Responses to letters, excerpts:
Upon receiving our request for help in finishing the Vacation Rotation enclosure, one helpful supporter made a number of suggestions. I have edited them down to just the bullet points, but thought it was a pretty good list that others may benefit from.
1. Run some Facebook ads to target tiger…
We have and it is good for generating likes, but not money.
2. If you have a Google grant…
We get 40,000 a month in google ad words grants. I have a company that specializes in marketing, called LocalDirect that manages those campaigns for us for free too, in order to make the most out of whatever is going on at the time.
3. Try running a Kickstarter campaign…
I have tried CrowdTilt, which is like Kickstarter, but the bad thing is that you can’t have any of the money if you don’t raise all of the money in the time frame given. We have the cage half built, even though we haven’t raised all the money yet.
4. Promote the matching gift offer…
We have exhausted all of the matching money we were able to find for this project. It is not in the total yet, and is added to the end. Putting it in up front is confusing from a book keeping perspective, but the program manager knows when we reach the full amount required by others that she can plug in the match at the end to finish it.
5. Do you have an Ebay/Mission Fish charity account…
Yes, you can find us as Big Cat Rescue and eBay has been wonderful about promoting us frequently.
6. See about creating a monthly sustainer program to help people reach the $500 level…
This is the BEST way to raise money because it gives us a steady stream we can rely on and makes the donations and accounting far easier for the giver and for us. It’s just really hard to get people to commit; even to small amounts. We would love to hear any ideas you have for boosting this part of how we fundraise. This is on our Donate page:
Having your donation made by monthly or annual deductions from a bank account or charges to a credit card is particularly helpful because it allows us to better plan our cash flow to care for the cats while saving our donors the time it takes to mail checks or donate online. As members of our Sustaining Donors Society you receive special recognition on the website, in every issue of the Big Cat Times and on a sign outside our Trading Post in addition to the other recognition associated with your donation. Automated donations can be changed or discontinued at any time. Credit Card Monthly Donation Form http://bigcatrescue.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/10/CreditCardMonthlyDonationForm.pdf
