Question: I contributed money for a group gift, but later realised that it wasn’t an animal-friendly gift. Do I create negative karma because of this?
Answer: About pooling of money for the hamper, if it wasn’t intentional to neglect asking, it’s okay. It’s just unmindfulness. You just need to be more mindful before agreeing to pool money in future. It’s good to practise repentance to dissolve feelings of guilt and practise proper animal liberation to ‘make up’ for the mistake too, to share merits with any animals indirectly harmed.
In future, you can always readily suggest animal-friendly gifts! If it’s not possible for some reason, you can excuse yourself and get another present, but also explain that you try not to be linked to the suffering of any animals as part of your Buddhist practice of compassion. In many cases, people will respect you for that!