Welcome to Gaia! ::

Humane societies, SPCAs and private shelters do some amazing and essential work to protect the welfare of animals, but sadly many of them are under funded and run entirely on donations from the public.

The humane society here gets no funding from any level of government and has been unsuccessful in getting funding from any private foundations. The Ontario SCPA (which is an affiliate of our humane society) is also so badly funded that they've recently had to close down all the branches in northwestern Ontario, which means all the animals from those branches have been directed to the Thunder Bay humane society, which is already underfunded, understaffed and overfilled.

Here, lack of funding for the basics (animal care and the staff to run the shelter) means there's no money left for doing any marketing to raise awareness, which is a serious problem in and of itself. While no one wants to see their charitable donation being spent on administration instead of the cause they donated to, if you don't do any marketing then no one knows about your cause and needs and it severely limits the amount of support you can get from public donations.

Ensuring that these organizations can continue to provide the essential care and services that they do is a cause that is very dear to my heart. If you are involved with your local humane society, SPCA or animal shelter or are aware of what they are doing, I'd be very interested in hearing about their fundraising campaigns, how they market themselves, what they have done to receiving funding from government or private sources, things they have done to improve public awareness etc, particularly what has been successful and what has not. I'd also be interested in you own personal ideas for raising funds.

Personally I have no money and I already basically have 2 adopted otherwise would-be shelter pets and I can't foster so I'm going to Volunteer at my local Humane society shelter.

As far as fundraising I wonder if there is a way to get major companies to help? I read those teen magazines like seventeen and Cosmo girl and i always see shirts and other merchandise for sale that part of the proceeds go to charity. Well It just occurred to me that if merchandise like say The Littlest Pet shop or other pet themed toys said on them that part of the proceeds ho to say the HSUS(and actually did) then maybe people would choose that toy over the one next to it for the one next to it for the child they're shopping for. ........... redface Now that I think about it the kids always get what they want and don't really think what it really means to help the animals so it wouldn't really work. Oh well just brainstorming. Hope this gives you a better but similar idea.

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/freewaystohelp.faces?siteId=3&link=ctg_ars_freewaystohelp_from_sendecard_leftnav

These are free ways to help animals.