Crowdfunding has become one of the main ways people raise money for just about everything. From new products to a college trip around the world, if you can think of it, it’s probably been crowdfunded. And medical bills are definitely no exception. In fact, they make up a good portion of the crowdfunding campaigns. So it would make sense that animal non-profits would want to get it on this method of fundraising when they have a pet with special needs.
But getting your campaign seen, and more importantly, funded, can be hard on these large sites with literally hundreds of thousands of campaigns. That’s where PoundWishes comes in. PoundWishes is a new crowdfunding site specifically for animals in shelters and rescues. They connect 100 million potential donors around the country with the 7.6 million pets that enter shelters and rescues every year — both to facilitate adoptions, but also to help raise funds for the costly medical care that shelters struggle to find funding for. The site also has an adoption platform, similar to PetFinder or AdoptaPet.
Why a special site?
In many ways, PoundWishes is very similar to other crowdfunding sites.
“The platform was built for them to be able to fund raise for special medical needs for their pets, equipment, facility needs, or events-similar to GoFundMe or YouCaring,” John Hussey, CEO & Co-founder of PoundWishes told iHeartDogs.
However, it also has some key features that regular crowdfunding sites don’t have:
- The ability to run more than one campaign at once – after all, we all know animal rescues and shelters have more than one need at a time!
- Everyone coming to PoundWishes is looking to donate to an animal non-profit, greatly increasing your chances of getting donations.
- Support from dedicated team of shelter and rescue specialist to help you create more successful campaigns.
- Poundwishes has a marketing team that is working “diligently” to being awareness to the site, thereby helping you all achieve your goals – it’s a nice extra push for small to medium sized rescues and shelters that don’t have the resources to reach an audience big enough to support their campaigns.
Rescues and shelters must have 501c3 status in order to use the site. They can keep whatever the raise, even they don’t hit their goal. PoundWishes is a for-profit company and takes 10% of the total raised for credit card transaction costs, site development, and marketing expense to drive awareness to the site.
Learn more about the options in this video:
It sounds like this website is going to help a lot of small rescues and shelters care for more pets and find them more homes, which is exactly what we need more of if we are going to end euthanasia. Whether you run a non-profit, are looking to donate to a cause, or are searching for a new family member, be sure to check out PoundWishes.
