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Crowdfunding as funding tool for Animal Welfare NGOs

by EUROCROWD on 20.04.2023

EUROCROWD is happy to present its report on Crowdfunding for Animal Welfare with the cooperation of the Eurogroup for animals and other NGOs. Animal Welfare is a growing concern for political and public discourse in Europe. In this context, animal welfare NGOs play a key role in raising awareness, setting the agenda, and undertaking specific actions for animal protection. The role of NGOs is vital in fostering Animal Welfare, yet many of these often smaller, regional, or local organisations survive on the occasional donations from members.

Many NGOs have been historically underfunded or work with limited access to incumbent financial services. As a result, the Animal Welfare sector, spends significant effort and resources to raise funds, find donors, and attract public to support their actions. Crowdfunding as a source of funding for NGOs is yet to be explored further and can potentially add significant benefits in some cases.

Specifically, many Animal Welfare NGOs struggle to build a committed long-term audience for their cause, and therefore, to find enough donors to support their activities. Crowdfunding not only can help broaden their funding but also attract a great number of supporters, increasing the visibility of the NGOs cause and actions.

Download the report here

In our report we analyse the needs of Animal Welfare NGOs active in Europe and to which extend crowdfunding has been and can be used. We have fielded a market survey and interviews with stakeholders in both Animal Welfare NGOs and crowdfunding platforms to support desk research. We identify two main hurdles that Animal Welfare NGOs face regarding their:

  • Lack of funding to carry out actions
  • Lack of visibility of actions

These two problems can be partly addressed with the use of crowdfunding. Several case studies showcase the application of crowdfunding within Animal Welfare. We find that NGOs remain focused on non-financial forms of crowdfunding, instead seeking the stronger community engagement that reward-based crowdfunding can offer. Transaction levels range from the lower five digit to lower six-digit Euro amounts. It remains unclear at this stage, if the new European laws on crowdfunding for business (ECSPR) will be relevant for NGOs and specifically Animal Welfare NGOs as regarding the eligibility of their legal set up under national company law and admitted instruments to ECSPR on national level.

The report provides a short overview of the issues of Animal Welfare NGOs in the currently changing legislative framework of animal welfare rights, addressing the increasing funding challenges and the existing engagement in innovative community fundraising with crowdfunding.

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