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using gofundme for animal shelters - tired or wired?


wacky1980

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so there was a bust over the weekend of a local pet breeder. they had ~300 cats and dogs removed from their properties, but i know they hid more in random remote areas around the county that have not been uncovered yet (they somehow got a tip from law enforcement before the raid), and from the rumors i'm hearing, the number of recovered animals could go as high as 500 before it's all said and done. the local animal shelters are all over-run with cats and dogs right now...many suffering from neglect, and pulled from horrible living conditions. we've started accepting donations of supplies and food at the bar, and have loaded up two trucks in two days to take around to the shelters. but lots of people are interested in donating cash, and i'm not too keen on the idea of handling potentially lots of untraceable cash for all the obvious reasons. so ... gofundme?

i've never set up a donation thing online before, and i've yet to reach out to the local shelters to see if they're interested in the idea, or if they can even accept crowdsourced donations like that. so before i dive too deep into this rabbit hole, does anyone on here have experience with this sort of fundraising? is it a good idea, or are there better options out there?

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No experience with fund raising, but if someone wanted to donate cash, I'd send them down to the shelter with the cash.        

Are the animal shelters volunteer organizations or are they county shelters? If they are county, they should have funds allocated to them. 

If private/volunteer org. then I can see them needing donations. 

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we're sending items to three different shelters so far, all of which have taken some animals from this bust. one is a humane society, one is a privately-funded no-kill, and i'm pretty sure the third is also private. the humane society one is the biggest question mark for accepting cash. the no-kill is one we've worked with on different fundraisers in the past, and i know they accept cash. unfortunately, all three shelters are 45+ minutes away. we're a drop point to make it easier for people in our town to contribute.

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25 minutes ago, wacky1980 said:

we're sending items to three different shelters so far, all of which have taken some animals from this bust. one is a humane society, one is a privately-funded no-kill, and i'm pretty sure the third is also private. the humane society one is the biggest question mark for accepting cash. the no-kill is one we've worked with on different fundraisers in the past, and i know they accept cash. unfortunately, all three shelters are 45+ minutes away. we're a drop point to make it easier for people in our town to contribute.

Yeah, I'm gonna pass this one to disco, because I don't know anything about charities and animal rescues other than county funded ones should have available funding. 

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i'm thinking, it has got to be pretty expensive to bring a few hundred animals up to speed on shots and getting them fixed...plus flea/worm/etc treatments, feeding, grooming, and housing. the shelters would eventually recoup some/all of those costs if they can find enough folks to adopt, but that might take awhile. if we could toss maybe $20k at them, that's like $50 per animal...should take them pretty far through the process.

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you'll be responsible for the gofundme i take it? 

human society will accept money. i know for a fact the private facilities will. what i would do is, once you've met your goal, set up a paypal to make 

the donations. (humane society will accept paypal) and i would contact the private facilities to see if they have paypal. 

are the private ones actual rescues, or way~stations to get the animals to rescues. (ours is a no kill temp holding facility),  because they will absolutely need money 

for transports. 

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15 hours ago, discole monade said:

you'll be responsible for the gofundme i take it? 

human society will accept money. i know for a fact the private facilities will. what i would do is, once you've met your goal, set up a paypal to make 

the donations. (humane society will accept paypal) and i would contact the private facilities to see if they have paypal. 

are the private ones actual rescues, or way~stations to get the animals to rescues. (ours is a no kill temp holding facility),  because they will absolutely need money 

for transports. 

thank you for your knowledge. it sounds like we can probably make this work!

if i can get enough people interested to support it, i'll probably be in charge of putting something together...unless someone else wants it, which would be fine with me. i still need to get a few of the right people on board before i start getting shelters' permissions. and hopefully if everyone comes together, the momentum won't be spent by then.

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8 hours ago, wacky1980 said:

thank you for your knowledge. it sounds like we can probably make this work!

if i can get enough people interested to support it, i'll probably be in charge of putting something together...unless someone else wants it, which would be fine with me. i still need to get a few of the right people on board before i start getting shelters' permissions. and hopefully if everyone comes together, the momentum won't be spent by then.

i would also find out what the 2 private shelters 'wish lists' are. that will help with collecting the right items. 

good luck on your efforts. 

 

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