Saturday, August 11, 2007

Art for Critters - Art Sales to Help Animals


I'm pleased to announce that I am now a member of "Art for Critters" - a group of artists who sell their work on eBay and regularly donate a portion of the sales to various animal rescue & support organizations. It was an honor to be nominated for inclusion in the group and I'm very happy to be a part of this team of talented, supportive and charitable artists!

Donations to charity are closely watched by the eBay powers that be in order to prevent unscrupulous sellers from saying they'll donate to a charity for the purpose of attracting attention and then not following through with the donation. There are 2 ways to make donations from eBay sales - through their "Giving Works" program or by having a previous arrangement with a specific charity and posting a letter from that charity in the auction listing.

The Giving Works program is coordinated through MissionFish - there is an extensive list of organizations that have signed on with MissionFish to receive donations from eBay auctions. When a seller lists an item on eBay, they can choose to select a charity and then specify the percentage of the final sale to donate. When the item sells, the donation is automatically taken out and sent to the charity. Giving Works auctions will have this symbol next to the auction title.

I had already listed a few items through eBay's Giving Works program. Now, as a member of Art for Critters (A4C), I am able to select from an additional list of animal-related charities approved by A4C and I have access to the all-important letters from these organizations. I don't have many charitable items listed yet, but I plan to always have a few auctions that will benefit either a MissionFish or A4C charity.

Here are a couple of links:
•My A4C auctions
•All A4C auctions
•My Giving Works auctions

And please check back in September for news of the coordinated art auction effort to help a small family of mountain gorillas in the Congo. Recently, a number of members of the family were killed. Not surprisingly, the rangers have limited funding and staff to help protect the remaining gorillas and to find the killers. Over 20 artists will be donating portions of their art sales (from Sept 8 - 18) specifically to raise money to help this effort. There will probably be a lot of gorilla art, but other subjects as well. In the meantime, you can visit Wildlife Direct to find out more about the gorillas.

Photo courtesy of Wildlife Direct
This is Ndeze, one of the survivors of the attack on her family.

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