Brown Dog Red Collar

Red Collar Programs blog postWant to see your volunteer and supporter enagement skyrocket? Implement a Red Collar program as part of your fundraising plan!


Red Collar programs focus on the desire of donors to make a specific change in the world. They don't want to just give money -- they want to see their donation in action.  They want to give the brown dog a red collar -- not just A dog ANY collar.


Regardless of how you feel about that, you've got to see the power in that sort of program.


It's broader than just a sponsor this dog program -- it makes your donor a part of the story.  


Examples:  Save The Children programs, where you get a personalized letter and photo about a child in exchange for your twenty-five cents a day. The ASPCA is onboard, too -- send in your donation and they'll send you a picture of a dog in their care right now. (Note that their pitch is carefully-worded -- you're not giving to a particular dog, you're giving to the general fund and getting a picture of A dog. Brilliant.)

  •  They get to choose the recipient
  •  They get to choose the gift.
  •  The gift must be concrete

There are a number of ways to do quick Red Collar programs. 

1. This is a bit of a pain in terms of learning curve, but once you've got it down, you can clone your campaigns. We're adding some templates in the subscriber area.

2. Custom drop/drag scripts like the ones we use: LINK TO EXAMPLE.  Our most common one displays a list of dogs in our care and asks the donor to pick out a bag of dog food for that dog. The donor drags the image of the bag over to the picture of the dog and adds a few words of dedication and perhaps a dedication picture. 

3. Online fundraisers such as for particular needs. These are not as great as the other two options since there's not as much choice and it's money rather than a specific item.

Why do these work? Blame your happy chemicals, dopamine in particular. The act of helping generates dopamine. For more on this, check out Meet Your Happy Chemicals by Breuning.


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