It’s a fair question! Although not a rescue, we have running costs such as our combined liability insurance, the mileage we pay our volunteers and all our leaflets, banners and general promotional resources. And there are a number of answers…
PEOPLE POWER
Any organisation’s greatest asset is its workforce, and that’s especially true of voluntary/not-for-profit bodies such as AdvoCATS. Our volunteers are a pretty special bunch, diverse in their opinions but united by a common love of animals. Whether it’s standing in a dampish field at the crack of sparrowfart manning our car boot pitches, handing out leaflets and explaining our work at information days, undertaking casework for a tenant/landlord or any number of the day-to-day tasks such as finances and social media management, the AdvoCATS family work hard and play hard.
GOING, GOING, GONE
The preloved marketplace is huge, and is the mainstay of our fundraising efforts. There’s the car boots as already mentioned, and anything given to us that’s too good to boot is listed on Marketplace, Ebay or Vinted. We’re lucky to have a storage unit that houses all our donated stock as well as our gazebo and all the promotional kit – it’s a constant game of 3D Tetris!! – and our having it is down to answer number 3…
SPONSORSHIP
AdvoCATS has two main sponsors: Random Surfer Ltd and Storage King. Random Surfer is a digital marketing agency that maintains and hosts our website, and also funds some bigger one-off costs like advertising in an event programme we’re participating in. Storage King – well, the clue’s in the name! They discount our storage unit to next to nothing and truly recognise the value of our work in the community. We’ve also benefitted from one-off sponsorship deals such as the hugely discounted purple gazebo we received from a manufacturer that enables us to have a really eye-catching presence at outdoor events with the added bonus of not having to worry about the weather!
DONATIONS
AdvoCATS provides a free service – we have to, in order to show impartiality. That’s not to say we don’t welcome donations from anyone we’ve helped, and people have been very kind over the years. Some of those who support what we do donate on a regular basis to help with running costs, and we’ve also been lucky enough to have received some very generous one-off donations.
Heads for Tails! is our hugely successful umbrella campaign that saw pet reforms included in the late, lamented Renters Reform Bill, which sadly never became law.
A simple change to existing legislation is the key to more landlords becoming pet friendly, and that’s why we were able to secure such widespread political and corporate support first time around.
Whether it’s talking to the general public, clients,...
