INTERVIEW: Diabetic Cats in Need Raises Money With Tees
This unique nonprofit rallies supporters to join them in their fundraising efforts
Diabetic Cats in Need Development Director, Amy Sikes, has gone above and beyond to promote her fundraiser. Her “Diabetic Cats in Need” campaign is an example about how far the power of a t-shirt can go. Proceeds from this fundraiser went towards treatment, care, and rescue homes for these furry pets.
With Ink, the more you sell, the more you make. Amy realized that and worked hard to attain her goal. On her third campaign, she hit that magic number and her proceeds significantly increased per item. This fundraiser included hoodies, a crew neck, and a variety of different colored tees.
Diabetic Cats in Need is a Maine-based organization that has launched three fundraisers, based off popular demand. The success can be attributed to Amy’s hard work and the immense animal-loving community that loyally follow.
We caught up with Amy to learn more about what motivated her fundraising efforts, and how she was able to reach her goal.
Tell us about Diabetic Cats in Need.
DCIN is — as far as we know — the only organization in the country (and perhaps the world) that does what we do: provide supplies to low-income caregivers of diabetic cats. When needed, we also provide vet care. In addition, we aim to educate as many people as possible about proper treatment of diabetic cats, including feeding a species-appropriate low-carb wet food diet. We are run by a small, fiercely dedicated team of volunteers who want to save as many diabetic cats as we can. Often, DCIN is the only thing standing between a diabetic kitty and unnecessary euthanasia due to a caregiver’s lack of funds. We’ve had many people tell us that DCIN has given them the first hope they’ve had in a long time.
You can read more about us on our website.
You can also read our Facebook reviews to see what our clients say about us.
What drove you to create a t-shirt with Ink to the People?
As a new Development Director, I was looking for fun and different ways to encourage people to support DCIN. Several fans had asked about DCIN merchandise, but trying to run an Etsy store seemed too complicated (most of the volunteers also work full-time jobs), and custom-print houses like Vistaprint were too expensive. Lots of animal rescue groups do t-shirt fundraisers, but I wanted to do something different. I don’t remember how I came across Ink to the People, but when I saw the range of what you offered, I knew it was the vendor I wanted to use for our new logo roll out. Our fans were very excited that they could choose more than just a one-color short-sleeved t-shirt! (Though they also started clamoring for even more options: sweatpants, yoga pants, fuzzy socks, hats….)
How did you promote your fundraiser? And why do you think it was successful?
We mainly have promoted the fundraisers via Facebook. I boosted a few posts, and we used clever cover page images and post images to catch people’s attention. In our 2016 Winter Campaign, I failed to push the idea that we needed to get over 100 items sold in order to increase our earnings per item, and we didn’t do as well. In this most recent campaign, I harped on that quite a bit, and people really responded. I think when people feel like they’re doing something extra to help a cause they really believe in make more money, they feel good about doing it — and often will ask their friends to help out.
Also, we’ve gotten a lot of publicity recently from the Jackson Galaxy and Jackson Galaxy Foundation’s Facebook pages (he’s a cat rescue world rockstar), which has greatly increased our fan-base. Thus, we had several thousand new fans that had not yet gotten a chance to purchase DCIN logo gear to draw on.
What are the proceeds going to do for diabetic cats?
The proceeds will go into out General Fund, which we use to purchase the diabetic supplies we send out to our clients. I have a blog post that lays out the various costs of “starter kit” items here.
Why did you decide to relaunch your campaign?
People kept asking me when we were doing another t-shirt fundraiser!
Would you launch another t-shirt fundraising campaign? Why or why not?
Absolutely! Our fans love it, and they love that wearing (or carrying) their DCIN gear often sparks conversations about Feline Diabetes and DCIN, sometimes getting us new fans/new donors. In fact, such a conversation caused a fan to donate generic business cards to us, so we can send them out to willing fans who can then hand them out at such moments. Selling DCIN t-shirts, etc. is another great way to get our message out there to people who may not be on FB or who just don’t run in the same circles as our fans…but who are interested in supporting our cause.
We’ll also keep using Ink to the People because we’ve been very impressed with the quality of the items. Often, fundraiser items wind up being cheap, but these are great! I especially love the hoodies — if I could live in them, I would! We use the high quality as a selling point in our promotional posts.
