📚
Educate
Teach young children about animals, welfare, habitats and conservation through characters, videos, games, apps and activities.
🐾
Born in Australia.
Built to help animals
around the world.
Help My Mates is currently being developed as an animal welfare, conservation and education initiative.
Our mission
“To inspire the next generation to love, understand and protect animals, while making it simple for people to directly support trusted animal charities around the world.”
Learn about animals. Love animals. Help animals.
Animals around the world need our help — and most people genuinely want to give it. The problem isn’t generosity. It’s knowing where to start, which organisations to trust, and how to make your support count.
Help My Mates is being built to solve that. One donation. You choose your mates. You choose the split. We want to make helping animals as simple, transparent and engaging as possible.
🤝
Connect
Connect families and donors with vetted grassroots animal organisations around the world.
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Fund
Let people make one contribution and choose how their support is divided across animals, shelters and habitats.
Real connection. Real passion.
Meet the founder
Thomas Gosewinkel
Founder, Help My Mates
Help My Mates was founded by Thomas with a simple idea: make helping animals easier, more engaging and more transparent.
Thomas is personally funding the first A$500 and contributing his time to take Help My Mates from an idea into a real global animal community.
The long-term goal is ambitious: create A$10 million of positive impact for animals, habitats and the organisations protecting them over the next 10 years.
🇨🇭 The origin story
It Started With CHF 20
Help My Mates began with 20 Swiss francs. In Switzerland in 2022, founder Thomas shared an idea for making it easier for people to help animals.
There was no website. No organisation. No donation platform. Just an idea. A woman who heard the idea handed Thomas CHF 20 specifically to help the animals.
Thomas never recorded her name, but she became Donor #001. That CHF 20 proved something important: someone believed in the idea enough to give.
The idea was then put aside for four years. In September 2026, Thomas finally brought Help My Mates to life, committing A$500 of founder/startup funding and his first 100 hours of work to building the project.
⚠️ Important: The A$500 is NOT an animal donation. It is founder/startup funding used to build Help My Mates. The first animal donation remains the CHF 20 from Donor #001.
#1 · Donor #001
Switzerland, 2022 · CHF 20 · The first animal donation
“We may never know the name of Donor #001. But we’ll never forget where Help My Mates started.”
🇨🇭 → 🌏
From CHF 20 to A$10 million of impact
A$10 million is a long-term 10-year goal — not money already raised. We’re at the very beginning.
🎯 Goal: 100 Founding Mates
Become a Founding Mate
Thomas has put in the first A$500 and his time. Now we’re looking for the first 100 people who want to help build Help My Mates.
• Donate money
• Volunteer your time
• Contribute professional skills
• Make introductions
• Donate products or services
• Share your animal knowledge
• Spread the word
• Connect us with charities or businesses
“I was there at the beginning.”
Become a Founding MateWhat we stand for
🎯
Our goal
Build a model where operating costs are supported separately, allowing as much public support as possible to reach the animal organisations people choose.
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Full transparency
We’re committed to publishing clear, honest reporting on where support goes — once real verified data exists.
✅
Verified partners
Every organisation we work with will be personally vetted and agreed to participate before being listed.
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Australian-born, global
We start with Australian animals and grow to support animal organisations and habitats around the world.
How your donation works
You choose your split
Use our slider tool to decide what percentage of your donation goes to each of the causes you care about.
You donate securely
Your payment is processed securely via Stripe. We accept all major cards.
Support reaches the causes
We are building the distribution model to maximise how much support reaches trusted animal organisations.
We report honestly
Once real verified data exists, we will publish clear impact reports. Until then, we show zero rather than invented numbers.
Ready to help your mates?
Join us at the beginning. Every bit of support — money, time, skills or connections — helps build something real.
Become a Founding Mate