8 Animal Shelter Fundraising Ideas that Any Organization Can Pull Off is one of the most popular blogs on this site since being published one year ago. The bad news? These fundraising ideas are focused on in person events that don’t fit the requirements for social distancing that have emerged in 2020.
Now what?
Read on for ideas about the next generation of your fundraising — still engaging, successful, and replicable no matter how bootstrapped your organization may be.
1. Think videos, not Zooms
From distance learning in school to remote office work to connecting with family, your community members are now spending many of their waking hours on video conference calls. The thought of another Zoom (or Skype or Facetime…) may cause your attendance to be low, no matter how fun your event or how committed the donor.
Consider short (seriously! less than 1 minute) video content instead, highlighting a specific animal, program, or story. Don’t wait until you have the funds for a professional to create a video for you — use these tips from DonorPerfect and set a goal to make one video, today. Your community wants to hear from you! Hearing from you means pictures and videos of animals. The Internet loves animals!
Pro Tip: This is a great way to engage volunteers and fosters. Share your social media guidelines and then let them get creative!
2. Let donors invite you to their party
Goat-2-Meeting. Need we say more? Companies and classrooms across the country have invited farm animals to join them virtually for a fee. This program has been so wildly popular that Sweet Farm shared their success and created a network of sanctuaries to handle the demand for goats (and other farm friends) at meetings. *Sending all good wishes to the Sweet Farm team and residents, who were just safely returned to their sanctuary after evacuation due to California wildfires.
Pro Tip: Keep it short. We tried this at the Shelterluv offices recently and a 10 minute video visit/tour was plenty of time for a fun meeting break + we felt great about our donation.
3. Choose-your-own-adventure fun runs
Did you know that “Runners Gonna Run” is something people actually say? Maybe that’s why transforming your annual run/walk is one event that translates well to the virtual format! Here’s how the Animal Humane Society modified their event. Also look outside of animal welfare for ideas on this popular fundraising tool — for example, the FoxTrot!
Pro Tip: Allow runners/walkers to choose whether they run on a specific day or on the day of their choice. Make it easy to participate!
Want even more ideas? Liz Finch from Best Friends Animal Society shares some Network Partner examples here.
Don’t see your own go-to event on the list? You can help a colleague by sharing it! Leave a comment on our Facebook post and let us know what you’re up to!
