Got to talk about something different for a moment. Thought I’d give you an update on some of these CA pet rescue charities.
I sorted through multiple of these crowd fundraising sites like Causevox and a few others, and in each case, the way they work is quite differently than I thought they would. They expect the fundraiser/organizer to become an intermediary, collects the funds themselves, and pass the totals on to the chosen organization, rather than sending the funds right away through to the intended target company. That, of course, was never my intent, and surely not yours either. Why would you send money to me, to have me then route it onwards on your behalf? That is nonsense.
So, I switched things around. I started calling the organizations we had previously discussed (that fit our intention to support CA animal rescue organizations), and checked
- Do they allow both CC and Paypal?
- Can work with us as far as reporting a specified cause (i.e. HappyBirthdayAdamLambert) ?
- Can they give me a grand total in the end?
The idea is that everyone can use the regular website of the organization to pay directly, but that we still get a grand total.
Out of those that fulfilled these, I want to form a shortlist of organizations for our Birthday effort.
Marketing:
Tweet the specific organization you are personally promoting, each time using a common hashtag, i.e. #HappyBirthdayAdamLambert. Similar for other social media...
Again, for internationals or others who'd rather support their own animal welfare organization, you would of course be welcome to do that, these organizations here are just suggestions that allowed us to make a more targeted group effort, on Adam's behalf and quite a few here had indicated that they liked that idea.
I know that any organization that is well run and fits the cause is going to do just fine and help an animal in need, but having a grand total makes it a bit more fun, I think.
With that altered plan, I started calling the organizations in question, and results are rather strange, to put it mildly. You would think that a phone call, that I am trying to route funds their way via a crowd funding effort, would make these organizations call me back in large numbers to scramble on board. Well no, there seems to be no one either operating the phone or getting back to me or interested in receiving funds. Even WalkMeHomeRescue has not called me back yet, and I left a message that was just about fundraising in general and a separate one that used Pharaoh as a bait. Nothing.
One lonely organization was immediately responsive and we are all set with that one. It is the first one on Momtomany’s list:
MarinHumane.org
There I have a contact, a promise to get a total after 1/31/2018, and I just owe them an email specifying what our key word is. (i.e. HappyBirthdayAdamLambert), and we are set.
Not only were they professional and called back quickly, they are also the organization that was recently in the news for taking in 45 animals from fires in Ventura county, so they are involved with those rescue efforts too.
At this point, I feel that I am running out of time waiting for any of the others to get their act together. Are there major objections to running the group effort with just one organization?
I will leave a sliver of a slot open for a southern CA organization, especially WalkMeHome, if they get back to me, but for Northern CA, I suggest we are done.
So, this is an update. I would like to get the shortlist finalized tomorrow, so that for the weekend, and the whole week beyond that, we can tweet and run this on our site and any other site that some of our members might be involved in. Comments? Suggestions?