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Our new Rescue First program at Dogstuff.com has been in operation for just over a week, now, and it already has created more than $1,100 in contributions to dog and pet rescues around the country.

Dogstuff always has helped raise money for rescue, but Rescue First is a way of making assistance to rescue a full-time part of our business.

The principle is simple - every purchase from dogstuff.com creates a contribution for rescue. Participating rescues receive a commission ranging from three percent to seven percent of each purchase, depending upon how actively they’ve chosen to participate.

Customers can pick a rescue to support from among our listed groups or suggest a favorite rescue to add to the list. If they don’t choose a rescue, a commission from their purchase goes to our featured rescue, a different one every day.

There is no extra cost to the customer, and none to the rescue organizations - the contribution comes right off the top of our revenue for each sale.

Rescue. First. Simple, yes?

So from now on, if you buy anything from the Dogstuff website, we can happily say to you, “Thank you for being our customer and for supporting rescue.”

(Current rescues, listed by their state, regional or national activity, are here and a full alphabetical listing is here)

Update: The Challenge is complete and 11th Hour Rescue did very well!

Thanks for your help.

We got this from our friends at 11th Hour Rescue who asked us to pass it along to all who might be interested in helping them build a kennel to aid in their mission of saving dogs from high-kill shelters. It looks like a great way to leverage a small donation into a chance for a big one and we’re always glad to help any rescue participating in our Rescue First program.

You can help us turn $10 into $50,0000 and give shelter dogs a second chance at life!

11th Hour Rescue is once again participating in a challenge being offered by Six Degrees, partnered with the Case Foundation and Parade on America’s Giving Challenge. The four US charity badges that have the most unique donors through the America’s Giving Challenge will receive $50,000 for their cause.

A unique donation is defined as one single donation per individual. This means that duplicate donations from the same individual to a single charity badge will only count once.

We are entered in this contest for our rescue and need the help of each and every one of you. The Challenge ends on January 31, 2008 at 3:00 pm eastern time so please hurry!

We focus on saving wonderful, highly adoptable dogs from kill shelters and we are a 501c3 organization. So many more lives can be saved with this money! Proceeds will also go towards funding our new kennel !!!

Donations are tax deductible and all we need is a $10 donation made thru our “charity badge” to have a chance at $50,000!
It is NOT the organization with the most money in donations that wins BUT THE ORGANIZATION THAT HAS THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF DONORS….. We are asking for your help to win this grant

The top four charities with the most number of donations will receive the matching grant.Thank you in advance for any help you can give us and our rescued dogs.

The Labs got some too, and the Weims and the Goldens as well as dozens of other breed rescues and a number who rescue every sort of breed and pet.

Thanks to our 40,000 customers worldwide, dozens of dog and pet rescue organizations across the country shared more than $8,000 this Christmas season through the Rescue First program at Dogstuff.com . The guiding principle of Rescue First was that every purchase at the Dogstuff website created a donation for rescue. Customers were free to choose from any of the more than 100 rescues listed, and if they didn’t have a favorite, we chose one to feature each day and receive their donation.

These images are a very small sample of the rescues who already have benefited from Rescue First. To see if your favorite rescue is on our support list, check out our Rescue First Directory. From all of us at Dogstuff, thanks for being our customers and thanks for helping us help rescue.

…for the new Small Rescues Fund - part of the Rescue First program at Dogstuff.com

The idea for the Small Rescues Fund came about while we were looking at literally hundreds of rescue websites across the country to find groups to invite to join the Rescue First program. Rescue First donates money to rescue organizations every time someone makes a purchase at the dogstuff.com website.

Our research turned up a lot of rescue groups that are active, well-organized and very businesslike in their operations. That’s great for the dogs who need their help - they have a lot of resources to bring to bear on the problems of abandoned and stray pets. You’ll find a number of them listed in our directory of Rescue First participants.

There are quite a few others, though, (often in rural areas) that give their hearts and hands and commitment to rescue but have few resources to draw upon in trying to help the animals that need them. Often they are tiny groups, with a handful of overworked volunteers, no corporate sponsors and minimal ability to promote their cause on the Internet or raise funds.

So we created the Small Rescues Fund to see if we can help a little, by collecting a portion of Dogstuff’s revenue to create a fund that gives small grants to small rescues in the hope of helping them pay the next vet/food/supplies bill that comes due.

We’re not kidding ourselves that we will have a huge impact but we plan to help where we can and, in the process, let small rescues know that we are grateful for what they do.

So whenever you see us featuring Miss Rosie’s smiling face while you are shopping at Dogstuff, you’re helping small rescues, too, with every purchase - and we are as grateful for that as they will be.

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…how to sign up their favorite rescue group for the Rescue First program at Dogstuff. (And well they might - Rescue First has produced over $3,500 in donations to rescue groups in just under three weeks of operation)

The easiest way is to go here:

http://www.dogstuff.com/rescue-directory/

and then cruise the directory to find the appropriate state (or regional or national) that applies to your rescue. Then (and this is important), click the appropriate breed (or “other” if we don’t have a rescue in the list yet serving your breed) and you’ll go to a page that lists the rescues already in the directory for that breed. At the bottom of this page, find and click the “Suggest a Rescue” link. You’ll see a form into which you can add basic information about the rescue you think we should add to the Rescue First program.

Let’s say you wanted to add the Shaggy Dog rescue in Missouri. You’d first choose “Missouri” from the list of states, and then choose “Other” because we don’t have a Shaggy Dog rescue group in MO yet. You will see a page that looks like this:

After clicking on the “Suggest a Rescue” link at the bottom of the window, you will see a simple form to fill out and submit that looks like this:

Click “Suggest Rescue” and you’re done. We’ll take it from there and in a few days your favorite rescue should appear on our list.

A very small sample of the rescues that are part of Rescue First program at  Dogstuff.com

That works out to an average of $100 each for the 22 rescue organizations who have gotten commissions from customer purchases since we began Rescue First.

Some rescues have gotten significantly more than the average, just by asking their supporters to use the link on their rescue website before shopping at Dogstuff. Having a link to Dogstuff also increases the rate at which they earn commissions - from three percent of all purchases made in their name to five percent.

We’re trying to spread the donations around, but we figure that those who participate most actively help make it possible for Rescue First to provide donations to all participants, so we recognize the active rescues with a higher commission.

Even rescue groups on our list who do nothing get benefits though - they earn three percent commissions from purchases on days we feature them. At least as we begin Rescue First, it’s our idea that dogs in need should get help even if the rescue that supports them is having a little trouble getting its act together or is not handy with its website or the Internet.