February 2014 Playa del Carmen, Mexico

GVI Playa in action to support Cocos Cat Rescue Annual Fundraising Event
Summary GVI was involved in collecting sponsors for its partners in the Vet programme for their 5th annual fundraising event. The team in Playa was in charge of contacting local businesses in the city and generating awareness and interest in donating a prize for an auction. All proceeds went to Cocos to help them continue spay and neuter among many other life-saving procedures as they run purely on donations. The GVI team helped secure over 100 sponsors, raising $3798US purely on online auctions, helped selling over 200 tickets to the event and had 70 more donations up for auction on the event night. A month before the event, GVI took charge of the initial contact, follow up and collecting of the prizes.

Report This month we have been working tirelessly to aid our partners Cocos Cat Rescue in preparing for their 5th anniversary fundraising event. Cocos, which runs entirely on donations, provides valuable services to the cats and dogs within the community here in Playa. Their annual fundraising event is a large source of revenue for the team in Las Flores, without which they would struggle to remain in operation. It equally presents them with the rare opportunity to raise awareness on their activities and potentially increase support. Cocos is run by a small and dedicated team whom we assist in the essential service they provide in Playa. However this team has neither the time nor resources to execute a large awareness campaign and gain sponsorship from the th Figure 1 Cocos 5 Annual Fundr aising community. This is where we, representing GVI and our event poster. Courtesy of Cocos Cat implementing partners, took up the mantle of fundraisers and Rescue official procurers of sponsors for the event. With clipboards in hand and our red GVI shirts gleaming in the sun, we took the streets of Playa to tell the world (well, the people of Playa) about Cocos and why we needed their help. We began this task about a month before the event and t was implemented in several phases. Initial Contact We went out into Playa with information sheets (both English and Spanish versions), sign-up sheets and gift certificates. We began our search on Playas main tourist and shopping district : 5th Avenue. We focused here for several reasons: not only does a large percentage of Playas trade take place GVI.2014.2

here; it is also where the prizes of higher value were likely to be found. For the interns and volunteers participating, it was particularly helpful as they had not yet reached the adequate level of Spanish to explain the cause sufficiently. 5th Avenue is tourism based, so we found a large number of English speakers to communicate our cause too enthusiastically. This also gave our sole Spanish speaker in this team an easier job. We were assisted for some of our time by a sympathetic native businessman. He thought our cause was so worthwhile that he spent several afternoons assisting us with our campaign; his support was immensely valuable when dealing with Spanish only speakers. Follow Up We had to take several trips to every shop in order to discuss our cause with the correct people or wait several days for a response. At times this was frustrating, but we persevered. Collection and Promotion We returned to the venues to deliver promotional leaflets and posters to promote the 5 th anniversary fundraising event, raise awareness and promote responsible ownership and collect prizes and certificates. WE SECURED OVER 100 SPONSORS!!! As the figure 1 indicates we managed to gain a large number of exciting and valuable items for both the online and the live auctions which would take place at the event itself. These included donations of art work, jewellery, dinners for two at local restaurants, tickets for tours such as The Jungle Maya tour (worth $2,250 pesos), entrances to the legendary Coco Bongo, diving equipment and instruction, tattoo vouchers, gym membership, yoga lessons and many, many more. These extremely generous prizes reflect not only the Figure 2 Art work donated for the auction hard work of the fundraising team (who probably walked a marathon distance up and down 5th during this period) and the dedication of the Cocos team, but also the level of enthusiasm for this kind of work within the community. Our fundraising took many hours, sometimes because the shop owners were eager to share with us their tales and photos of their beloved pets. It was also gratified to hear how many people had heard of Cocos and the work they d o in Playa. We received thanks and on occasions hugs thanking us, Cocos in particular, for our contribution to the community. The fundraising not only served to gain donations and prizes for the event but also enabled us to raise awareness of Cocos mission, GVIs commitment to community development in Playa and advocate responsible care of animals. As repres entatives of GVI on behalf of Cocos we were active and highly visible within the community and fulfilling GVIs community outreach objectives . All our work culminated in the online auction, which took place the week preceding the event and raised $3798 USD, and the actual fundraising event, tickets were $200 pesos in advance or $250 on

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the night which took place on Sunday 9th March. At this event the remaining items were displayed for auction. Cocos t-shirts were also on sale. And of course we were there in force supporting our partners Cocos and enjoying their contributions coming to fruition.

Figure 3 GVI team at the event

Several of the GVI team bid on items and were successful; others were out-bided by the more generous supporters of Cocos who donated significant amounts in support of the cause. Cocos were extremely grateful for our assistance in this venture as they lack the resources and manpower to achieve this level of sponsorship. We do not yet know the final amount raised but we hope that the generosity of the public and businesses of Playa will be reflected in a large total which reflects the work, dedication and worthiness of this cause. We hope that the fundraising, sponsorship and event will enable Cocos to continue and expand (they have some advocacy campaigns and mobile clinic ventures in the pipeline) here in Playa and Figure 4 Participants starting a bidding war with some of the most beautiful art the wider Quinta Roo region.
work donated to Cocos.

To find out more about the Vet Project in Mexico visit: http://www.gvi.co.uk/programs/veterinaryproject-mexico

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