Money!

MONEY: Time to gradually start thinking about your fundraising. I know it’s hard to talk about money—every time I bring it up I can feel people thinking, “Geez, I thought lawyers were bad…” J Since we’re all busy working and training, I won’t waste time beating around the bush. The animals need you AND fundraising is fun!

First: Make your personal fundraising page. Go to the “support a runner” page and click "show all runners" to check out your team-mates, for example, Dana Portnoy. If you need any help setting up your page, let us know!

Make your page YOUR page. Your photo can be you, your dog, or an animal suffering on a factory farm. Your text can be anything you want. The most important thing is to be yourself and be sincere!

Second: Write an e-mail message to everyone you know. Again, be yourself. We all have different reasons why we’re training, and why we want to help animals. Some people want to help stop cat and dog overpopulation. Others want to fight fur or shut down slaughterhouses. Whatever your passions are—they’re OK and you should share them with your friends, colleagues and family members. Tell them you’ll do the sweating and huffing and puffing for 3 months, and you hope they will emotionally support you by donating to your page. Send them a link to your page.

Remember this as you write your message: Animals are dependent on us for help. They cannot speak for themselves. You are asking your family and friends to give for their sakes—the animals—not for your own interests.

On top of that, you're giving a gift to the people you ask. By asking them to support your training efforts and PETA's vital work, they'll know that you've included them in something wonderful. They'll get to hear about how your training is going and your feelings of achievement and happiness, and they'll feel like they're a part of it.

It's good to ask for help. Animals are counting on us, and many of our friends and family members want to be involved in our challenges and achievements, they just don’t know what we need.

We'll talk about this more during the training. You won't be left to handle this important task alone.

Thank you so much for helping to make PETA a stronger voice for animals, who are voiceless.

This post was written by Alex Bury