Animal Humane Society’s $6M gift is largest in its history. Most will be spent on new St. Paul facilities.

Claire Nelson, Pioneer Press
·1 min read
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Animal Humane Society’s $6M gift is largest in its history. Most will be spent on new St. Paul facilities.

The Twin Cities-based Animal Humane Society has received a $6 million donation, the largest in its 144-year history, from the estate of two recently deceased volunteers. Most of the money will be spent building new animal care facilities in St. Paul.

Steve Nordberg and Betsy McDonald were described as “cat people at heart,” by Humane Society President and Chief Executive Officer Janelle Dixon, in a written statement.

The first $5 million of the estate gift will support the Golden Valley-based nonprofit’s efforts to build an adoption and animal care campus in St. Paul. The Humane Society purchased a warehouse near Minnesota 280 and Kasota Avenue shortly before the pandemic and recently began major fundraising. New renderings were released this month.

The remaining $1 million will be placed into the Humane Society’s strategic reserve fund.

McDonald and Nordberg spent more than 2,000 hours as “bottle baby” foster volunteers, bottle feeding orphaned kittens every two hours for the first weeks of their lives.

“Their dedication to our mission, and to animals in our community, will live on through their inspiring gift,” Dixon said.

Nordberg was a computer industry executive and co-founder of Prior Lake-based Virtual University Enterprises, now known as Pearson VUE, which assembles computer-based testing for professional licensing and certification exams.

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