We have had good success with Poorly Drawn Pet Photos. This was super fun! Photos are submitted from owners or fosters via our FB page and a donation is made. We did it for Valentine's Day so the cost requested donation was $14. "Artists" draw the cat/dog. Some are amazing works of art, some are hysterically funny.
We worked with a brewery on a limited edition rescue brew featuring one cat and one dog. Participants paid a nominal entrance fee to submit their dog or cat. Then people buy votes for the cat or dog that they want placed on the can. Bidding was open to friends/family/general public. The final hours had incredible bidding wars. At one minute to midnight we thought one dog had one (the top 2 kept going back and forth in the final hour), but the winner took it within seconds of the final bid cutoff. The artwork (wrap)on the can, featuring the winners, was stunning!
We have also had good luck with an annual auction timed with holiday shopping. Experiences are popular: Golf Resorts, Sled Dog Races, Hosted Dinners with Prominent local chefs, Construction Playgrounds, Glass Blowing, Helicopter Tours, etc. Gift cards go fast and easy but they are generally low $ amounts. We have also done a summer auction at a brewery where a % of proceeds and participating vendors' proceeds benefitted Pet Haven.
Getting a donation of an unusual item and holding a raffle for it has been successful.
Finally, we tried a candy sale with a local chocolatier.
One thing you want to be very careful of is that you time your events so that they don't compete with each other. Even if each of the various fundraisers has an audience, the volunteers tend to be the same ones and there is limited capacity. You don't want to diminish the success of an activity by having overlaps and too much going on at the same time.
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Annette Agner
Director of Operations
Pet Haven
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