Rescue Remedies.myfastforum.org

xxlynne · Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 8:22 pm Post subject: Fundraising suggestions May 09

Well we have woken up to the fact that the donation fee which comes in with a dog of £150 covers our vet bills unless we have had to offer extensive treatment. Our vets have just put their prices up.

Then we have the kennelling bills as an extra. This amount has to be down to 'fund raising'. It is currently a heavy bill of around .. £6200 for April!!!

Paypal and Standing Orders: We have now got trickling amounts coming in via Paypal which is about £250 a month which is wonderful. We also have standing orders per month amounting to about £190

SO what to do

Reduce number of dogs: Yes we are trying to get the numbers in kennels down. It is happening so we can optimize our turnover related to the voluntary help we have.

Surrender money: We are being more bold to ask for a contribution from people surrendering their dogs. Most dogs come in without.

Fosterers: We do not have many foster places as most people who offer have very young children, no transport or cats; can only offer for very easy dogs or really only want a dog for a week or two then start saying they are becoming too attached and suddenly we have the stress to avoid the dog going into kennels.

Moving our dogs: As fast as we can we move!!! We work like a blue ambulance at the sniff of a permanent home.

New ideas

Fund raising focus on each Website: to set up this week
Rescue Remedies Fellowship Wall: Anyone setting up a standing order of £10 and above gets their name on our wall. Effectively becoming a friend of the rescue
Terrier Rescue Sponsor a kennel initiative Paypal donation towards our kennel bill..name placed against a dog's kennel
Staffie Rescue Neutering fund contributing towards neutering costs for Staffies.

Beavisfamily initiatives: organising sponsored walk; approaching supermarkets, etc.

Farmland Kennels We are beginning to look for farmland close to the M25 Junction 5-8 to build a rescue centre on. We would need to do serious fund raising, but need to support a quantity of kennels as we have the Team, we have the Will and oh yes, we will always have the gorgeous dogs. May have a building on site which would help to support our work and supplement our costs.

Publicity We need car stickers printed; and to run regular local paper adverts, but direct people onto the websites - not create lots of casual phone enquirers'!

Charitable status Dee is now leading this and we should soon be submitting the paperwork.

Homers Contact past homers to raise their awareness to the Rescue as it is now and ask for their support.

What else ... how do we support our work suggestions please?

_________________
You can't train the terrier out of a terrier!

THEY ARE THEIR OWN PEOPLE

www.terrierrescue.co.uk

karen · Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 9:29 pm Post subject:

My immediate thoughts are:

1. Charitable Status (and I know that is moving forward)

2. Under helping our dogs on the RR website, the links do not seem to be working. Could we look at this? I think we should also look at putting our RR events diary here as we could get additional sponsors for things like the sponsored walk and generally garner support from 'casual' visitors.
Secret Squirrel will sort on her return Wasn't aware sorry

3. Look at maybe emailing a 'newsletter' to all those registered on the forum every 4 months or so with an up date of what is going on, which events we are attending, etc. There are 480ish registered users but probably only 50 active at any one time.
Newletter will draft

4. Look at trying to co-ordinate a 'sale' at least once a month, moving around the South East. Having done a very small one this will take quite a lot of commitment but if we could get a team together to share the load it could work. We took GBP 1000 in a small village hall and I believe the amounts could be much higher in some of the busier market towns. We need someone to step forward to co-ordinate the 'begging' letters etc and then have various volunters in different locations to get things going.
Needs people power events calender already looks good but not sure if any helpers will turn up to planned stalls? Need reassurance

I have added/committed to as many events as I feel we can cope with over the next few months with the limited number of people we have on the fundraising team. I would love to expand/move this forward further, but until we get additional volunteers, I'm loathe to commit to more if there is a possibility that we can't cover them. Anyone that seriously wants to help us with our fundraising efforts please, please, please drop me a mail. It's a serious issue, but we have a lot of fun doing it too and you would be very welcome.

Many of the other larger fundraising ideas I have will not really work until we have either Charitable Status or at least 'Status Pending.'

I think increasing the numbers of fosterers would be helpful too. Perhaps to help bring about the right sort of offers we could transfer the info on the main site into the foster section on the forum?
Not sure about this: Dee and I are running shy of fosterer focus currently, recent bad experiences to the point Dee spent 2 days in tears trying to find alternatives at very short notice. However current fosterers solid, dependable and excellent. Foster pleas already all over Forum.

None of these are ground breaking ideas, I know, but are little things that could be dealt with quite quickly and who knows, could even help a little.
Excellent contribution Karen

The only area I have mentioned before but has gone no further is the Pedigree Adoption Drive. We could apply for that before CS. Is there some objection to that?

More ideas are being formulated................................ Laughing

Fred R · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 7:44 am Post subject:

A couple of points:

[Fundraising suggestions 09]
<<Fosterers: We do not have many foster places as most people who offer have very young children, no transport or cats; can only offer for very easy dogs or really only want a dog for a week or two then start saying they are becoming too attached and suddenly we have the stress to avoid the dog going into kennels. >>
[Fostering]
<<We accept applications from foster homes that are only available for short periods like weekends . . . >>
<<Therefore a holiday long weekend would take pressure off us and offer a break to a dog that we judge would not be too upset by the return to kennels.>>

Might not the above send mixed and perhaps off-putting messages to potential fosterers? Just wondering.

Reply: There is one thing to make use of a short term offer or weekend recovery offer we target the appropriate dog. If we are offered a foster place we would put a completely different dog in one that isn't doing well in kennels and one we would try to keep out of kennels at all costs. So believe me this isn't contradictory information its about appropriate dogs for appropriate scenarios. As with our skills in homing

Having had my Paypal account misused not once but four times I for one have closed that account and will never use Paypal again. In fact there are hundreds if not thousands of people who will not use Paypal (see Google). Might it perhaps be possible to offer an alternative in addition to Paypal (such as Protx for instance)?

Reply: If people want to donate they will we receive cheque donations through enquiries.

If anyone wishes to make a donation by any means other than Paypal, please send me a personal message or e-mail to sharon@rescueremedies.co.uk and I will be able to give you the details you need to make your donation.

Thank you Fred this has given us the opportunity to clarify with others also who may have felt as yourself.

Dee Peter · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 7:56 am Post subject:

My suggestion would be advertising in Dog Magazines. Did approach "Dogs Today" to ask about their Feature Page they do on Dogs in Rescue and Dog Rescue features which costs NOTHING. Could RR do a feature about the Rescue and their plight of needing Kennels and funds with that might bring "new homes". They cover mainly the South of England with their coverage. Newspapers are good, but to me "Dog Lovers" buy these Magazines which might attract the right "telephone calls" coming through not just "possibles" after reading an ad in their Newspaper?

Only concern before about suggesting this is the man power involved answering questionnaires and calls but would be worth it if it helped the dogs and RR got a higher profile.

Already advertised under Breed Rescue for Lakelands and patterdales. Will get someadverts off and review current entries. Good idea! xxlynne

Tina D · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 10:38 am Post subject:

I would also agree with Karen that an Events calendar on the main website would be useful.

Secret Squirrel on hols will action on her return

I know that we have a Facebook page, so could all of our fundraising events go on the Facebook page? What about Twitter? could we set up a Twitter page (i have never been on Twitter but there is a lot of talk about it). We seem to have had a few volunteer offers from IT savvy people (not complete technophobes like myself!!) maybe one of them would like to take up the challenge? -maybe they could email a weekly/monthly "newsletter" as per Karen's suggestion?

Facebook/ Utube enthuastis step forwards. Needs someone to write newsletter which I can do but need someone with imaginative fresh slant to help..then yes technocrat to utilize

There are quite a few events organised that we are having a stall/some kind of presence at. I would suggest too that people are on the look out for any car boot sale/dog show/fair that we can have a stall at in their local area and volunteer to run it. It doesn't have to be anything major, even just printing out some of our homing leaflets and having a collecting tin will raise our profile and might raise some pennies. I have contacted my local parks in case they are running anything this year-could people contact theirs? Most have an email address on the council website.

needs peoplepower to be there and focus on the events.

What about adding the RR website address and a tagline to any signatures on other forums or at the bottom of your emails? I have not done this in the past as i didn't know if i was "allowed" to, but i will happily add it to my forum/personal email signatures if all agree that it is ok?? I know that i have clicked on web links on people's signatures out of interest before. Do it!!!

FYI ... all of the ads we post on other websites & forums (that allow links) all have links back to our website & forum. Since we have been doing this it has made a difference to our website status/forum member numbers Very Happy

Brilliant
Get a RR t-shirt and wear it all of the time Very Happy

(and pyjames!!!)especially when attending "doggie" events or walking your own dogs, it might prompt people to ask about it. I am trying to find a company that will print RR dog t-shirts too as that might be an added bonus talking point Very Happy

Great

Tina, check in with Sam (TheBeavisFamily) as she has researched t-shirts already.

Tina D · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 10:40 am Post subject:

Also, what about exploring the collecting tins idea again? I know that we run the risk that people will take a tin and not return the money but surely having them out there will get our name known and will at least bring in some money (half of something is better than all of nothing! Very Happy

)

Sorry I squashed this one. Easily goes to seed; they get stolen; can be abused and line the pockets of opportunist. Only one we had in operation..vol. no longer involved and doubt if we'll see proceeds.

xxlynne · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:04 am Post subject:

Hope you dont mind me putting comments in red: don't want to make the suggestions seem to go into thin air.
_________________
You can't train the terrier out of a terrier!

THEY ARE THEIR OWN PEOPLE

www.terrierrescue.co.uk

xxlynne · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:05 am Post subject:

Lottery syndicate? Needs organiser...
_________________
You can't train the terrier out of a terrier!

THEY ARE THEIR OWN PEOPLE

www.terrierrescue.co.uk

Tina D · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:54 am Post subject:

Lynne: I like that you have put the comments in red, it makes it easier to see what is needed by people and what ideas have been thought of already Very Happy

Fred R · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 12:13 pm Post subject: