Successful Crowdfunding Tips for Your Pet

Earlier this year, Moses, an 8-year-old Maltipoo, received lifesaving cancer treatment, which his family was able afford as a result of crowdfunding on Waggle. On his campaign page, he expressed his gratitude via his guardians: “I want to thank everyone who supported me in my time of need. I especially want to thank Miranda Lambert and MuttNation and, of course, Waggle…I don’t know if I’d be here without their support.”

When we read comments like that, we know Waggle is making a difference. If we were operating any commercial enterprise, we'd be pleased, of course, to have a satisfied customer. However, we are in the business of pets and their people, so we have to do all we possibly can to ensure that every single "customer" is not merely content, but ecstatic. We might also add that while normal businesses want repeat customers, at Waggle, we really don't want to see a four-legged friend a second time.

How to Crowdfund for an Animal?

Our mission at Waggle is to be the lifeline for dogs and cats who need a second chance. We want to help pet guardians who ask, "How do you fundraise for animals?" or "Can I do my own crowdfunding?" Guardians who cannot pay for their pets' medical treatment—whether it's a $120 prescription for medication, an expensive surgery, or a course of radiation—are frantic and stressed out. They just want the storybook ending that these two pets and their families were able to achieve because of Waggle's crowdfunding abilities and our strong ties to generous foundations.

Indeed, the pet guardians who come to us at Waggle are desperate to find a financial Band-Aid for their beloved furry family members. Absent the monetary muscle to cover the cost of treatment, their dogs and cats could end up suffering the tragic fate of economic euthanasia, an outcome we are committed to fight—and help eradicate. With the help of our community, those pets can now live out their natural lives with their loving families.

It takes a village, an army of committed activists coming together to combat economic euthanasia, but it takes only a small hamlet to help a single dog or cat and their pet parents get back on their feet. This is why Waggle has harnessed the internet to develop a pet-centric crowdfunding website—to facilitate crowdfunding for sick dogs and cats.

And, most importantly, our efforts are transparent, as the funds we help pet parents raise for every campaign go directly to the treating veterinarian or hospital, so donors know that when they give $50 to a campaign, the entire $50 goes toward paying for the medical care. We strive to embody the best practices of crowdfunding and part of that is helping you write the best and most "fetching" crowdfunding post. 

Why You Should Crowdfund with Waggle

Waggle was started in 2018 to ensure that despairing families did not have to make the wrenching choice between putting food on the table or paying for their pet's antibiotics—or, worse, putting their pet down. To date, we have helped thousands of pets and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Waggle works with more than 1,000 hospitals/veterinarians and animal rescues/shelters throughout the United States and Canada. Any veterinary practice or hospital can work with us; the administration merely has to complete the paperwork when a Waggle pet has had treatment in that practice. 

Moreover, we collaborate with a dozen corporate and foundation partners that offer matching grants on countless campaigns, so that a donor's single dollar is very frequently transformed into two. In addition, we also team up with social media influencers, who feature our campaigns on their sites and amplify their message, so these pets stories' are seen by hundreds of thousands of more eyeballs.

There are more than a dozen major players in the online crowdfunding sector…but there's nobody like Waggle. Popular crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Pozible are targeted to enable creative ideas (not pets) to come to fruition. Others, like Crowdrise and JustGiving, promote social causes (not pets), while sites like Fundable are geared toward small businesses (not pets). And still others, like GoFundMe and Indiegogo, underwrite just about anything (OK, so maybe some pets). 

Unlike many other crowdfunding websites, Waggle is dedicated to pets, and only pets. So, how can we help you to raise money for your pet in crisis? How do you even begin to set up a crowdfunding account? Crowdfunding is an ingenious and resourceful concept, one that can blossom exponentially on the internet, where the intermediary is removed from the equation; the goal is simple—the problem and the problem-solver can connect instantly, with no bureaucratic red tape separating them.

Betsy Banks Saul, the cofounder of Petfinder and Heal House Call Veterinarian, knows a thing or two (how about a million?) about saving pets. "The mere thought of not being able to care for one of my beloved pet family members, when she is suffering, is akin to a nightmare," she says. "I'm not alone. Pet lovers, globally, are struck by the selfless love of pets, and we're united in our deep understanding of what it means to be able to nurture and protect them. It is very clear that people stand ready to help each other in crises, but it takes a connector, like Waggle, to empower this kindness. Waggle allows us to acknowledge and support the love on both ends of the leash within the broader animal-loving community."

Tips for a Successful Campaign

How do you even begin to create a funding page? Waggle walks you through the process of setting up your fundraising campaign, step-by-step. When you log on to Waggle.org, click on "Add My Pet." Register to create a crowdfunding account and a sign-in profile. Then it's time to turn your pet into a rock star—and, to help, we offer nearly two dozen blog articles to guide you in creating that funding page that will wow viewers.

Our user-friendly instructions will walk you through the process of actually getting your campaign written and up and running in a wink. We ask you specific questions, so you can easily tell potential donors why your pet is special, why she needs this second chance, and what it means to you and your family to get her well—in other words, the magic spell you need to cast on a fundraising page to motivate donors.

You'll need to provide factual information about her medical situation, as well as some colorful, verbal embroidery about your relationship and her personality—idiosyncratic behaviors, funny anecdotes, touching stories. We help you ferret out all the delicious morsels that make her such an outstanding girl and we offer additional resources in our library that may help to kindle ideas. What you want to create is a fundraising page that no potential donor on the Waggle site would skip over. Instead, donors will want to dig deep into their pockets.

Our prompts are designed to elicit the best possible—and most compelling—story. You are, after all, politely asking for donations, but with a textured and telling story, so that donors feel like family members, giving a charitable gift to help a relative—because you have created a gripping "word painting."

And apropos paintings, photos come next. We cannot recommend strongly enough that you take and use the best possible photos. Every dog and cat has soulful eyes—harness them! Photos that evoke an emotional response will invariably garner more views and likely more support. To help you get the best photos, we offer recommendations in our resource library. Trite as it is to say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and, with luck, a thousand dollars. Here are more tips:

• Take landscape (horizontal) shots
• Use both hands or a mini-tripod to keep your camera steady
• Convey a sense of urgency to strike an emotional chord and to pull in a potential donor for maximum impact
• Include some photos from before the illness or accident, so that there are "happy" pictures in the mix
• If you feel comfortable, include your children or other family members in some pictures—this personalizes the fundraising ask even further
• Make your pet the centerpiece of the picture, and if she is not, crop accordingly. Your pet needs to be the headliner, not your backyard or your sofa and TV!
• Get level with those fetching eyes, even if you have to get down on all fours to be level with those little windows into her soul
• Take the cleanest pictures you can—meaning as little clutter and distracting "noise" in the background
• Use natural, outdoor lighting, if possible

We require a minimum of three pictures, and no more than eight. Use your most compelling shot as your opening photo—your cannon blast!—and we'll turn it into a small cameo on the master fundraising page. So, if your picture there is lackluster, nobody will open your campaign.

After your crowdfunding campaign is up and running, you cannot simply sit back and wait for money to fall from heaven. Occasionally, it does rain donation dollars, and many Waggle pets have been very fortunate to get almost instant funding from one of our corporate or foundation partners: Zelda received nearly all her total funding ($566) from a Waggle partner, Wilfred Warrior. And puppy Tumble (pictured at left) was the recipient of nearly all her requested funding ($1,500), courtesy of Waggle partner Freekibble.

Sometimes all a campaign needs to get the ball rolling is a little nod from a single donor. Many of our campaigns get partial funding from our foundation partners; when they see that there is momentum from the public, they want to keep the excitement and interest going by providing matching grants, dollar for dollar. Stories like Hecuba's have a bright conclusion: It reached half of its $1,500 crowdfunding goal from donors, and half from Waggle partner The Animal Rescue Site. And then there is handsome senior Jett, who received half his total funding ($1,808) from Waggle partner MuttNation.

It helps immeasurably to be active on Facebook and other social media platforms. If you are not, email friends and family and ask them to circulate your campaign post on their social media, and then ask friends of friends to do the same, so that many more people see it. We do the same and work with our blogger partners to post many of our campaigns as a pet-of-the-month on their platforms.

Persistence and a big mouth or a mighty keyboard pay off. At the other end of the funding spectrum are campaigns that received no additional sponsorship money from our partners but which were still entirely funded by individual donors: Precious Tessa Rose's campaign raised the requested $1,500, and stalwart Oscar Blue's posting brought his family the necessary $2,000 they had hoped for.

Check out our Campaign Sharing Tips and Advice to maximize the impact of your campaign. Our goal is to help you raise money for your dog or cat, to write the best fundraising story possible, and to have a successful campaign.

One of our partners, Greater Good, notes: "GreaterGood.org has a Platinum rating from GuideStar, the world's largest source of information on nonprofit organizations. When GreaterGood.org teams up with another charity partner, we require regular outcome and impact reports from the field to make sure we’re funding the best organizations and programs that make a real impact. That’s why a partnership with Waggle made sense."

And it should make sense to you, too. Come join us, and let us help you set up your crowdfunding account, so that you can soon have the peace of mind that comes from knowing your pet's bills will be covered with crowdfunding…so you'll be able to echo the words of Gypsy Gal's owner, who wrote to us to say, "We are eternally grateful for the generosity of those who helped her receive treatment to keep her alive!”

Or, as Tumble's family wrote to say: “Waggle rocks!”