I came across this offer of support from the Kennel Club to help you build a fund raising event for your charity

Dear Charity representative

Did you know that hounds can raise pounds for your charity?
The Kennel Club would like to inform you of a brilliant opportunity. We know you are always looking for new and exciting ways to fundraise and so it is with great pleasure that the Kennel Club would like to introduce you to their new fundraiser’s show pack. This pack includes everything you need to put on the perfect Charity Dog Show including: Everything you need to know about holding a dog show, licence application form, Companion Dog Club information, show regulations and guides,insurance assistance, Companion Dog Club Class application form and lastly a feedback form.

Why hold a Charity Dog Show?
Charity or Companion Dog Shows are a fun day out for people and their dogs. These friendly dog shows aim to raise money through the collection of entrance fees for a charity of their choice. Companion Shows are open to all dogs, pedigrees and crossbreeds alike and are always extremely popular events. Companion Dog Shows attract hundreds of hounds and generate millions of pounds for charities every year whether forming part of a village fete or as events in their own right. So why not unleash the fundraising potential of the dogs and their owners in your community?

What’s in it for you?
You can help us promote this initiative, for the better of your organisation, by placing links on your Web Pages where by individuals looking for a new and creative way to support your charity can find information on this programme as well as by holding your very own Companion Dog Show as a fundraising event. Promotion of the Kennel Club’s Companion Dog Club is not essential but would be much appreciated should you choose to hold a Companion Dog Show.

What’s the cost?
The only cost to you would be purchasing a Ł10 licence from the Kennel Club in order to hold your fundraising show.

Please contact me directly on 0207 518 1243 if you are interested in this beneficial partnership or have any queries and would like to receive a new promotional pack with further details.

Gina McMorran

Marketing Coordinator

The Kennel Club

1 – 5 Clarges Street, Piccadilly, London W1J 8AB

Tel: 0207 518 1003 Ext 243

Gina emailed this reply - I'm posting it here to keep this thread going.

Bruce -

Thank you for posting Charity Dog shows on your website – it’s a fab idea that costs people no more than Ł10 to put on! I would like to generate as much exposure through fundraising forums with this brand as possible. If you have any ideas – please feel free to advise me.

Otherwise, I much appreciate the mention, so thanks!

Warm regards

Gina

Hi Gina

You are more than welcome – I think it’s a great idea using the fund social event of dog show as a fund raising while raising the KC profile excellent.

I see you also joined the Design Aid website – I have upgraded your membership to “Author” for you so if you care to login and use the “members menu” (just below the main menu and visible only when logged in) to submit a news article in the appropriate category I will make sure this is in the next e newsletter for you the newsletter is distributed to around 1500 voluntary sector people and almost every CVS in the country – so that should help. The item editor has two content boxes put your lead in copy in the first box and the rest of your news item in the second box. It is the content of the first box with a “Read More” link that will be shown in the newsletter – look our news in “blog” view to get an idea how this works. Our last newsletter is 3 weeks overdue and due to shortage of resources at the moment it will still be a couple of weeks at least before it is sent out.

As far as forums are concerned in the charity sector, they are very thin on the ground. In fact we are planning a big push on our forum latter in the year to try and rectify this. We have even talked about running a series of event to try and get the sector to see the advantage of a good forum and to take it seriously.

I’m sure you are already active in the dog breed forums of which there are many with active members. When it comes to the Charity Sector I’m afraid you will find it a lot more difficult to market, advertise, and network. The CVS’s are the main network device for us and you will find a list of them on the NACVS website. I’m not sure if you have the resources to mail or email them all, but they do all produce newsletters that are distributed to their members/charities in their area.

The only other suggestion I would have for you at this time is the social networking sites, facebook, myspace etc. Design Aid has profiles, pages and groups on there you are welcome to look them up and post your links etc. there and while we do not have a large network, you are welcome to approach our friends on their too.

If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know – how about a PDF poster that can be downloaded printed and posted on the notice board by the CVS’s – I would be happy for the poster to be on the Design Aid server and use our newsletter mailing list to advice everyone its there and what to do with it. Lets face it its part of any CVS remit to inform charities of fundraising tools and means.
Cheers