1st Annual Calendar Photo Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the 1st Annual Calendar Photo Contest is and who runs it

Anyone whose pet has ever been mistaken for a cover model knows the problem this ballot solves. Brooklyn Paws Foundation runs the 1st Annual Calendar Photo Contest as a fundraiser in which supporters make their pets into calendar stars by collecting votes, and the foundation frames the pitch in its own words on the ballot: "MAKE YOUR PET A STAR!!" The program is a public-vote fundraiser, not a business ranking, and every vote doubles as a donation to the foundation's animal work in Brooklyn, New York.

GoGo Photo Contest carries the ballot at gogophotocontest.com/brooklynpawsfoundation. The foundation lists its postal address as 67 Brighton 1st Lane, Brooklyn, NY 11235, which anchors the program in the New York market.

Facts at a glance

Because the program is a fundraiser rather than a readers' choice ranking, the nearest programs on this site are borough best-of ballots such as Best of Brooklyn, which share the public-vote mechanic but not the charitable purpose.

The dated history of the Brooklyn Paws Foundation calendar fundraiser

The confirmed history for this program is short and specific. The 2023 edition ran its voting window from July 1 through August 31, 2023, and the ballot page carries the closing detail that voting ends at midnight Eastern Time, 11:59:59 PM, on the final day. A further edition is listed for 2024, so the program qualifies as annual rather than a single event. The organizer's own site described the fundraiser as starting on July 1st, tying the summer window to the calendar product it produces.

The ballot page currently displays a banner stating that the contest has ended, so a visitor landing there today is seeing a closed cycle rather than a live one. That matters for planning: a pet owner who wants to enter the next fundraiser cannot register today and must wait for the foundation to open a new cycle.

Several facts sit outside that history. The foundation has not printed the calendar's category list, any per-supporter limit, or the year the next fundraiser opens; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. No eligibility rules appear on the ballot page either, so who may enter a pet and on what terms is likewise unstated. The honest reading is that the 2023 and 2024 editions are documented, and everything about the following cycle waits on the organizer.

How a supporter votes in the calendar photo fundraiser

The mechanic on this ballot is donation voting. A supporter visits the pet's entry page on GoGo Photo Contest and casts votes by paying $1.00 per vote, with the payment serving as a donation to Brooklyn Paws Foundation. The page's instruction to supporters is unusually direct for a fundraiser: buy as many votes as you can, and vote as often as you can. There is no stated daily limit and no stated cap on total votes from a single supporter, which distinguishes this ballot from readers'-choice programs that restrict repeat voting.

For a pet owner, the sequence starts with signing up on the platform and registering the pet's photo during the entry period. The foundation then asks the owner to invite friends and family to donate in support of the entry, which is how the vote total grows. Because each vote costs money rather than a click, a supporter's commitment is financial as well as social, and the totals on the leaderboard reflect donated dollars as much as popularity.

The practical consequence for anyone supporting a pet is that timing matters less than reach. Votes can be bought in any quantity during the window, so a late surge is possible in a way it is not on a one-vote-per-day ballot. The closing time, midnight Eastern Time on the final day of the window, is the hard boundary published on the page.

How this ballot sits beside its New York neighbours

Brooklyn Paws Foundation's calendar fundraiser is the only charity pet photo ballot in this set, and its neighbours are all best-of rankings for New York markets. The sibling programs are Best of Brooklyn, Best of Queens, Best of the Bronx, The City's Best, Best of New York City, Best of Hudson Valley and Best of Westchester. Each of those asks readers to rank local businesses, while this ballot asks donors to lift a single pet's photo.

The difference shapes strategy. In a best-of ballot a business competes against a whole category of rivals and needs broad local reach; here the competition is pet against pet, and the supporter base is the owner's own network of friends and family. The donation mechanic also means the organizer has no reason to police vote volume, since every additional vote is additional revenue for the foundation.

What the programs share is the platform habit of publishing the essentials on the ballot itself: the window, the closing time and the entry status. A reader moving between this page and the borough rankings should notice that the calendar contest's rules are thinner on the page than a ranked ballot's, because a fundraiser needs fewer categories and fewer eligibility constraints than a citywide award.

Strengthening support for your pet's entry

Because votes are $1.00 donations, the strongest campaigns on this ballot are the ones that turn sharing into giving. The organizer's own suggested play is the model: sign up, then invite friends and family to donate in support of your pet. A personal message with the pet's photo and entry link outperforms a bare link, and since there is no stated cap on votes per supporter, a willing relative can carry several votes in a sitting rather than returning daily.

Timing still matters at the edges. The page publishes a hard close at midnight Eastern Time on the final day, so reminders sent in the last hours of the window catch supporters before the leaderboard freezes. What the foundation says about outside help is not reproduced on the ballot page, so anyone considering paid promotion beyond the ballot's own donation votes should read the rules tab when the next cycle opens, and the general tactics in our votes guide apply to any donation-vote format.