Dogs, cats, and other animals deserve to live without fear of cruelty, neglect, and other forms of mistreatment. As an animal advocate, shelter volunteer, or other animal welfare organizer, there’s room in your heart for every animal in need. Unfortunately, though, there may not be room in your facility or in your organization’s bank account to help all of the deserving animals out there.
To make a significant impact, you need ample access to resources. Organizing a fundraiser for your animal advocacy group can help you engage your community, spread awareness of your cause, and protect more pets.
In this guide, we’ll look at how to set up and run your Animal Advocacy Fundraiser, plus four
effective and unique fundraising ideas that will help you surpass your fundraising goals. Let’s get started!
Hosting Your Animal Advocacy Fundraiser
While every Fundraiser is unique, certain elements generally remain consistent. When you follow the simple steps below, hosting your Animal Advocacy fundraiser isn’t just easy but also fun and rewarding.
Step1: Brainstorm with key stakeholders.
When you start thinking about your animal advocacy fundraiser, plan to collect input from others about what it should look like and avoid making too many unilateral decisions.
In order to best align your fundraiser with the interests of your community, consult with staff, volunteers, local nonprofits and businesses, and other key stakeholders to determine the fundraising activities that will be most effective. If you’re not sure where to start, see a list of our fundraising ideas below!
Step 2: Plan your fundraiser.
Once you know the overarching format of your fundraiser, you can get into the details of planning. The more specific you are in this step, the better you’ll be able to prepare for the fundraiser itself. During this planning stage, you should:
- Set a timeline and budget.
- Develop messaging.
- Determine a venue.
- Assign key roles.
- Recruit volunteers.
- Choose your fundraising tools.
For best results, turn your fundraising plan into an easy-to-follow checklist with clear action items. With your plan in place, you can use it as a guide to turn your goals into reality.
Step 3: Seek corporate partnerships.
In recent years, more and more businesses have been giving back to their local communities, including animal advocacy groups, shelters, and rescues. Corporate charitable efforts can include programs such as:
- Matching gifts. A corporate sponsor may match all eligible employee donations to nonprofits or commit to matching contributions made to your organization for a specific period.
- Monetary sponsorships. A local business may be willing to contribute funds to your cause. Remember to acknowledge their generosity in your marketing materials or website!
- In-kind donations. Businesses can also donate materials (like pet food) or their services. As we’ll discuss below, items like gift cards or dog boarding credits work perfectly as auction items or raffle prizes.
Additionally, partners that are well-aligned with your mission may be willing to help you host the fundraiser itself, providing financial support, tactical knowledge, and publicity opportunities. In return for this support, they’ll receive positive exposure and community awareness for their brand.
Step 4: Get out the word.
As a final step to setting up your animal advocacy fundraiser, you need to spread the word to your supporters—and beyond. Because not all supporters prefer the same methods of communication, the more ways you get the word out, the better. Consider leveraging the following:
- Social media
- SMS messaging
- Direct mail
- Digital and physical ads
In order to reach as many potential supporters as possible, Revelation Pets recommends employing software and other tech-forward tools that help automate and personalize communication.
At this point, you should be ready to host a successful fundraiser! Once it’s complete, don’t forget to thank your participants and supporters with personalized messages. Use this as an opportunity to remind them of the impact of their donation and provide additional information on how they can get involved in your cause.
Now that we’ve reviewed the critical steps to hosting a fundraiser, let’s look at four creative (and effective) approaches to animal advocacy fundraising.
4 Powerful Animal Advocacy Fundraising Ideas
To help you put the above fundraising steps into action, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most impactful fundraising ideas that will generate revenue for your shelter or rescue group. Whether you want to host an in-person fundraiser or still need to keep your efforts virtual, these ideas will help you reach your fundraising goals.
1. Host an auction.
At a charity auction, you bring supporters together for an energetic evening where they can bid on various in-demand items. Both live auction and silent auction formats have the same general premise:
- You collect donated items from supporters and local businesses to auction off. Alternatively, you can purchase the items, but you’ll want to ensure you can resell them at a higher price.
- Auction attendees peruse the items, viewing them en masse or one by one as presented by a live auctioneer.
- Over a set period, supporters bid and outbid each other to take home their favorite items.
- Winning bidders go through the “check-out” process, paying for their item via a donation to your organization.
While this animal advocacy fundraiser works great in person, you can also recreate the experience in an online format. A virtual fundraiser is less expensive to host and allows you to reach a wider audience of potential bidders—meaning more revenue for your cause.
Of course, an auction’s success heavily depends on the goods, services, and experiences you’re trying to sell. Consider seeking sponsorships from a local kennel, groomer, trainer, or other pet businesses for auction items that will be desirable to supporters and applicable to your cause. For example, a kennel could leverage its boarding software to donate package credits or a digital gift certificate to its facility without requiring any in-person interaction.
2. Plan a dog walk or run.
At one point in time, you likely participated in a 5K race or walk-a-thon for your school fundraiser. A dog run (or walk) works in the same way and is similarly impactful—you’ll just add dogs to the mix! These athletic events are great for engaging your community in healthy competition while raising money for deserving animals.
To raise the funds you need, you can charge a registration fee, encourage your race participants to solicit pledge donations from family and friends, or use a combination of the two. Supporters may choose to support their loved one (and your organization) by pledging something like $10 for each mile walked. If your race is five miles, you’ll collect a $50 donation from that supporter.
A traditional walk-a-thon is already an exciting activity for all, but it gets even better when dogs are involved. Encourage your participants to bring their furry friends along on event day for some great photo ops and an overall fun experience. You can even do this with a virtual walk-a-thon, where supporters will complete the distance independently, then share their results and plenty of pictures.
3. Host a dog wash.
Similar to a classic car wash, in this fundraiser, volunteers give baths to pets instead of vehicles. Owners bring their dogs to an accessible location—such as a dog park or local groomer—for a cleaning in exchange for a small donation.
To organize a dog wash fundraiser:
- Recruit volunteers to help plan, advertise, and implement your dog wash fundraising event.
- Ask local dog grooming businesses, vets, and pet stores to donate time, materials, and space for the event.
- Follow our recommendations above to get out the word and generate interest in your dog wash.
At the event itself, you can add to the excitement by selling food and drinks, hosting a live band, or introducing attendees to animals up for adoption.
4. Organize a shoe drive fundraiser.
A shoe drive fundraiser is a low-effort, straightforward fundraising idea that’s become a widely popular fundraising choice for all types of organizations, from sports teams to shelters to animal advocacy groups. A shoe drive fundraiser is an attractive choice for many smaller organizations because it requires no upfront cost from you and makes a relatively small ask from supporters.
Here’s how it works:
- You spread the word to supporters and community members that you’re collecting gently used or new shoes.
- You collect as many pairs of shoes as possible.
- You send the shoes to a company like Funds2Orgs.
- The shoes are repurposed in an environmentally sustainable way, and your organization receives a check in exchange.
With this fundraiser, your supporters get the opportunity to clean out their closets for a good cause. Plus, it helps keep shoes out of landfills, so it’s a win-win for everyone, including the planet.
Animal advocacy work is important, but protecting pets and finding them fur-ever homes can require more resources than you have available. By pairing these creative ideas with the steps above, you’ll be able to host an awesome animal advocacy fundraiser that achieves its goals and helps you make a positive impact on animals’ lives.
Author: Casey Dorman
Hi, I’m Casey! I’m the Sales Manager at Gingr software. Originally from Indianapolis, I now live in Colorado with my wife and dog, Dexter. Our hobbies include hiking, skiing, and visiting local breweries.
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