Dog Rescue Fundraising Video

The brief

Transform A Street Dog is a small US and Ukrainian charity that rescues street dogs in Kyiv.

They needed to raise $9,600 to get the next 12 dogs out of Ukraine to foster homes in Europe, with more still waiting in foster homes in Kyiv.

I offered to make them a short video for Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for free, one that could also be boosted as a paid ad.

My approach

• I opened on one dog, Ayumi, and her story, and then revealed that she's one of twelve, because people connect with one face far more easily than with a crowd.
• A frosty winter field slowly turns into a summer meadow as the other dogs appear, which tells the story of their journey to safety without showing anything upsetting.
• The ask steps down from $9,600 for all twelve dogs to $800 for one dog and $100 a month for foster care, and ends on "every donation helps, large or small", since most people can't give $800.

Keeping it boostable

Before writing anything I researched what gets charity ads rejected on Meta and YouTube, because a video that can't be boosted reaches far fewer people.

Mentioning the war can push an ad into Meta's political "social issues" category, which needs extra authorisation, and distressing story details count as shocking content, so I kept the wording gentle and factual.

Only the charity's real dogs are shown (AI only animates their real photos, and that's labelled on screen).

How I made it

It took about 9 hours in total:

• About 1 hour on the brief and talking with the charity
• About 2 hours brainstorming concepts and researching ad boosting pitfalls
• About 6 hours of Photoshop and AI video work

The process:

• I cut each dog out of the charity's own photos in Photoshop
• I created the winter and summer fields in Gemini and Midjourney
• I used Claude Code to line up every dog's eyes, gently upscale the weaker photos, colour match the dogs to the field and render the video with its text
• I chose the music, a gentle piano track, and timed it so the crescendo starts just as the other dogs are introduced, straight after the line "And she's not the only one"
• I used Adobe Firefly (with Kling 3.0 and Veo 3.1) and Runway, prompting with first and last images, to create the in-video animations: the dogs' heads morphing into one another, slight movements on the opening dog to make her look alive, and wind moving the flowers behind them