laura believes that thriving organizations center mission, vision, and culture to lead smart strategy. Her body of work is hallmarked by her uncompromising commitment to invest in and empower people—staff and volunteers—who bring a diversity of backgrounds, skills and talents, and perspectives.

Laura joins PIN as part of a newly expanded executive leadership team comprising Directors of Shelter Medicine, Shelter Operations, Programs, and Finance. These senior leaders bring a remarkable depth of experience, knowledge and expertise to PIN, strengthening all aspects of operations across our shelters and within our community. Laura is excited to work closely with this integrated team—one that she calls a “dream team” of talents—to build on our essential, lifesaving work of providing animals with loving, lasting homes and keeping human-animal families together in our communities.

In Laura, we have gained a visionary leader whose transformative approach and embrace of innovation and creativity are exactly what PIN needs at this exciting time in its evolution. We know that she will engage and galvanize the people inside and outside PIN to grow this organization into an industry leader that is redefining what animal welfare is and can do.

Thank you for your support during this time of transition, and please join us in welcoming Laura.

Warmly,
Rob Kalman
Pets In Need Board President