Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Setiap donasi kecil membantu penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar di daerah kami. - Every small donation helps the shelter for abandoned dogs and cats in our area.

Setiap donasi kecil = every small donation / each small donation
Setiap is the more standard / neutral form.
Tiap is a shorter, slightly more casual variant, often used in speech or informal writing.

You could also say:

Tiap donasi kecil membantu…

and it would still be correct and natural, just a bit more informal in tone.

Why is it donasi kecil and not kecil donasi? How does adjective order work?

In Indonesian, adjectives usually come after the noun they describe:

donasi kecil = small donation
- donasi = donation (noun)
- kecil = small (adjective)

Putting the adjective first (kecil donasi) is ungrammatical in normal Indonesian.

Basic pattern:

noun + adjective
- anjing besar = big dog
- rumah baru = new house
- makanan enak = tasty food

If you want to be very explicit, you can sometimes use yang:

donasi yang kecil = the donation that is small

But in this sentence, donasi kecil is the natural, simple way to say “small donation”.

Could I say Setiap sumbangan kecil instead of Setiap donasi kecil? Any difference?

Yes, you can. Both are correct:

Setiap donasi kecil…
Setiap sumbangan kecil…

Differences in nuance:

donasi
- Borrowed word (from English “donation”).
- Common in NGOs, campaigns, ads, and slightly more formal or “modern”-sounding contexts.
sumbangan
- Native Indonesian word.
- Means contribution / donation more broadly (can be money, goods, help, even “intellectual contribution”).
- Feels a bit more general and not limited to charity.

In a fundraising context like this sentence, both are very natural. Many organizations even mix them, e.g. “Terima kasih atas donasi atau sumbangan Anda.”

Is it natural in Indonesian for an inanimate thing like donasi to be the subject of membantu?

Yes, it’s completely natural.

Indonesian freely allows inanimate subjects with verbs like membantu (to help):

Donasi itu membantu banyak keluarga.
That donation helps many families.
Obat ini membantu mengurangi rasa sakit.
This medicine helps reduce the pain.

So:

Setiap donasi kecil membantu penampungan…
= Every small donation helps the shelter…

sounds very normal and idiomatic.

What does penampungan literally mean, and does it always refer to an animal shelter?

Penampungan comes from:

tampung = to contain / accommodate / take in
peN- + tampung + -an → penampungan = a place or process of sheltering / accommodating

So penampungan literally means something like:

“sheltering / accommodation / shelter facility”

It does not always mean an animal shelter. It can be:

penampungan hewan = animal shelter
penampungan pengungsi = refugee shelter
penampungan minyak = storage tank for oil
penampungan air = water reservoir

In everyday speech, people often say either:

penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar
tempat penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar

Both can mean “(the) shelter for stray dogs and cats”.
Tempat penampungan literally adds “place of”, but penampungan alone is already clear in this context.

In penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar, which word does terlantar modify?

Here, terlantar modifies both anjing and kucing.

Structure:

penampungan [anjing dan kucing terlantar]

Because terlantar comes after the phrase anjing dan kucing, it’s understood to describe the whole group (dogs and cats that are neglected/stray).

So it means:

a shelter for stray dogs and (stray) cats in our area.

If you wanted to say only the cats are stray, you’d have to make it clearer, e.g.:

penampungan anjing dan kucing yang terlantar
(still tends to be read as both)
or rephrase more explicitly:
penampungan anjing dan kucing-kucing yang terlantar itu
(context or extra wording is usually needed to disambiguate).

In practice, in this kind of charity sentence, Indonesians will automatically interpret anjing dan kucing terlantar as both dogs and cats are stray.

What nuance does terlantar have compared with words like liar or jalanan?

Subtle differences:

terlantar
- Neglected, abandoned, uncared for.
- Implies they should have care/owners but don’t.
- Common translation: stray, abandoned, neglected.
- Has a slightly sad, pity-inviting tone.
liar
- Wild, not domesticated.
- anjing liar = wild dog (not necessarily a former pet).
jalanan
- Literally “of the street”.
- anjing jalanan / kucing jalanan = street dogs/cats (live on the street).

So:

anjing dan kucing terlantar = dogs and cats that have been abandoned/neglected.
anjing dan kucing jalanan = dogs and cats that live on the streets.
hewan liar = wild animals (not pets, not strays).

For a rescue or shelter context, terlantar is very common and emotionally charged.

There’s no plural marker for anjing and kucing. How do Indonesians know it means “dogs and cats”, not just one dog and one cat?

Indonesian usually doesn’t mark plural explicitly. Number is inferred from:

context, and/or
extra words like banyak (many), beberapa (some), numerals, or reduplication.

In this sentence:

penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar is naturally understood as many stray dogs and cats, because:
- shelters usually house multiple animals.
- The context is donations helping a shelter; plural is the default interpretation.

To explicitly show plural, you could do:

penampungan banyak anjing dan kucing terlantar
= shelter for many stray dogs and cats
penampungan anjing-anjing dan kucing-kucing terlantar
= shelter for (the) dogs and cats (emphasis on plurality / collectivity)

But in normal usage, the simple anjing dan kucing is enough and sounds more natural.

Why is it di daerah kami, not di daerah kita? What’s the difference between kami and kita?

Both mean “we / us / our”, but:

kami = exclusive “we”
- excludes the listener
- “we (but not you)”
kita = inclusive “we”
- includes the listener
- “we (including you)”

So:

di daerah kami
= in our area (but not necessarily yours).
Used if the speaker’s area is separate from the listener’s, or if talking to a wider audience, e.g. an online fundraiser for one specific region.
di daerah kita
= in our area, yours and mine.
Used if the listener is part of the same community/area, or if the speaker wants to build a sense of shared ownership/identity.

Both are grammatically fine; the choice depends on who is being included.

Can I move di daerah kami to the front or leave it out completely?

Yes, Indonesian word order is quite flexible for adverbial phrases like locations.

All of these are grammatical:

Setiap donasi kecil membantu penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar di daerah kami.
– Neutral word order.
Di daerah kami, setiap donasi kecil membantu penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar.
– Puts di daerah kami up front for emphasis: In our area, every small donation helps…

You can also omit it if the location is already clear from context:

Setiap donasi kecil membantu penampungan anjing dan kucing terlantar.

Then it just means “the shelter for stray dogs and cats”, without specifying where.

The verb membantu doesn’t show tense. How do we know if this means “helps”, “is helping”, or “will help”?

Indonesian verbs don’t change form for tense. Context gives the time reference.

Setiap donasi kecil membantu… is a general, timeless statement:

can be translated as:
- Every small donation helps…
- Every small donation will help…
- Any small donation helps…

If you want to be explicit:

akan membantu = will help (future)
sedang membantu = is helping (right now)
telah / sudah membantu = has already helped

Here, without any marker, it has a generic / habitual sense, suitable for slogans and fundraising messages.

Is it okay to say Setiap donasi kecil akan membantu penampungan…? What’s the difference from the original?

Yes, it’s perfectly okay:

Setiap donasi kecil membantu penampungan…
- General statement of fact.
- Feels like a slogan or a timeless truth.
Setiap donasi kecil akan membantu penampungan…
- Adds akan = “will”.
- Emphasizes the future effect of donations.
- Often used in appeals like: If you donate, your donation will help…

Both are natural.
The version without akan is slightly more concise and “slogan-like”; the version with akan sounds more like a promise about what will happen when you donate.