The death of actress and animal advocate Betty White has provided a fundraising boon for animal-focused nonprofits and charities, as donations in her honor have flowed toward a wide swath of organizations. White, who is best known for her roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Golden Girls, died at 99 this past Dec. 31.
White’s primary animal-related association was with the Los Angeles Zoo and the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association (GLAZA), the zoo’s nonprofit partner. Over the course of more than five decades, White served on GLAZA’s Board of Trustees and the Board of Zoo Commissioners, including a stint as chair of the GLAZA board in 2010. Proceeds from her 2011 book, Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo, benefitted both GLAZA and the zoo itself. Through the end of January, GLAZA trustees will match donations made to its Betty White Tribute Fund.
White was also a significant booster of the nonprofit Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, which in 2014 named the entrance to its Heart of Africa region Betty White Way. After White’s death, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s Partners in Conservation made a grant of $40,000 to the Gorilla Doctors, a Baltimore, Md.-based organization that protects mountain gorillas in East Central Africa in her honor.
Separately, a viral social media effort honoring White is prompting donations to a number of animal-focused nonprofits and charities. The various campaigns, which are loosely aggregated under the Twitter hashtag #bettywhitechallenge, implores fans and animal lovers to make a $5 donation to animal rescues or shelters on or around what would have been White’s 100th birthday on Jan. 17.
As part of the challenge singer Trisha Yearwood hosted a virtual fundraising event through the live-streaming social selling network talkshop.live. Yearwood and talkshop.live have pledged to match the first $10,000 in donations, which will go to animal shelters across the country.
Even before White’s birthday, shelters and rescue operations throughout the country reported benefitting from those wishing to memorialize the actress. According to tracking mechanisms on Facebook, Best Friends Animal Society, Kanab, Utah, had raised nearly $26,000, and The Helping Hounds Dog Rescue of North Syracuse, N.Y., had raised more than $8,000 by the weekend leading up to Jan. 17. Second Chance Animal Services of East Brookline, Mass. and Licking County Humane Society of Health, Ohio had each received more than $6,000.
Washington D.C.-based American Humane, an animal welfare nonprofit that listed White on its board of directors and awarded her its National Humanitarian Medal in 2012, declined to say how much had been pledged in her honor, telling the Associated Press it was expecting more leading up to White’s birthday yesterday, including some substantial donations.
