Caring for your stewards

Once people support your animal, the relationship stays healthy through one simple habit: post the updates you promised. This guide explains the stewards dashboard field by field, how updates work, and exactly what happens when a stewardship ends.

Your stewards dashboard

Open Stewards of My Animals. Here is the donkey rescue viewing the steward supporting Clementine.

Each steward card shows, and means:

• The animal and the steward, and how that steward is publicly shown (their chosen recognition: profile, display name, or private). You always see the real account even when the public sees a display name or nothing.
• Monthly payout: what you receive after the 5% caretaker fee, with the fee shown. This is the actual money that reaches you, not the headline rate.
• Started: when the stewardship began.
• Promised updates: the cadence you committed to (weekly, every two weeks, or monthly).
• Update status: a quiet reminder when an update is due, or an overdue flag when it has been too long. This is your nudge, not a penalty.
• A status badge: Active, Payment pending (a payment failed and the steward is in the grace period), Pending (not yet activated), or Ended with the reason (canceled, payment failed, animal sold, animal deceased, or ended by you).
• Finance link: an option to start recording this stewardship's revenue in your books.
• Actions: Post steward update and End stewardship.

Posting updates is the whole job

You do not need a separate tool to update your stewards. Any post you make on the animal's profile counts as the stewardship update. Select Post steward update to jump straight to the animal's composer with a reminder.

A note at the top of the composer confirms the post will satisfy the promised stewardship update. When you post, it updates the "last updated" date for every steward and clears any due or overdue reminders. Photos and short notes are perfect. Your stewards subscribed to follow the animal's life, so a quick "the farrier came today and she stood like a champion" is exactly right.

Cadence and reminders

You promised weekly, every two weeks, or monthly updates. Your dashboard shows Update due when one is coming up and flags an update that is overdue, while your stewards see when the next update is expected. The implication to keep in mind: missing an update does not end the stewardship or stop billing, but updates are the relationship, so keeping the cadence is what makes stewardship feel worth it to a supporter.

How each steward is recognized

Each steward chooses how they appear: their profile, a display name, or private. Your dashboard always shows you the real account so you can manage the stewardship and reach them, while the animal's public Team and offering page respect their choice.

Ending a stewardship, and what happens automatically

Select End stewardship to end one immediately. The implication is real and immediate: the steward loses access and billing stops. Use this for welfare, privacy, or safety reasons, or when an animal is leaving your care.

Some endings happen on their own:

• If you mark the animal sold or deceased, its stewardships end automatically, the stewards are notified, and the animal's history is preserved.
• If a steward's payment fails, they keep access during a 7-day grace period while Stripe retries, then the stewardship ends if it cannot be recovered.

When a stewardship ends, you and the steward can review each other, which builds the trust that makes the next stewardship easier to offer.

Related information

• Offering stewardship of your animal
• Stewardship Circles
• Following your stewardship

Updated on: 23/06/2026