Skip to main content

Colorado Gives Day: Reflections from Nonprofits

By Angela Bevacqua, Communications Specialist

Two months later and we’re still learning from Colorado Gives Day 2010. As we pour through data and listen to the experiences of our nonprofit friends and donors, we gain new insights about fundraising and philanthropy in Colorado.

At a recent gathering of our Nonprofit Advisory Committee—a varied group of GivingFirst nonprofits that help us improve the program—we heard these reflections about The Day:

Dan Hanley, director of development for Boulder County AIDS Project, said that 45% of their donations on Dec. 8 were from new donors. The agency raised more than $20,000 from 178 donations after a whirlwind of events. Dan said there are limitless ways in which you can promote your agency for Colorado Gives Day. They began soliciting support in the late-night hours of Dec. 7 at a bar in Denver, then moved on to the Denver Diner in the a.m., then several coffee shops in Boulder, and ended with a standing-room-only concert at the Boulder Draft House.

“Colorado Gives Day changed who we are as an agency," Dan said. "We’re small—just a staff of 12—but our reach on that day made us seem like a much bigger organization. We were once again reminded how important the individual donor is to our mission.”

Dan Mondragon, development director at Work Options for Women, told us that they also put on a complementary event for Colorado Gives Day. The fundraising event took place at Cafe Options, the organization’s breakfast/lunch spot in downtown Denver, and helped them raise a total of $18,654 from 84 donations.

“Colorado Gives Day was a great reflection of our current individual donor program and a strong launch for growth in 2011; 31% of the day’s donors were new.” Dan said. “Colorado Gives Day blew the $1 million goal out of the water!”

Richard Rainaldi, a partner at CiviCore, had a unique perspective in that he was literally behind the scenes as the GivingFirst platform’s developer. CiviCore made sure the system ran smoothly on Colorado Gives Day and was moved by what he witnessed.

“Philanthropy was truly happening on that day,” Richard said. “I could tell that people were thinking really hard about how they divvied up their money on GivingFirst.org.”

Jeffco Action Center raised a whopping $192,813 from 307 donations on December 8. "Colorado Gives Day was our largest single day of donations in December in our history—and the whole month was up, not just that day,” Joe Haines, director of development, said. “The money we received came when the needs of poor, working poor and homeless in Jefferson County was at its highest in our 42 year history."

Thank you to the GivingFirst Nonprofit Advisory Committee!

Members include the following:

Amber DeBerry, The Wildlife Experience
Ashley Golder, Safehouse Denver
Bob Timm, Senior's Resource Center
Colleen Skates, Evergreen Scholarship - Bootstraps
Dan Hanley, Boulder County AIDS Project
Dan Mondragon, Work Options for Women
Heather Jackson, Aurora Mental Health Center
Jill Schneider, Caring Connection
Joe Haines, Jeffco Action Center
Mary Jo Baker, Sobriety House
Shannon Cardellina, Arapahoe House
Stacey Saggese, Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute
Stephanie Baer, Children's Outreach Project
Valerie Gildea, Third Way Center
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meeting Space Celebrity Sighting: Natalie Portman

Valerie Brown, Meeting Space Administrator I met Natalie Portman in the Community First Foundation Meeting Space yesterday. Natalie Portman (L) and Valerie Brown in the Foundation's free Meeting Space Okay, not the Natalie Portman of Star Wars , V for Vendetta and Black Swan . This Natalie Portman is a top-notch meeting facilitator who was working with a group advancing Mental Health First Aid in Jefferson County. Led by Jefferson Center for Mental Health, the group met in our largest meeting room to discuss training community members on how to identify persons who may benefit from mental health resources. Jefferson Center for Mental Health is one of the dizzying array of nonprofits to have come through our doors since we opened the Meeting Space a year ago! February 2016 saw one meeting lasting four hours with six people. February 2017 saw 37 meetings for a total of 250 hours with 799 people through the door! In fact, in the first year we have hosted 269 mee...
2 comments
Read more

Your SOS Certificate of Registration and Sour Milk

It happens; we have all done it: forgotten milk in the fridge that goes bad, expires. If you had milk that was expiring on 6.15.2014, would you continue to drink it on 8.20.2014? You could but it would probably be pretty gross; thus no longer serving its original purpose of being healthy and delicious. As a person who always found the concept of the “renew by” date on the Secretary of State (SOS) Certificate of Registration  for charities and fundraisers a little confusing, it helps me to compare it to this concept of milk expiring. Think of the “ renew by ” date on your Certificate of Registration as an expiration date . If you had milk that expired on 6.15.2014, you would make sure that you bought more milk with an expiration date later than that. Your organization’s SOS Certificate of Registration is pretty similar. If your “renew by” date expired on 6.15.2014, as long as you file an extension with the Secretary of State’s office before then and the “renew by” date on...
2 comments
Read more

$36.1 million raised on Colorado Gives Day!

Marla J. Williams, president and CEO, Community First Foundation Thank you, Colorado! I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on another year of extraordinary giving. As you know, earlier this week on Colorado Gives Day  people from across our state and around the country opened their hearts to give. Their generosity resulted in $36,129,285 million in donations to 2,309 Colorado nonprofit organizations. This record-breaking amount surpassed last year’s Colorado Gives Day total, which raised an impressive $33.8 million. Since its debut in 2010, Colorado Gives Day has raised more than $181 million for Colorado nonprofits. One thing is clear: generous donors and the nonprofits that inspire them are the heart of Colorado Gives Day. Although Community First Foundation provides the giving platform, participating nonprofits have taken ownership of this event and spread the word far and wide, which is the main Colorado Gives Day success story. Through your efforts every year...
Post a Comment
Read more