There are about 5,000 Animal Shelters and Rescue organizations in the United States caring for over 5,000,000 cats, dogs and other animals. Most struggle to obtain the resources they need to care, feed and shelter the animals in their care.
To celebrate #GivingTuesday 2013, YouGiveGoods has chosen animals as the cause they are spotlighting as a GivingTuesday partner. The company is organizing a nationwide Animal Shelter Campaign to help provide pet food and other supplies to support the dedicated individuals working for and with the organizations that save, shelter and nurture homeless animals. This is the first national campaign to which people cannot only pick the organization they want to support, but also decide how they want to help by donating the specific items they believe will make the best impact.
“We already have shelter organizations from across the country partnering with us to be part of our campaign and we’re expecting many more to join before it starts on 12/3/13 – this year’s official GivingTuesday date,” according to Marie Maxwell, Animal Shelter Community Manager.
YouGiveGoods operates a website platform that organizations use to raise the goods they need, in this case, pet food, cleaning supplies and other items commonly used in most animal shelters. “Our website is used by individuals and organizations to support a wide variety of causes - hunger, animals, veterans, disaster relief, education and the homeless. Rather than organizing drives to physically collect goods the traditional way, people purchase goods online at our site to donate to online drives and we deliver the goods directly to the charity they want to support once a drive is over,” said Pat O’Neill, CEO of YouGiveGoods. “Organizations like it both because it’s free to use and it’s a very effective way to raise needed goods.”
According to Scott Crawford, Associated Humane Societies, which operates the largest animal shelter system in NJ, “We think YouGiveGoods is great. We’ve used their website services before and raised 8 times the amount of food and supplies we were hoping for. We’re really excited about the GivingTuesday campaign and we’re glad to be a part of it.”
Other New Jersey shelters/organizations participating in the campaign include: Mt. Pleasant Animal Shelter, Associated Humane Societies, Shore Animal Volunteer Enterprise, Friends of Homeless Animals, PAWS Montclair, The Shelter Pet Project, and The Salvation Army New Jersey Division.
“Most of the animal shelter and rescue organizations have experienced a significant increase in the animals under their care. We think this campaign is a great way to shed more light on this situation so that these organizations can receive more of the resources they need,” said Marie Maxwell, Animal Shelter Community Manager at YouGiveGoods. She continued, “We already have Shelters in California, Florida, New Jersey, Delaware, South Dakota, Maryland and Texas planning to participate.”
#GivingTuesday is a movement to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual Holiday Season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations. It was created to foster giving during a time of the year when there is a lot of focus on shopping. Since there are two days focused on shopping in connection with the holidays - Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shouldn't there be at least one day focused on giving back? Visit GivingTuesday.org for more information.
The YouGiveGoods National Animal Shelter campaign is open to Animal Shelter and Rescue Organizations and for those organizations and individuals who want to support them and the animals under their care. There is no cost to join and to become a campaign partner. For more info on how to get involved, visit http://yougivegoodslovesanimals.yougivegoods.com/
or contact Marie.Maxwell@YouGiveGoods.com.
