Fundraising Ideas for Rescue Animal Shelters

Rescue animal shelters provide food, care, medicine and love to hundreds of homeless animals each year. Learn about six simple fundraising ideas that can help provide the resources these shelters desperately need in order to continue caring for the animals they have rescued.  

Car Wash

A tried and true fundraiser - this is a fairly simple and inexpensive way to raise funds. Rally some teens that are animal lovers together, and pick a weekend day to have the car wash. Decorate posters with pictures of animals in the local shelter, and highlight the fact that the funds are going to help take care of these homeless pets.

Dog Wash

Skip the cars, and wash dogs! Find a location, put up posters, hand out flyers, and make sure to get the word out to newspapers. Visit local dog parks and hand out the flyers. Another place to leave flyers would be veterinarian offices. Schedule the dog wash for a weekend when pet owners are out and about with their furry family members, and have one or two volunteers on nearby corners with posters directing people to the location.

Bake Sales

Many high schools these days are requiring students to do some sort of community service. Talk with the principle at a local school and suggest the idea of having students hold a bake sale for the local animal shelter as a form of community service. The students do the baking and bring the goodies to school to sell to other students and teachers. Funds raised can be directly brought to the shelter by students themselves.

A few other fundraising ideas to consider:

• Ask a local coffee shop or fast food restaurant to donate a portion of their sales on a given date to the local animal shelter. Pick a cute name for the event, and make sure there is ample publicity for the event via newspapers, schools, posters, etc.


• Combine a car wash with a dog wash.


• Hold a walk-a-thon and have participants get sponsors that will pay for each mile walked, for example.

By supporting our local Rescue Animal Shelters, we are helping keep homeless dogs, cats and other animals safe, fed and loved.