7 Fun Animal Fundraising Ideas for Your Organization
You’re likely familiar with Sarah McLachlan’s 2007 TV ad for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). To the mournful tune of McLachlan’s “Angel,” photos of abused animals scroll across the screen.
While this may have been effective in garnering donations, awareness, and involvement in the ASPCA’s mission, it’s not the only way. Impactful fundraising for animal-related causes doesn’t have to be upsetting or disheartening. In fact, in many cases, an impactful animal fundraiser can be quite fun—for participants and hosts! When planning your next fundraiser, consider this list of fun animal fundraising ideas:
When deciding on your animal fundraiser, make sure it fits into your overall fundraising strategy. To get a better sense of what each of these entails and how they can support your shelter, rescue, or advocacy group, let’s take a more detailed look at each idea below.
Community Dog Wash
Dogs get dirty—it’s a fact of life. A dog wash is a great way to provide a necessary service for your supporters, many of whom have pets of their own, while offering them a chance to give back in the process. It’s pretty simple: In this fundraiser, you’ll clean supporters’ dogs in exchange for a donation.
But a dog wash doesn’t have to be a dreary affair. Turn your dog wash into a community event by bringing in food and refreshments, yard games, and live music.
To host a truly praiseworthy dog wash, partner with a local dog groomer to donate staff, materials, and space for the event. For a successful partnership, you should offer an assortment of tangible and intangible benefits in return for their support, including free marketing, a positive public association with your nonprofit’s brand, and increased customer traffic on the day of the event.
Branded Merchandise
When you sell merchandise branded with your nonprofit’s logo, colors, and slogan, supporters receive a tangible benefit in return for their support and the chance to show that support by representing your organization in public. You can brand pretty much anything you can dream up, but the most popular animal fundraising merchandise includes:
T-shirts, hats, and bags
Pet or animal calendars
Pet toys
Coffee mugs and water bottles
Art prints
Since selling merchandise often requires an initial investment in the product you’re offering, it’s especially important to consider your key performance indicators (KPIs). Look at past data to ensure interest in your branded products and collect preorders to better gauge how much merchandise you should stock. Ultimately, you want to bring in more revenue than you invest!
Pet Fashion Show
Who doesn’t like the idea of happy pets dressed in cute clothing? A pet fashion show capitalizes on this vision by hosting an event where pet owners dress up their animals and walk them down a runway.
For this fundraiser, recruit a team of volunteers, judges, hosts, and participants, make arrangements for a venue, supplies, and prizes, and market your event well in advance. To raise funds, charge an entrance fee, collect sponsorships from local businesses, have a concession stand for pets and humans, and open a small pop-up store where attendees can buy the pet clothing on display for their animals.
Dog Walk-a-Thon
If a fashion show isn’t your speed, you can take your fundraising activities outside with a dog walk-a-thon. Like a traditional walk-a-thon, in a dog walk-a-thon, participants collect pledge donations from family and friends for every mile (or another unit of distance) participants walk or run with their dogs.
As with a pet fashion show or community dog wash, turn your dog walk-a-thon into a full-blown event—with food, games, and music—for the greatest participation and money raised. Don’t forget to take pictures!
Organize a Silent Auction
Get supporters back into the swing of donating by hosting a silent auction. Not only can an auction help you meet your fundraising goal with low upfront expenses, but it can also be a powerful donor retention tool!
Because many of your supporters have a demonstrated interest in animal well-being and likely have their own beloved pets, you might focus your silent auction on pet supplies. Collect donations from local pet care businesses, such as pet stores, kennels, behavioral trainers, and animal hospitals.
Moreover, a silent auction fundraiser works both in-person and online to attract more supporters and donors. A cat camp, for example, could donate a digital gift card via its all-in-one cattery software without any in-person interaction. Once you’ve collected the items you’ll auction off, give potential bidders a chance to review what’s available and place bids on their favorites.
Pop-Up Dog Daycare
Give dog owners a chance to go on a date night or other adventure without their dogs and support your nonprofit in the process!
For this fun animal fundraiser, recruit your volunteers to help pet sit supporters’ dogs one night a month. Host your dog daycare at an accessible location, such as a dog park or other public-facing spot, so that people don’t have to go out of their way to drop off their dogs—and quickly jump into their planned activities.
To streamline your pop-up dog daycare, Gingr recommends using software that allows for online booking and reservations, quick check-in, and automated pricing.
Pet Care Class
A community class is an excellent way for supporters to meet like-minded community members, gain pet or animal-related knowledge, and raise money for your nonprofit’s mission. To host an engaging class, follow these steps:
Gauge interest among your supporters. What do they want to learn about? When are they available? How much would they pay per class?
Find a skilled teacher. Depending on the topic, ask a knowledgeable, engaging staff member, vet, or local grooming business to lead the class.
Determine the class specifics. Where will you host the class? When will it take place? How much will it cost?
Advertise and market the class. To get a strong turnout, promote the class across a range of marketing channels. Send targeted email messages, post intriguing video snippets and photos of past classes on social media, and place posters/flyers at local businesses. In your advertising, be clear about what participants should expect, highlighting the specifics in the bullet point above.
If you’re new to offering community classes as a fundraiser, consider hosting a free class to start. A free class will attract supporters interested in your offerings but not yet ready to make a financial commitment. To streamline this process, consider investing in a class registration software. As you continue to host high-quality classes, you’ll build a dedicated following and can begin to charge a small fee, generating consistent, impactful revenue.
Ultimately, these animal fundraising ideas are just a jumping-off point for your organization. Adapt them as needed to fit your needs, goals, and audiences. For example, depending on your target audience, you might host your dog fashion show as a virtual event to reach a global market or host your silent auction as an in-person experience to increase local engagement.
You can also pair several ideas together—such as selling merchandise at your dog run—to multiply your impact. Whatever you choose, we hope these ideas will help grow your organization’s impact while inspiring new and old supporters alike to get involved.
About the 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.
