PAWS Atlanta Calendar Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the PAWS Atlanta Calendar Contest and who runs it?

PAWS Atlanta is an animal shelter at 5287 Covington Highway in Decatur, Georgia, and the Calendar Contest is the shelter's own pet photo ballot. It sits in the events area of pawsatlanta.org, the same domain that carries adoption listings, foster sign-ups, a pet food bank, community cat resources and donation pages. Nothing about the vote depends on an outside polling company: the nonprofit itself owns the page, takes the payments and writes its own rules.

Entrants put a pet photo forward and pay the entry fee, and the printed page notes that an entered animal does not need to be a PAWS alumnus, so adopters, donors and neighbors can all nominate a companion. Questions about the contest go to Brenna Lakeson, Communications and Campaign Manager, at [email protected].

The ballot also sits inside a crowded events program. The shelter's own menu lists Party for the PAWS, the Rescue Brew Contest, Empty the Shelters, a low-cost vaccine clinic and PAWS University workshops, so the Calendar Contest is a seasonal peak in a year-round fundraising calendar rather than a standalone project. Because the shelter keeps the ballot on its own domain, the photos, the payment step and the rules all live in a single place instead of being split between a platform login and a host site, which is the structural difference a supporter used to magazine and broadcaster polls notices immediately.

When has the PAWS Atlanta Calendar Contest run, and which dates are printed?

The fundraiser has run in 2023 and 2024, and the shelter frames it as an annual fixture of its events calendar. Those two years are the ones the ballot itself speaks to; nothing wider has been claimed about a longer history. The shelter's broader events habit supports that reading, since its calendar mixes recurring contests with occasion-style projects such as a 2024 Prom Night plan.

For 2023, the printed window ran from March 31, 2023 to April 28, 2023, and the page carried a separate notice reading VOTING ENDS FRIDAY, APRIL 28 AT 9:00PM EDT.

Two details of that block matter to anyone planning a campaign. The close landed on a Friday evening rather than at midnight, which compresses the final day into business and early-evening hours. And both endpoints fall late in the spring, which makes the contest a warm-season fixture rather than a holiday-season dash.

Away from that block, the scheduling stays deliberately light. No category roster travels with the printed dates, and no announcement names the year the next edition lands in.

Since the event page is rebuilt for each edition rather than kept as a standing schedule, anyone timing an entry or a voting push around the coming spring should confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a supporter vote in the PAWS Atlanta Calendar Contest?

This ballot is paid from every angle. The printed rate reads VOTE: $1 per vote, 5 vote minimum, so a transaction can never cover fewer than 5 votes, and that structure is what makes the contest a fundraiser as much as a competition.

To take part, a supporter opens the contest page in the events menu at pawsatlanta.org, looks over the pet entries, picks the animal to back and pays for votes at the stated rate. The page prints no registration step before payment, and it prints no ceiling on how many times the same person may come back through the window; the printed minimum is the only quantity the shelter fixes.

Entering follows the same pattern. The 2023 listing put the entry fee at $10 per entry, payable when the photo is submitted, and pairs it with the same paid-vote structure on the back end.

Because votes are bought rather than clicked for free, a supporting plan usually starts with deciding how large a purchase the budget supports, then recruiting friends whose own purchases stack on top during the window. Supporters who want a broader playbook for lifting a candidate in any public vote can read our guide to getting more votes online, then apply whatever fits this ballot's paid structure.

Where does this ballot sit among Georgia's other public votes?

Georgia's contest scene is dominated by publishers. Atlanta Magazine runs a Cutest Pets Contest for the city's animals, described at its own page, and a Picture Your Pet Photo Contest also circulates in the state, covered at this listing. Beyond pets, the AJC tracks a Falcons Girls Flag Football Coach of the Week ballot through the football season, Athens runs a Community's Choice Awards program, and Augusta Magazine stages Best of Augusta.

The PAWS Atlanta Calendar Contest stands apart from that crowd in two ways. Its host is a nonprofit rather than a media brand, so the money raised stays with the shelter instead of promoting a publication. And its votes are purchases by design, which changes what a supporting campaign costs compared with a click-free media poll.

Every other Georgia ballot in this group is publisher-run; PAWS Atlanta's is shelter-run.

For readers comparing options, the practical difference is simple: a media poll asks for reach, while this one asks for a donation per vote. The Athens and Augusta programs belong to the best-of vertical, where readers back local businesses, while the pet ballots, this one included, compete for the same animal-loving audience.

How can a supporter strengthen a pet's standing in this fundraiser?

The lever here is different from a free poll. Since every vote is bought at the printed rate, a pet's total reflects pledged dollars, so widening the pool of backers matters as much as any individual's spending. Sharing the contest page directly, rallying friends and family to vote inside the window, and timing a push ahead of the printed close are the moves that cost nothing extra.

The shape of this fundraiser also rewards early planning around the entry step. An entrant who submits a photo pays the fee once, then spends the rest of the window rallying backers rather than managing paperwork, which leaves more hours for sharing the shelter's ballot link. Groups that treat the calendar as a team effort, dividing who contacts whom and when, tend to use the paid structure more deliberately than someone working alone.

The printed material is silent on outside vote providers, so nothing published restricts or endorses them; entrants curious about that route can compare what such services generally offer in our overview of buying votes online or on the award votes page. Whatever the source of the votes, paying for volume cannot promise a winning slot; the tally printed by the shelter settles the calendar.