Fundraising in today’s times

Fundraising in today’s times

Speaking for the voiceless – keeping animals and communities safe and healthy is the goal of animal shelters. As an Animal shelter, Friendicoes not only house cats and dogs but also other farm animals that outlive their economic use, donkeys cows and horses, which have been surrendered, lost, or abandoned. Shelters like us are funded through donations of animal lovers largely, and hardly ever by the local communities or government entities.

What do we do?

Our assistance to animals has grown significantly in the current pandemic scenario. There are now more animals needing to be rescued, treated, or cared for, despite a clear shortage of funding for their basic sustenance and medical care due to external factors like changing weather, increasing traffic on roads and highways, inflationary pressures on animal owners, increasing public intolerance and more.

Every animal we adopt out has to undergo spaying or neutering and receive all the essential vaccinations, flea treatments, and tests. Numerous animals have been mistreated, left on the streets, and been traumatised by loss of home and owner, so these animals need long-term care and healing attention, which can be time consuming and cost the animal shelter. Others are unable to be rehomed and must stay on at our Lifetime Care Sanctuary hopefully looked after till  the end of their lives.

How can you help?

One would think it would be simple to raise money for animal rescue. The public will donate without a doubt if you just show them some adorable pictures of kittens and puppies, right? It’s quite the opposite! Running an animal shelter is challenging because we need to find the right balance between wanting to help as many animals as we can and ensuring we can still feed and medicate those already in our care. We would like to keep our doors open to every animal in distress and pain but we need to plan our resources and dig deep into the hearts of the community around us.

• Every donation counts since it not only helps us with bills but also with supplies, staff training, enhancing the animals’ lives, and improving the shelter for better habitats for the animals.
• Finding a home for one dog or cat is amazing, but neutering one canine or feline can spare scores (if not countless) of animals from pain and death by preventing the birth of future generations of pups and kittens. Our time, effort, and money are most needed when the issue is stopped at the source. Supporting our spay/ neuter program does exactly this, a humane solution to the suffering of many street dogs and cats
• Locations that take in stray or lost pets go by a variety of names, animal shelters, dog pounds, and rescue organizations. We encourage fostering  as foster families agree to take animals into their homes temporarily when a shelter is at capacity and cannot take in any more animals. They must be able to temporarily house two or more animals in proper accommodations. While animal shelters typically need recognition from the Animal Welfare Board of India to operate, anyone can give their house as a foster home to an animal in need. So there’s always a need for foster families to support animals in care.

• Besides financial assistance, one can also sign up for the shelter’s volunteer program and give your time to raise funds, or host individual fundraising drives in their personal network, or donate to feed all the animals at the shelter on special days such as anniversaries, birthdays and celebrations. Shelters like Friendicoes always need newspapers, food grains  old clothes and seasonal requirements of coolers and heaters boris and blankets.

We have always benefited greatly from the kind donations of the public. Our long-term goal is to create a system that has a strong network of friends, supporters, and funders to enable us to uphold our dedication to animal care while we continue to operate as usual trying to rescue and rehabilitate as many animals as we can.