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Meet a Millennial Philanthropist: Casey McGuigan

This month we sat down with Casey McGuigan, a corporate accountant for Advanced Depositions and Trial Technologies. Casey is a Philly girl through and through — she was born and grew up in northeast Philadelphia, went to Drexel for college, and now lives in South Philadelphia.

When she’s not working, Casey can most often be found volunteering for her favorite local organization, PAWS. PAWS is Philadelphia’s largest animal rescue partner with a mission of making Philadelphia a no-kill city where every healthy and treatable pet is guaranteed a home. They pull at-risk animals out of the city’s shelter and place them in loving adoptive and foster homes. Last year they rescued and adopted out over 3,000 animals while serving another 33,000 at their low cost clinics.

Casey started volunteering and giving to PAWS in 2014. “Working in finance can be boring at times so having something I’m passionate about to dedicate some of my free time to makes my life more fulfilling.” She also understands the benefits of giving back financially and encourages others to give back too. This year for her 30th birthday she asked everyone who was planning to give her a gift to make a donation to PAWS instead. “It made me so happy receiving cards and emails that week letting me know that people were donating in my name to help a mission that I’m so passionate about.”

Throughout her time at PAWS Casey has learned that no donation amount is too small. “I think a lot of the time people think that they can’t do enough so they do nothing at all. They forget that even small donations quickly add up. Something as small as $10 will vaccinate and animal waiting for adoption, $25 will pay for an animal to be spayed or neutered, and $50 will pay to house and shelter an animal for a full week.”

So what is Casey’s advice for getting involved? “Non-profits are able to run because they rely heavily on donations and volunteers. No amount of time or money that you are able to donate is too small. Knowing that you are helping to make Philadelphia a better city in any way will bring you more than you are actually giving. If everyone that does nothing because they don’t think it’s enough just did something to help or donated a small amount, this city would be a much better place in a lot of ways!”