The mathematics of high-end charity events usually favor the event. The PURR Sale was designed to be different.
When Vanessa Getty created the luxury fashion fundraiser in 2008, she built it around a principle she considered non-negotiable: everyone who showed up should be able to leave with something worth having. That meant pricing donated items not as collectibles or status symbols, but as genuine deals. A Hervé Léger dress retailing at $1,000 went for $275. A Jenni Kayne T-shirt that sold for $195 went for $50. Items were priced 30 to 70 percent below retail, and every dollar raised went directly to the cause.
The cause was the Peninsula Humane Society’s mobile spay-neuter program, which Getty had founded through San Francisco Bay Humane Friends three years earlier. The van needed funding to keep operating. Getty’s answer was to put fashion to work.
She reached out to her network—designers who had become genuine connections over years of engagement in San Francisco’s cultural world, celebrities with wardrobes full of pieces they no longer needed, brands that could donate inventory with real value. Nicole Kidman contributed. Donations came from Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Christian Dior, Michael Kors, and Oscar de la Renta, among many others.
The resulting event was, by any reasonable measure, a success that surprised even its organizer. The first PURR raised approximately $150,000 in about an hour. By the second, in 2015, the formula had been refined and the donor network expanded: more than 68 celebrities and designers contributed, the guest list included over 100 buyers, and the final total reached $350,000.
What separated PURR from the standard charity auction circuit was structural. Getty had no interest in creating another event where guests felt socially obligated to bid. She wanted a transaction where both sides genuinely won. The donor got to give meaningfully without friction—clearing out a closet for a cause they cared about. The buyer got access to luxury goods at prices that actually made sense. The organization got funding without overhead. Nothing wasted.
The proceeds funded the mobile clinic’s surgeries and operating costs. In neighborhoods the van served regularly, animal shelter surrender rates fell—a measurable reflection of what happens when you remove the financial barrier to sterilization. Fewer unwanted litters meant fewer animals cycling through already overwhelmed facilities.
The program those events funded has now performed more than 9,500 free surgeries across Bay Area communities. The fashion event and the veterinary van seem like an unlikely pair. For Getty, they represent the same logic: take what you have access to and make it work for something that actually matters.