Care2, the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference in the world, and
Adopt-a-Pet.com, one of the country’s largest pet adoption charities, have joined forces to launch the third America’s Favorite Animal Shelter contest beginning tonight, Nov. 5 promptly at midnight and ending on Wednesday, Dec. 16 at precisely 11:59:59 p.m. And yes, those are very strict deadlines! However,
anytime in between we’re hoping you and everyone you know — and everyone you don’t know — will visit the
America’s Favorite Animal Shelter contest site to vote for Best Friends as the favorite animal shelter or rescue.
The winning organization will receive a grand prize of $10,000. We’re thinking a $10,000 prize would guarantee a very happy holiday season for the 1,700+ animals living at the sanctuary. And here’s the best part: All we need from you is about two minutes of your time, sometime between Nov. 5 and December. 16.
Participation is easy: Simply log on to the site and search for your favorite rescue or shelter by zip code (for Best Friends, it’s 84741) or city and state (again, for Best Friends, it’s Kanab, Utah) and cast your one-time-only vote. That’s it!
Of course, you could do more and recruit your friends and family to join the contest. If you’re one of the top 20 recruiters, you personally will win a $50 gift certificate for pet products. Take advantage of the site’s links to Twitter, Facebook or the eCard option, to help spread the word that Best Friends is involved in a heated competition with other worthy animal rescue organizations to win a cool $10K.
And believe us, we need all the votes we can get! More than 8,000 animal rescues and shelters that post their adoptable pets on Adopt-a-Pet.com are in the running. For those organizations out there that have not registered — what are you waiting for? The service is free and will help you showcase your adoptable pets to the more than 900,000 adopters who visit the site. This, too, is easy to do: Simply have an authorized representative of your shelter or rescue sign up at http://www.adoptapet.com/signup. Even though there can only be a few winners (the 10 organizations with the most votes will receive a cash prize) all participating groups will benefit with exposure to greater animal loving audiences and may find more forever homes for their residents. That makes all participating organizations winners in our book.
The two previous grand-prize winners were Independent Animal Rescue, Inc. in Durham, N.C., and St. John Animal Rescue League in New Brunswick, Canada; each weighed in with somewhere between 10,000 – 11,000 votes.
Even the smallest of animal welfare groups have a shot at winning money from this contest because each week, there will be a random drawing of participating organizations for a $500 prize. Rebecca Young, Care2.com’s manager of activism marketing, said partnering with Adopt-a-Pet to promote this contest was specifically designed to benefit all animal welfare groups and the individuals who support them on several levels.
“Care2 has 11 million members,” says Young. “We’ve hosted these kinds of contests with some of our other partnering organizations and what it does is give people a chance to make a difference without having to spend a lot of money for their favorite cause, or even spend a lot of time. And we hear from the participating groups that this contest is a fun and effective way to get their messages out into their communities.”
The powers that be may want to think about changing the title of the contest, as America’s Favorite Animal Shelter contest has grown to include rescues and shelters in Canada (except for Quebec for legal reasons). And the contest isn’t just for dogs and cats — entries have come in from horse, bunny and pig rescues as well.
Voting is open to anyone 18 or older in the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (with the exception of Quebec.) And if you just click on America’s Favorite Animal Shelter contest, you can vote right now — we hope you’ll vote for Best Friends!
Written by Amy Abern
Photo by Gary Kalpakoff
As part of Best Friends’ 25th anniversary in 2009, our goal is to double our membership, so we can double our efforts to bring about a time when all companion animals have a forever home. What can you do to help? Give the Gift of a Best Friends membership to family and friends.
