How Project Street Vet grew monthly giving and raised $1M+ to care for homeless pets

Introduction

To many people, pets aren’t just animals; they’re family. For those experiencing homelessness, pets can be a vital lifeline and constant source of motivation during difficult times. Leading with kindness, compassion, and no judgement, Project Street Vet finds and supports these people and pets by providing accessible veterinary care.

For over a decade, “Street Vet” Dr. Kwane Stewart has traveled the neighborhoods of Southern California to offer free veterinary services to anyone he encounters. In 2020, he co-founded Project Street Vet to scale the impact, soon bringing on more volunteer veterinarians, staff, and corporate partners.

It’s estimated that 10-25% of America’s homeless population has a pet. Project Street Vet runs four core programs to address their needs, including: “Street Vet Work,” Community Pet Clinics, Veterinary Case Management, and a pilot Pet Food Pantry in LA. It’s not hard to see why the nonprofit has a thriving social media community and Dr. Kwane was honored with the CNN Hero of the Year Award in 2023.

To grow sustainably, Project Street Vet needed to make it easy for individuals to contribute to their cause. As time went on, they started looking for a platform that would scale and innovate with them, while still providing a straightforward donation experience.

Outgrowing the original fundraising platform

For the first few years, using GoFundMe to process donations worked well. But the platform had limitations that led the Project Street Vet team to explore alternatives.

They wanted to keep donors on their own website rather than sending them to another site to make a payment. Without a dedicated fundraiser on staff, the team also needed an intuitive system that allowed them to collect and download donor data more easily. The look and feel of the donation form mattered too.

Seamless website and payment method integrations

Project Street Vet became a Donorbox Pro customer in 2020 to facilitate fundraising. “I really like how Donorbox’s form can be integrated into our website,” explained Danae Davis, Executive Director of Project Street Vet. As a result, donors can check out directly on their site and then continue exploring to learn more about the organization.

Donors can now use any number of payment methods, including credit card, digital wallets, stock, cryptocurrency, offline donations, and more. Capturing and analyzing donation data has also gotten simpler. The team has built a deeper understanding of where their donors are coming from.

A better donation experience for all

Project Street Vet has raised an incredible amount on Donorbox so far – over $1.7 million from individual giving and counting. These funds directly benefit unhoused pet families in need. Thanks to supporters’ generosity and word getting out there, Project Street Vet is expanding to new cities and states, serving 8 cities across California, New York, and Georgia.

In 2023, the organization helped the most clients yet, assisting over 1,500 pets and their parents – more than twice as many as the year before.

Danae attributes this fundraising success to a number of different factors. One is Donorbox’s recurring donation feature. A big fan of the heart that encourages donors to consider making a monthly donation instead of one-time, she said, “We’ve seen the number of monthly donations increase over the last three years, from 0 to 700 monthly donors. Even the little things like that go a long way.”

Another is the variety of payment options. Danae explained: “Donorbox is really good at providing a lot of different, easy ways for donors to give. I always take advantage of integrations with payment methods like PayPal, Venmo, and now cryptocurrency. Offering multiple ways to give has definitely helped us raise more.”

Project Street Vet’s big year-end campaign – 101 Donations Matching Gift Campaign – has been a smashing success. In partnership with their title sponsor, Fetch Pet Insurance, Project Street Vet has managed to set and hit increasingly ambitious fundraising goals. In 2023, they brought in over $400,000 in just a few months. The team enables Donorbox’s text-to-give shortcode feature and sees donations come in that way, in addition to doing outreach across social media, news outlets, corporate communications, word of mouth, and direct mail.

The Future

Looking ahead, Project Street Vet is focused on figuring out how to expand efficiently and support every veterinarian who wants to do this life-saving work, regardless of where they live. To fuel this programmatic and geographic expansion, they’re thinking about how their systems will support that. Part of that may be exploring Donorbox’s CRM.

Donorbox is thrilled to support Dr. Kwane, Danae, and the entire Project Street Vet team as they create a world where veterinary care is accessible to every pet family.

Donorbox features used

• Donation Form
• Employer Matching
• Donation Designations
• Recurring Donations
• Crypto / Stock
• Mailchimp Integration
• Text-to-Give