Marketing Monday: Barkwheats Fundraising
Every Monday, Breaking Even profiles a business, individual, non-profit or website doing something cool online. To nominate, contact Nicole.
Barkwheats is a dog biscuit company I’ve profiled before. Their latest initiative is really cool and it makes small businesses act a bit like non-profits. Barkwheats is fundraising using a website called Kickstarter for a new piece of equipment they need for their business. Here’s an interview I did with Chris about how and why Barkwheats set this up:
What made you decide to do such an ambitious fundraising campaign now?
We wanted to engage people outside of our business to be a part of something much bigger than what they alone could do. We also need to raise the money for this piece of equipment in order to grow our business and offer Barkwheats to more pet guardians around the country, and support more growers who produce a great product for us. I know both of you have non-profit experience in addition to this business you run.
Do you find people have a hard time ‘donating’ to a business versus a non-profit? I know both you and Renee are actively involved in several area non-profits.
Kickstarter is cool in the way that it’s not so much just “donating” but it’s more transactional in nature. You are kind of “buying” a product. For example, spend $25 and get some cute Folk Dog magnets that would cost the same as if you were to purchase them at a store. Spend $7500 and your dog gets to be the cover dog on our next flavor of treats! A very neat way to not only support what we’re doing, but make your dog famous.