Finger Lakes SPCA Top Paws Calendar Photo Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Top Paws calendar contest is and who runs it

The Top Paws 2027 FLSPCA Photo Calendar Contest is a pet-photo fundraiser organized by Finger Lakes SPCA, Inc, an animal shelter in New York whose own website sits at fingerlakesspca.org. The shelter stages this ballot through GoGo Photo Contest, whose dedicated Finger Lakes SPCA page lives at gogophotocontest.com/fingerlakesspca, and announces it there with the line "Enter or Vote now!". Owners post photographs of their pets, supporters back those photographs with dollar donations, and the strongest-supported animals earn placement tied to the shelter's 2027 Top Paws calendar, which the same site lets visitors order through its calendar page.

A few traits distinguish the format from a typical community poll. Entering and voting run inside the same window rather than in separate nomination and election rounds. The ballot is anchored to a physical product, the 2027 calendar, so a supporter's dollars buy calendar-linked visibility for a specific pet instead of a costless click. Proceeds flow to the shelter itself, which the page states openly by calling the program a "Fundraiser for Finger Lakes SPCA".

Item	Detail
Organizer	Finger Lakes SPCA, Inc
Program	Top Paws 2027 FLSPCA Photo Calendar Contest
Ballot address	gogophotocontest.com/fingerlakesspca
Hosting platform	GoGo Photo Contest
Shelter website	fingerlakesspca.org
State	New York

Because the shelter's name carries the Finger Lakes region, the program's natural audience is regional rather than citywide. Read this ballot as a charity drive with a popularity scoreboard attached: the shelter controls the terms, the platform handles the mechanics, and the pets supply the pull that keeps donations arriving.

Entry and voting dates for the 2026 Top Paws ballot

Every stage of the 2026 cycle fits inside a compact autumn window. Photo entry opens Friday, September 18, 2026, at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, when owners may submit a pet's photograph together with a $10 donation, and the ballot keeps accepting new entries right through to the final day of the contest. Entry and voting shut together at the deadline the page stamps beneath the banner, "Voting Ends 10/4/2026 at 9:00 PM Eastern Time", which falls on Sunday, October 4, 2026.

This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Some particulars stay off the page. The ballot publishes no roster of photo categories or placement tiers; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Beyond the dollar-per-vote conversion, the site also spells out no ceiling on how much a supporter may direct at a single entry and no eligibility terms covering who may enter a pet. Entrants who need those specifics before committing money should raise them with the shelter directly, since Finger Lakes SPCA, Inc owns the program and its Contest Rules tab is the authority the platform points to. Both endpoints carry Eastern Time stamps on the page itself, so entrants outside that zone should convert the closing moment before planning a last-day submission.

How a supporter casts votes in the FLSPCA photo contest

Casting support here is a transaction rather than a free tap. From its home page the ballot offers two doors: Enter Contest, where an owner uploads a pet's photograph and completes the $10 entry donation, and View Entries/Vote, where a supporter browses the animals already posted. Inside the vote view the conversion is spelled out without ambiguity: "Each $1 donation counts as one (1) vote." A supporter selects an entry, chooses how many dollars to give, and every donated dollar lifts that pet relative to the rest of the field.

The structure rewards sustained giving more than repeated clicking. Because votes arrive only as donations, a pet's standing reflects real money gathered from real people, and the page describes no way to log a no-cost vote. Owners hesitant about timing should note that the entry door stays open through the final day, October 4, so a photograph posted mid-window still collects whatever donor attention the remaining days bring.

The ballot's menu also carries a Sign In link, a Calendar Order page and an About Us tab alongside those two doors, so a follower who checks the same animal across several visits can return through the same account instead of hunting the entry down again. None of those menus replaces the donation step, however a visitor reaches an entry, because the dollar conversion is what registers standing on the leaderboard.

Alongside the ballot the site maintains Contest Rules and Prizes tabs, which matter more here than on a free poll because money changes hands. Anyone planning to spend seriously on an entry, whether with personal dollars or with coordinated help from others, should treat those tabs as the governing text before committing anything.

How this pet ballot sits beside New York's best-of programs

Within this site's New York coverage the Top Paws ballot sits alongside a family of metro best-of programs: Best of Brooklyn, Best of Queens, Best of the Bronx, Best of Hudson Valley, Best of Westchester and Best of New York City. Those ballots rank businesses and local institutions across dense downstate markets, while the Finger Lakes SPCA contest narrows its lens to companion animals and channels every dollar toward a shelter's operations.

The contrast shapes strategy as much as audience. A best-of voter usually arrives already loyal to a restaurant or a shop and clicks out of habit; a Top Paws donor arrives attached to a particular pet, often one belonging to a friend or coworker, and gives to move that animal up the board. Winning therefore tracks fundraising reach rather than raw click volume, and the shelter's regional identity around the Finger Lakes hands each entry a built-in circle of likely donors. Where a best-of page spreads attention across many categories, this ballot concentrates it on individual animals, which makes a single well-funded pet unusually visible. Within the sibling list, this shelter calendar stands apart as the sole animal-welfare entry. Readers who want to compare mechanics across the state can follow the neighboring programs listed under related contests on this page, each with its own market and sponsor.

Ways to widen support for a Top Paws entry

Because standing on this ballot is bought with donations, a campaign for a Top Paws entry resembles a small fundraiser more than a click drive. The window that opens on September 18 and shuts on October 4 leaves no slack period, so sharing the ballot link should begin the moment an entry posts. Friends, relatives and fellow shelter supporters convert directly, since a dollar given is a vote banked for that pet. Late entrants still have a path: the entry door remains open until the final day, so a photograph uploaded mid-window can gather momentum from everyone who sees it afterward. Aim reminders at people with a reason to give more than once, since dollars landing near the close often matter most when standings are tightest. Whatever outreach you plan, the shelter's Contest Rules tab governs what counts, and broader promotion tactics are gathered in this guide to earning wider support.