The latest weapon in the war on cancer harnesses the power of a heretofore untapped resource: cat videos.
Cats vs. Cancer, a nonprofit organization and website launched in December by buddies Tom O’Connor and Eddie Peña, is counting on people’s seemingly insatiable interest in online feline frivolity.
By posting cute and silly kitty videos, the two aim to garner enough page views to attract advertisers, with ad revenues going to a different cancer-related charity each month — including January’s donation to Brent’s Place in Denver, which provides housing to immune-compromised pediatric cancer patients and their families.
Visitors can also make direct donations via a “Donate Meow!” button on the site. But simply watching the videos and spreading the word via social media is, O’Connor and Peña say, helping fight cancer.
In its first month, the site attracted about 130,000 visitors, O’Connor says. That’s an admittedly tiny number in the grand scheme of Internet hits: Some YouTube cat videos have millions of hits.
The site’s most-clicked-on video to date? That would be “lazy cat can’t reach arrogant pigeon.”
In choosing organizations to receive their donations, O’Connor says, “we’re looking at smaller charities that are doing good work and for which maybe our contribution will be a bit more meaningful” than for one of the major players. They also seek geographic variety.
For now, the site subsists on the thin gruel of revenue from small ads that a Google service generates and places on the Cats vs. Cancer page. The company gets a small amount when an ad is clicked on. O’Connor hopes that by next year, the site will have enough visitors that he can sell ads directly.
“Cats vs. Cancer turned out to be a fun and engaging fundraiser for us. Our families have been following the cats” for entertainment — and to help drive up the page-view numbers, said Bridget Fitzpatrick, the development director for Brent’s Place.
As for the likely size of the donation, Fitzpatrick says that while she anticipates it won’t be large, “it’s the individual, small donations like this that keep our organization running.”
