NASCAR driver Alex Bowman and Best Friends Animal Society team up to help local shelters

Alex Bowman, driver of the Ally Financial-sponsored Number 48 Chevrolet Camaro and Best Friends Animal Society are teaming up to improve animal welfare across the U.S.

Ally will donate $33,000 to Best Friends-affiliated shelters—$1,000 to a shelter in each city that hosts a NASCAR Cup Series race. The donations start this month with the NASCAR event at Phoenix Raceway on March 14, when Bowman, a strong supporter of animal rescue, will drive a Best Friends-inspired paint scheme in honor of the hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats the nonprofit works to save. At a future date, Best Friends will auction off Bowman’s race-worn helmet, which also dons a special paint scheme, to benefit the organization.

“One of the lessons of 2020 for many—including Alex and me—is that our pets mean more to us than ever. This donation is a great way to leave a positive, lasting impact on local host communities by helping their shelters care for rescued animals and find them happy homes,” said Andrea Brimmer, chief marketing and public relations officer, Ally Financial. “We hope to raise awareness and support for the important, lifesaving work of Best Friends through our donations and the incredibly cool paint scheme that Alex will sport in Phoenix.”

Bowman, who has a rescue dog at home, will personally match each of Ally’s $1,000 donations to local shelters in NASCAR race markets. In addition, Ally will increase its Best Friends donation to $10,000 in any community where Bowman wins a race in 2021. These collective donations will provide a boost to dozens of no-kill shelters and will help fund vital efforts, such as spays and neuters, trap-neuter-return programs, shelter adoptions, educating the public about animal welfare, adoption events and more.

“Ally has taken a big interest in my passions and this relationship with Best Friends could not be a better fit,” said Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. “Knowing each week when we go into a new race market that we are helping a local shelter is going to be special. The dedication the Best Friends organization has made to ending kill shelters by 2025 is definitely admirable. Having a rescue pup myself, Roscoe, I know firsthand how special it feels when you sign those adoption papers and you know you are going to give that pet a great life. Running this special scheme on our No. 48 Chevrolet at my home track is going to be really cool. Hopefully we can park it in victory lane and make an even bigger donation to the shelter in the area.”

Halo Animal Rescue in Avondale, Arizona, will receive the donation for the NASCAR Cup Series event at Phoenix Raceway, which Bowman considers his home track. The driver grew up in Tucson, Arizona.

A leader in the no-kill movement, Best Friends works in collaboration with its nationwide network of members and partners to “Save Them All.” The nonprofit is actively working to ensure that every shelter in the country is no-kill by 2025, meaning all shelters receive the community support needed to save every dog and cat who can be saved.

“As we race toward the 2025 goal, we are so grateful to have allies like Ally and Alex Bowman supporting Best Friends Animal Society and our network partners,” said Marc Peralta, chief program officer at Best Friends. “These generous donations are going to make a big difference for homeless pets across the country and will also raise awareness of how people can help shelters in their own community. We welcome every pet lover to join our efforts.”

To donate and learn more about Best Friends, visit BestFriends.org/AlexBowman.

About Ally Financial Inc.

Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a leading digital financial-services company with $182.2 billion in assets as of December 31, 2020. As a customer-centric company with passionate customer service and innovative financial solutions, we are relentlessly focused on “Doing it Right” and being a trusted financial-services provider to our consumer, commercial, and corporate customers. We are one of the largest full-service automotive-finance operations in the country and offer a wide range of financial services and insurance products to automotive dealerships and consumers. Our award-winning online bank (Ally Bank, Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender) offers mortgage lending, personal lending, and a variety of deposit and other banking products, including savings, money-market, and checking accounts, certificates of deposit (CDs), and individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Additionally, we offer securities-brokerage and investment-advisory services through Ally Invest. Our robust corporate finance business offers capital for equity sponsors and middle-market companies.