What gives?

*This is the shocking story of the sabotage of our ability to raise funds in a recent fundraiser.   Donations of any amount are greatly appreciated.  
https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/1373941

This just in:   “The NH Gives online giving event created by the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits raised more than $3.3 million from 5 p.m. June 6 to 5 p.m. June 7 for a record-breaking 610 participating New Hampshire nonprofits.”  Monadnock Ledger Transcript. 6/10/23

What a fabulous event and opportunity that was for 610 registered non-profits! What’s impressive is the amount of donations keeps increasing every year.  We love NH and for many reasons, but the results of the NH Gives annual fundraiser clearly shows there are many community and environmentally minded people here. 

Did you know that the majority of the USA’s Newfoundland Pony population resides across this wonderful state?  It’s true. And recently Massachusetts joined the effort, with currently 10 Newfoundland Ponies at a farm there, very close to NH.  

We were one of the organizations invited to participate in the NH Gives fundraiser. All donations from that were earmarked for veterinary care, transportation, and other needs of Newfoundland Ponies directly. 
On June 6th at 5 pm the fundraiser kicked off.  We had a Facebook post scheduled for that exact moment. That post was an official post from the NH Gives donation platform itself, allowing people to go directly to our NH Gives donation page. 

And, to get the ad out there in the newsfeed where 609 other organizations were, we boosted our post. Essentially an ad, that is a common way that groups  promote their mission.  
The next morning it was surprising to see that our post had gotten very little notice. With a following of over 4000 people that was odd, especially for a boosted post 

Digging into this a bit, what it came down to was the boosted post had been rejected by Facebook.  Huh? That had never happened before in all the years we have been involved with this breed. And this was an official post!

Over most of the day we kept trying to get it boosted. We asked Facebook for reviews repeatedly and every time we got the same response - rejected.  

Come to find out, someone had flagged our NH Gives post as being a scam. The supposed offense was this:   “Ads must not promote products, services, schemes or offers using deceptive or misleading practices, including those meant to mislead or scam people out of money or personal information.” 

What???

We got nowhere trying to rectify this with FB other than a warning that they could shut down our account.  And the clock kept counting down. 

Around 2pm, just 3 hours before the event was to end, I edited a NH Gives template post announcing the fundraiser that we posted a few days earlier, and boosted it.  Doing that got us in the newsfeed a bit but it was already too late. We had missed an important opportunity for fundraising, plus challenges, matches, and awards that were available via NH Gives.  

Our day’s end total was less than we expected, $800. Curious about how others did, we took a look at what similar small organizations got for donations this year, groups that we seem to get near the same amount each year. Those organizations got between $3000 to nearly $5000, which is amazing! We got but a fraction. 

The next day I requested yet another review.  This time Facebook confirmed we had been flagged and that our boosted post violated none of their terms.  Every boost we had attempted was now approved, 18 hours after the fundraiser ended. Essentially there was really nothing Facebook could do but say they were sorry and that they would strive to do better looking into these reports the next time. 
There we are then. 

We had been targeted by someone. Our efforts had been sabotaged by a small-minded person with a bit of online terrorism. 
Basically, an attack was made against our all volunteer animal sanctuary, a legitimate 501c3 for a critically endangered breed, to prevent us from getting donations. 

Wow, really?  Someone would really do this? Can’t even wrap my mind around that. For everyone’s information, we don’t sell Newfoundland Ponies, ever.  Ponies/foals go on mentored leases, breeding, or otherwise.  We make no money that way. This fundraiser was pretty important. 

You just have to ask yourself “What purpose did that serve?” 
We lost potentially thousands of dollars, dollars earmarked for the ponies themselves. They didn’t hurt us, they hurt the ponies, for goodness sakes!

It doesn’t really matter who did it but what does matter is that this person clearly has issues. This person puts themselves over the needs of an animal who needs help. If this is another person involved with the pony, their heart isn’t true.  To them, it’s not really about the pony, it’s about themselves. THAT was the purpose served, for that person. 

Folks, hasn’t the Newfoundland pony been through enough at the hands of people??

No one ever said this would be an easy mission. Over the years we have made lemonade out of lemons, numerous times, and we are doing that once again by having a fundraiser of our own to compensate for what we lost.    
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To the person who did this - No, you didn’t win. That’s because the only thing we compete with is Extinction. 

*In light of what happened, hindering our ability to raise funds during the recent NH Gives Fundraiser, donations of any amount would be greatly appreciated.  
​Thank you!
https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/1373941