The $10 Multiplier of Give Choose
– Amy Owen, Executive Director, Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Fauquier Counties
May 3rd was all about choosing and giving. GiveChoose.org showcased 60 local nonprofits doing good deeds in our backyard: animal welfare, arts and culture, community improvement, education, environment, health, human service, and youth development.
Hosted by the Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Fauquier Counties, this charitable “crowdfunding” event now in its third year is fast becoming a meaningful pipeline of fresh funding for our “heavy lifting” nonprofits, groups that rely on all-volunteer leadership, and new start ups. We build the portal, and these local charities use Give Choose to share their vision, explain their mission, and raise always-needed financial resources with gifts of $10 or more.
Here’s a series of rising-tide-lifts-all-boats statistics: Seventeen businesses created a Prize Pool offering hourly awards to charities throughout the event to incentivize giving. Twenty businesses joined this year’s debut Business Challenge encouraging their employees join in Give Choose. First-time donors made 500 gifts to their newly discovered charity of choice. Eighteen charities had donors willing to match gifts received during Give Choose.
And, here’s the big Thank-You Boom: More than 1,400 gifts were made to 60 nonprofits raising $180,200.
Will you mark your calendars for May 2, 2017? Give Choose will be back.
– Amy Owen, Executive Director, Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Fauquier Counties