Lawrence Humane + Lawrence Beer Co. Cutest Crowler Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What makes the Cutest Crowler Contest different from other Kansas pet ballots

Most pet photo contests in Kansas are free-vote readers-choice ballots, and that is exactly where this one breaks the pattern. The Lawrence Humane + Lawrence Beer Co. Cutest Crowler Contest prices each vote at just $1, so every click is simultaneously a ballot and a small donation. The organizer is the Lawrence Humane Society, an animal shelter whose work the fundraiser supports, and the partner is Lawrence Beer Co., a brewery in the same college town of Lawrence, Kansas.

The third piece of the partnership is a talented local artist, credited on the ballot itself, who turns the winning pet into crowler artwork. That prize is unlike anything on the state's readers-choice ballots: a pet does not win a plaque or a magazine mention, it becomes the face of a beer can on brewery shelves during the summer of 2026.

The technical host is GoGo Photo Contest, a shelter-fundraising platform, at the address gogophotocontest.com/cutestcrowlercontest. Supporter actions on the page include View Entries and a leaderboard that encourages your community to vote for your pal so they do not fall behind, which tells you the contest runs on visible ranking rather than a single hidden tally.

Program facts at a glance

The dated record for the Cutest Crowler Contest

Two confirmed editions stand for this fundraiser, in 2023 and 2026. That spacing matters: the ballot is not a weekly series and not a one-off, it is a recurring Lawrence shelter event whose cycles the organizer schedules itself. Between the two anchor years, the 2025 cycle is also documented, with the ballot stating that the contest ends at midnight, 11:59:59 PM Central Time, on Wednesday, April 30, 2025.

For the current cycle, the ballot page itself carries the closing line: voting ends at midnight, 11:59:59 PM Central Time, on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. The same page looks ahead to the payoff, saying the winner appears on Lawrence Beer Co. crowlers during the summer of 2026, and it thanks entrants with the phrase this year's artist, confirming that a new artist is commissioned per cycle.

The ballot's published text leaves three things out: the exact opening day for a cycle, the nomination or entry window that precedes voting, and any round structure; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Because the two known close dates fall in different months, April 30 in 2025 and March 31 in 2026, there is also no fixed closing month you can assume for 2027. The one habit worth adopting is checking the ballot page in early spring, since both documented cycles were active around that part of the year.

How a supporter votes in the Cutest Crowler Contest

The mechanic is simple because the fundraiser is built for shelter supporters, not for platform veterans. A supporter opens the ballot on GoGo Photo Contest, scrolls the entry gallery, picks the pet they want to back, and votes. The price is printed in plain language on the page: each vote is just $1. There is no separate nomination round visible to voters during the voting phase, only the gallery and the leaderboard.

The leaderboard is the part that shapes behavior. The ballot explicitly encourages supporters to vote for your pal so they don't fall behind, which means rankings are visible and momentum matters. In a paid-vote contest this reads differently than in a free one: keeping a pet ahead is a fundraising act, because every catch-up vote sends another dollar to the Lawrence Humane Society. A late surge is legal and common, but it costs more dollars than a steady effort spread across the window.

Two practical notes round out the mechanic. First, the page carries a Participate link for people who want to enter a pet rather than vote for one, so entry is handled on the same platform as voting. Second, the ballot displays its Central Time deadline, matching the organizer's Kansas home, so deadlines are not ambiguous across time zones. Whether a supporter needs an account, and how payment is processed, are details the ballot leaves to its own vote flow.

Where this ballot sits among its Kansas neighbours

Set beside its siblings, this fundraiser occupies its own niche. The nearest pet ballot is the Cutest dog, cat in Wichita, KS, a Wichita-only free vote, and another shelter-run option is the Great Plains SPCA Best In Show Pet Photo Contest. Neither of those ties the prize to a commercial product the way a brewery crowler does here, and neither charges $1 per vote as this ballot does.

The other neighbours are readers-choice awards rather than pet contests: Best of Lawrence covers the same town across business categories, while Best of Johnson County, Best of KC (Kansas City Magazine) and Best of Wichita serve the wider eastern-Kansas and Kansas City market. A Lawrence pet owner could appear in both worlds, but the audiences and the vote mechanics do not overlap.

What makes this one distinct in the market is the triple partnership: a shelter, a brewery and an artist, all local to Lawrence. That keeps the supporter base tight and genuinely civic, since votes double as donations. When a supporter is choosing where to put their energy, this ballot rewards a small, loyal community of paying voters over raw reach, the opposite of what wins a broad readers-choice award.

Strengthening support in a $1-per-vote fundraiser

Because every vote here costs $1, the smartest push is honest and local. The organizer's own page frames the goal plainly: keep your pal from falling behind on the leaderboard. That rewards a supporter who shares the pet's entry link with a personal story, names the Lawrence Humane Society as the beneficiary, and reminds donors that their dollar is a real contribution, not a throwaway click. Small asks repeated across the voting window beat one expensive final-day blast, and they keep the fundraiser's spirit intact. The organizer prints no rule on outside voting help, so the safest line is transparency: ask openly, never disguise the push. For tactics that suit paid ballots like this one, see award vote support, and keep in mind that spending money on votes never guarantees a win in any fundraiser.