Unity Farm Sanctuary raises 5x its auction goal and mobilizes supporters like never before with Givebutter

A refuge for rescued farm animals outside of Boston, Unity Farm Sanctuary (UFS) has finally found its fundraising home with Givebutter. In our latest success story, UFS Executive Director and Co-Founder Kathy Halamka shares the success of their fundraising efforts since making the switch to Givebutter. 

Keep reading to discover how Kathy and the Unity Farm Sanctuary team… 

• Raised more than $150K in six months with Givebutter’s extensive fundraising tools 🎉 
• Built connections with their community through specific, targeted campaigns 💛 
• Put the “fun” in fundraising with themed team fundraising pages and auctions 🐮 

Hit play for the full story! 👇

Campaigns at a glance

From a groundbreaking animal art auction exceeding goals by 521% to a heartwarming Giving Tuesday drive funding lifetime medical care for rescues, UFS consistently inspires. Stay tuned as we explore these triumphs and more. Their most recent annual campaign alone raised $20K+ for their good cause, showcasing the impact of their community's generosity and our platform's capabilities in driving meaningful change.

Meet Unity Farm Sanctuary

For eight years, Unity Farm Sanctuary (UFS) has been a safe haven for rescued farm animals in Sherborn, Massachusetts. Its staff and volunteers are committed to spreading kindness and joy through compassionate farm animal care and humane education programs, living out its mission of seeking positive changes for animals and people alike.

Why Givebutter?

Before finding Givebutter, UFS’s existing donation portal was both complicated and uninspiring for their supporters. Kathy and her team wanted to find a fundraising and donor management solution that brought their system into the modern age, providing a quick and enjoyable way for donors to contribute. They also wanted to offer each supporter the opportunity to select the payment method that worked best for them. 

After a close examination of several different options for fundraising platforms, the UFS team decided to make the move to Givbeutter. 

Kathy was drawn to Givebutter’s user-friendliness, both for her donors and for her team handling management on the backend. She highlights Givebutter’s range of engaging features (including the built-in CRM, peer-to-peer fundraising, ticketed events, donation pages, and auctions) and the numerous integrations available as the primary reasons for her choice. 

At Givebutter, we love the way that the donor’s in the driver's seat. They get to pick the tips. They get to pick whether or not they cover any of the fees. Do they want to be monthly? Do they want to do something specific they get to plan? They get to control it.

– Kathy Halamka, UFS Executive Director & Co-Founder 

How Unity Farm Sanctuary elevates its fundraising with Givebutter

Putting a wide range of Givebutter’s fundraising features to use, including a fully customized donation form, USF has brought its story to life and rallied enormous support for its mission with various campaigns, auctions, and special events.

Inspired team fundraising 🐔

Unity Farm Sanctuary’s approach to team fundraising is distinctive and delightful, and it’s an idea that was originally introduced by a member of Givebutter’s very own Success Team. 

Instead of making a generic donation to their current sponsorship page, UFS supporters can select a “team” of animals to support: goats, sheep, cows, birds, alpacas, llamas—the list goes on. Then, they choose their favorite “rescue team member” and make a donation in their honor, with the option to add a sweet note about why they chose that animal. 

Horses and donkeys currently lead the pack, but it’s very entertaining to watch the totals change!

Impactful animal art auctions 💛

Hosting silent auctions for paintings and artwork isn’t unusual, but UFS’ take on the traditional art auction will make you smile. The team at UFS helped their resident animals create their own masterpieces with animal-safe paint and an animal-focused creation process. 

The end result? Unique artwork handmade by rescued animals!

UFS’s Art for the Animals auction fundraiser raised more than $5K for their cause, and the winning bidders get to enjoy their exclusive masterpieces at home every day. It’s a win-win, made possible with Givebutter’s easy-to-use auction software.

Easy ticketed events 🎟️

UFS is a closed farm for the safety of the animals, but the team loves to open the doors on scheduled tours to share the power of kindness and showcase their impact. UFS uses Givebutter’s event ticketing features to make this happen with ease.

Community members can use the simple form to buy tickets to an upcoming tour and support a good cause at the same time. Additional features, like the option to add a donation, improve the donor experience and create opportunities for UFS to raise even more.

Without the features in our fundraising being so positive and so easy to access, I don't know how we would support our programs with something less flexible than this—because Givebutter allows us to be very expansive in a very attractive way to tell people why we do what we do and what's going to happen with their donation. Pretty amazing stuff.

– Kathy Halamka, UFS Executive Director & Co-Founder 

Putting the “fun” in fundraising—and donor management 

Givebutter makes it easy to collaborate on creating and managing fundraising campaigns as well as monitoring success and making data-informed decisions together. 

Having used clunky, complicated donor management systems in the past, Kathy shares that looking at her CRM now feels like a pleasure rather than a duty. Her team also enjoys how easy it is to view and search data, monitor success, and pull reports. 

Givebutter is the platform for us because it is constantly evolving and improving. I love that about everything—all the ways we can participate in having a voice and improving our experience and the donor or supporter experience.

– Kathy Halamka, UFS Executive Director & Co-Founder

In just six months using Givebutter as its donation platform and CRM, Unity Farm Sanctuary has transformed its fundraising and is making a bigger impact for the animals—and humans—in its community than ever before. 

Sign up for your free Givebutter account to start creating your own success story today.