How you can support Cats Protection this Giving Tuesday.

After its arrival in the UK last year, #GivingTuesday is back, providing a chance for us all to take a break from the stresses and strains of Christmas preparations and offer our time, money and voices to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

We’re really grateful to everyone who went out of their way to help Cats Protection last time around. For those who want to get involved this year, here’s a reminder of the many ways in which you can help us:

1. Fundraising

Our work helping thousands of cats each year depends solely on donations. We have between 5,000 and 6,000 cats in our care at any one time across the UK which is why fundraising is so important to the charity as it enables us to help the many cats that need our support. Every cat that comes into our care is given a health check, vaccinations and all CP cats which are old enough are neutered prior to being rehomed, which costs us an average of £180 per cat. Cats stay with us for as long as it takes to find them loving new homes and we never put a healthy cat to sleep.

There are many ways that you can help us with our work. You can sponsor a cat pen, leave a gift in your will, make regular donations through your pay (deducted from your pay before tax is taken), sign up to our weekly lottery, donate items to our charity shops and so much more – read all the different ways you can fundraise on our Support us page.

You can also now donate to us quickly and easily via your mobile phone by texting CATS1 to 70907 to make a one-off £3 donation (see the terms and conditions).

Why not do a sponsored challenge like a skydive for Cats Protection?

We welcome more unconventional ways of raising funds too – in the past our supporters have adopted their inner wild cat and faced their fears by abseiling, zip wiring, skydiving and much more. For 2016 and beyond we are very pleased to offer a huge portfolio of challenge events and have something to appeal to everyone, from mountain treks in the UK to volunteering with a tiger conservation project in India, you can run, jump, fly, climb, cycle or even swim to show your support to Cats Protection! Visit our Events page for a full list.

2. Volunteering

When people think about voluntary work at Cats Protection, many automatically picture roles such as fosterers and fundraisers. As vital as these responsibilities are, however, there are loads more ways for people to donate their time and skills.

Whether your expertise lies in administration, education, retail, PR, or something completely different, there are often ways you can help us out. What’s more, with many roles capable of being fitted around busy lives and some able to be performed from home, volunteering for Cats Protection need not be a big commitment.

As well as generating a huge sense of satisfaction and being a lot of fun, it also allows people to pick up a range of new skills. Twenty-two-year-old broadcasting, journalism and media communications student Indi Leigh began helping out in our Wrexham Charity Shop last summer, before becoming a fundraiser for the Wrexham & District Branch:

Beginning with general shop work, using the till and tagging clothes, I started getting involved in the fashion shows that Sharon, the shop manager, put together. This gave me great experience in marketing and events co-ordination, the career I am trying to pursue. Now I am organising my first event, a Christmas Extravaganza, on behalf of Cats Protection. Volunteering with them is honestly one of the best things I have ever done.

Volunteer Indi running a CP stall at the Llangollen fairy festival 

The work we do simply wouldn’t be possible without the dedication of volunteers like Indi. To discover all the ways in which you can help us, visit the Ways to volunteer page on our website. To search for roles currently being advertised, use our Volunteer opportunities search tool.

3. Raising awareness

Cats Protection was set up in 1927 to inform and educate the general public about cats and the issues they faced, and this is still at the heart of what we do.

We try to spread the word about cat welfare whenever and wherever we can, through national and regional press, via television and radio, and on our website and social media channels. We also regularly address schoolchildren, community groups and veterinary professionals and engage with politicians and other decision-makers.

However there are always more people to reach, and there are many ways you can help us reach them, including:

• subscribing to this blog and our official supporter magazine, The Cat
• liking us on Facebook 
• retweeting tweets from our Twitter page
• subscribing to our YouTube channel and sharing our videos

Join our 341,000 fans and like our Facebook page

It’s simple acts of support like this that helped make our recent National Black Cat Day such a success and contributed to tackling the inequalities experienced by black cats waiting for new homes.

National Black Cat Day in numbers

• Our ‘Black Cats: 5 Common Misconceptions’ YouTube video reached 3.8 million people
• #BlackCatDay trended on Twitter on the day itself with over 47,000 mentions
• The Black Cat Champion competition on Facebook received around 2,500 entries
• The day saw a significant spike in new ‘Likes’ and ‘Follows’ for our social media pages

Whatever you can do to help us, whether it’s fundraising, volunteering our sharing our message with others, you can be sure you’re making a difference. To discover even more ways you can help Cats Protection, head to the Support us page.