The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive is one of the leading charities in the world to help dogs in need, but in New Zealand they have extremely limited budgets to raise awareness of what they do and to raise donations to help support rescue dogs.

Like most charities, the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive is seeing the impact of ‘slacktivism’: the trend toward people engaging with charities in the social space but no longer doing the things that have real world impact – research shows that people who engage with charities in social media are then less likely to make a donation.

Rather than try to change this behaviour, finding a way to harness it and use it to advantage led to the creation of a world first digital fundraising mechanic.

‘Sharity’ (Sharing for Charity) – an unique initiative that turned YouTube content into a fundraising mechanic - saw a phenomenal response for a campaign with a tiny budget. Just by watching and sharing the piece of video content created and uploaded to YouTube, users were helping raise money for dogs in need via the ads that YouTube serve around content – they split advertising revenues 55%-45% with the content creator. The more views you get, the more money the content earns.

With a media budget of $0, previous campaigns fundraising levels were smashed, millions of consumers were reached, a new template for digital fundraising created and a huge increase in people directly donating to the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive achieved.