ColoradoGives.org

By Bryce Wilkinson, Senior Online Giving Specialist Summer. A time for running through sprinklers, riding bikes, vacations and the many other activities long days with sunshine afford. At our house, as I’m sure is also the case for many of you, we typically have friends and family stay with us at various points throughout the summer. Before our guests come, we always tidy up a bit, so everything is in order and looks good when they arrive. This same concept of getting your house ready for guests applies to your ColoradoGives.org profile. Each year you are required to complete the entire Profile Update Process . The Profile Update Process is a way to make sure you have reviewed the profile, updated information as necessary, checked for accuracy and uploaded current required documents. It is important to complete the entire Profile Update Process for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it is a requirement for your profile to remain on ColoradoGives.org, to participat...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation A few months back I came across an article called " Don’t Get Scrooged ," by Mitch Morrissey, Denver District Attorney of the Second Judicial District. Given the fraudulent nature of the age we live in, I’d like to share some of the DA office’s important safety tips. The first part of the article says that "donors should be wary about giving without doing a little research to ensure the charity is legitimate.” It continues by saying to "avoid any charity or fundraiser that..."  Won’t provide proof that a contribution is tax deductible Thanks you for a previous pledge that you can’t remember giving to in the past Uses high-pressure tactics Asks for donations in cash Offers to send a courier to collect the donation or asks for you to wire money Refuses to provide written information about itself Appeals to your heart strings, especially patriotism and current events.” What’s gr...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation Take a deep breath. Let it out. Colorado Gives Day is over and another year has come and gone. Not only is the New Year a great time for personal and professional goals, it’s also the prime time to do some “house cleaning” to your profile on ColoradoGives.org . Step 1. Clean up your profile. This step can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. Either way it is a wonderful opportunity to add new photos or videos, remove former board members, add new testimonials or talk about what’s new at your organization and your plans for 2015. Step 2. Add or remove administrative users. When was the last time you looked to see who has access to your organization’s profile? An important security step, this can also be a good time to reflect on who has access to your profile and who needs it. To review who currently has access to your nonprofit’s profile, look at the users listed on the Organization Overview tab ...

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation #GivingTuesday is a campaign to create a global day of service and charitable giving at the beginning of the holiday season. It’s a response to consumer-driven days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year #GivingTuesday takes place on December 2—one week before Colorado Gives Day . And although #GivingTuesday encourages acts of service, it does not accept or distribute donations. What a perfect time to plan your Colorado Gives Day donations or schedule them in advance! If you’re a nonprofit on ColoradoGives.org , here are some suggested social media posts to share on Dec. 2: Facebook #GivingTuesday, a movement to create a global day of service & giving, is Dec. 2. This is a perfect time to schedule your donations for #CoGivesDay on @ColoradoGives.org. So many great local nonprofits! Get ready for #COGivesDay by delving deep on #GivingTuesday. Learn about the programs, goals, and ne...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation Ah, Thanksgiving… a time for great food, family, friends and (for some people), football. It’s a time to relax and reflect on the many blessings we have in this country; so many blessings in fact that we follow it up with a weekend of spending money on items that we may or may not need. That isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with commercialism (who doesn’t love a great sale; I know I do) or Black Friday or Cyber Monday. But it is from this environment that a national day of giving, #GivingTuesday , was created by New York’s 92nd Street Y. For any of you feeling a bit guilty about spending copious amounts of money, #GivingTuesday (Dec. 2 this year) is the perfect day to schedule a donation for Colorado Gives Day, a local day of giving focused on our great state of Colorado taking place on December 9th. In that spirit (and just for fun) here are just a few of the many reasons I’m grateful to live here: ...

By Angela Bevacqua, Community First Foundation Our most popular Colorado Gives Day webinars are the ones where seasoned nonprofits share their experiences and success stories. Our latest webinar, Creative Marketing: How Three Nonprofits Met Their Goals on Colorado Gives Day , features organizations with very different missions but a common thread: creativity and thoughtful planning. If you missed it live, watch the 75 min. recording for inspiration and smart, practical advice. Here is a highlight of top tips courtesy of Autumn Bjugstad with The Greenway Foundation , Dan Hanley with Urban Peak , and Nancy Shane with Walking Mountains Science Center . 1. Stand out from the crowd Tell or show how your nonprofit is different. Personalize the Colorado Gives Day message.Do your social media groundwork 2. Build a social media following well in advance of Colorado Gives Day Make a social media plan and have fun with it.  3. Don’t be afraid to tap into your creative si...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation Every year I get my Dad the same thing for Father’s Day: stuff to grill with, a silly card, a DVD, a book…and even though he’s always grateful, this year I want to go above and beyond. Maybe it’s because I have a toddler now and empathize with the joy and frustration of being a parent. Maybe it’s because I think he’s awesome and want him to know that. Maybe there isn’t an enlightening reason, perhaps I just want to. Regardless of the reason, I’m excited that ColoradoGives.org has a couple of great options to use not only on Father’s Day but for any special occasion during the year (birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations): Giving eCards:  our eCards allow you to give the gift that keeps on giving. Giving eCards are electronic gift cards you can purchase on ColoradoGives.org and email to people. The recipient (Dad in this case) can redeem the eCard by donating to any nonprofit(s) featured on ColoradoGi...

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation The annual Colorado Gives Day Report shines a spotlight on data gathered from the website ColoradoGives.org about Colorado Gives Day. It also includes feedback from nonprofits who participated in this giving day. It’s ten pages chock full of maps and charts that illustrate donation results in each Colorado county, how various organizational types fared, what we learned about donors, and much more. We highly recommend using this data to influence your online fundraising plans. But if you don’t have time to read the full report for 2013, here are the top 5 takeaways that we found meaningful at Community First Foundation beyond the day’s record-breaking increase in dollars and donations: The majority of nonprofits acquired brand-new donors because of Colorado Gives Day.  We surveyed nonprofits who participated in the giving day and 92 percent of respondents reported a donation from at least one...

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist Now that I’ve got your attention, I’m referring to holding on to your donors. According to our survey, 92 percent of nonprofits reported at least one new donor from Colorado Gives Day *. So what are you doing to cultivate these brand-new supporters? To share with you some tips and inspiration, we recently put on a webinar called Nurturing Long Lasting Relationship With Your Donors After Colorado Gives Day . In it we talk about what can be unique about donors who first come to you on Colorado Gives Day. If they are people who didn’t already exist in your database, they probably didn’t hear about you directly from you. So how did they hear about you? Some possibilities include: From a friend’s ColoradoGives Fundraising Page By searching their favorite cause on ColoradoGives.org From a Colorado Gives Day article, news or radio interview Saw an ad with your logo on it Via social media ( Facebook , Twitter ) Keep on mind...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation December 10, 2013 marks the fourth annual Colorado Gives Day! As always, our goal is not only to help raise millions of dollars for fabulous Colorado nonprofits, but to help you engage with donors via social media (last year, Facebook was the #1 referring site to ColoradoGives.org). Here are a few tips to help your social media on Colorado Gives Day be a success: Begin by   liking  our ColoradoGives Facebook page and/or  following  us on Twitter – not only will you be privy to great inside information, but you’ll also be part of a larger conversation involving over 1,400 nonprofits throughout the state and thousands of donors. Be sure to check out our  Social Media Guidelines & Sample Copy for Colorado Gives Day 2013  for tips, tools and suggested copy to use before and on the big day. Tag ColoradoGives.org on your Facebook and Twitter pages by using the @ symbol in fron...

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation So many people come together to make Colorado Gives Day  happen each year. At Community First Foundation we are delighted to see more and more people and organizations become involved with this initiative to increase philanthropy throughout our state. Colorado Gives Day is a true community effort and the numbers show it is working.   Did you know that local businesses can align themselves with the event, too? We offer local businesses an opportunity to encourage the philanthropic spirit in Colorado and involve employees and customers in a cause that benefits the people they serve. Sponsorship Levels & Benefits A business can become a sponsor and reap the benefits starting at $1,000. Depending on the level of financial support, benefits range from a presence on the Colorado Gives Day website and other materials, recognition in the news, all the way up to a custom “badge” (...

By Bryce Wilkinson,  Senior Online Giving Specialist, Community First Foundation Bryce Wilkinson History Impermanence. Everything we encounter is subject to change. It’s one common aspect of conditioned existence and our site is no exception. When Community First Foundation launched an online giving tool in May 2007, we decided to call it GivingFirst.org. The site was initially focused on nonprofits in the seven county Denver metro area, and by December 2007 it had 173 nonprofits listed on it. As more nonprofits expressed an interest in joining, we started to expand our geographic eligibility requirements, and by the end of 2012 GivingFirst.org featured 1,258 nonprofits from across Colorado. Since the site had expanded well beyond its initial stages in many ways, we started to reflect on the site’s name and whether it still represented what the site had become and was continuing to evolve into; namely, a place for all Coloradans to learn about and support the local nonprofi...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation Did you know that you can maximize your success on Colorado Gives Day or any day with our ColoradoGives Fundraising Pages campaign tool? Fundraising Pages can be used by your supporters to raise money for your organization by creating their own fundraising page and sending it out to their network. Take, for example, Beka Wilson who recently shared her organization’s ( Conservation Colorado ) success on Colorado Gives Day in our most recent webinar,  Maximizing Success with Fundraising Pages . Of the many tips Beka shared, here are some of the highlights: Make it easy for your supporters to fundraise for your organization by creating templates for them to use (such as letters, emails and posts for social media) to promote their page. Ask a volunteer or intern to create Fundraising Pages for board or staff members who would like to support your organization but may not have the time to cre...

By Angela Bevacqua, Sr. Communications Specialist Colorado Gives Day is approaching. Don’t know where to start? Want to make a great impression? Need a helping hand? These are some of the reasons every nonprofit participating in Colorado Gives Day should check out the Nonprofit Toolkit . Linked through the Colorado Gives Day landing page, the Toolkit has great resources to get your nonprofit up and running for the big day on December 10. Anyone can access the page—such as staff, volunteers, board members, vendors—who is working on the event. Make sure they know about it! Here are highlights of tools you should know about. Learn the Basics Intro Videos Everyone working on this event should watch the short Colorado Gives Day Key Facts video and read the FAQs for Nonprofits. Share with staff and board so they have a solid overview of Colorado Gives Day. Coming soon are videos on Best Practices and Fundraising Pages. FAQs for No...

By Dana Rinderknecht, Director of Online Giving  What’s in a name? Is it reflective of what we do? Does the name GivingFirst.org really fit our program and all that this program has become to Colorado? These are questions we at Community First Foundation started thinking about over a year ago as we prepared to refresh and update our website. We have been slowly expanding our program across the state, but still have a reputation as a Denver-focused program. So, we stepped back and looked at how everything fit together and how it represented what we are doing. Friday, March 1st, it is with great excitement that we formally announce that we are changing the name of our amazing online giving program to ColoradoGives.org ! ColoradoGives.org truly reflects the local identity of the people served by and engaged with the website. Promoting the charitable opportunities in our state, ColoradoGives.org celebrates the people who have made a difference to the tune of more than $5...

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation Each year, after Colorado Gives Day, we compile a very comprehensive Report to measure results and learn about Colorado’s online giving patterns. In addition to basic results--like # of donations, donors and participating nonprofits--we measure year-to-year growth, results according to organization type, and more. Findings from our  Report can help you build your online giving strategy. Here are two that should mean something to every nonprofit involved with GivingFirst and Colorado Gives Day: Key Finding #1:   91% of nonprofits participating in Colorado Gives Day 2012 reported at least one new donor. (According to 84% of surveyed nonprofits.) This means that not only is Colorado Gives Day a way to draw in brand new supporters, but you also need to think about how to retain them. Draw them in: We know that many people come to GivingFirst.org to learn about nonprofits that align wit...

By Bryce Wilkinson, Senior Online Giving Specialist Another Colorado Gives Day is behind us! Thank you for all your hard work that made the day so successful. Now that Colorado Gives Day has passed and 2012 has come to a close, it’s time to start assessing the results. In addition to the data we collect and analyze, we also require feedback from you, the nonprofits, to help us answer questions that we cannot determine from our data and to provide us with a better understanding of the impact of GivingFirst  and Colorado Gives Da y. Online Survey This information is gathered from GivingFirst participants through an online survey emailed to each GivingFirst contact on Tuesday, January 8. We consider this survey to be your grant report to Community First Foundation about your use of GivingFirst, so please keep an eye out for it and make sure it is completed by the January 15 deadline . Video : How to Answer Survey Questions Since some of the questions on this survey require...

By Bryce Wilkinson, Project Coordinator, Community First Foundation Colorado Gives Day is exciting! People are eager to support the causes they’re passionate about; nonprofits are busy motivating their donors; the energy of being part of something big is palpable by everyone who participates. Once the event is over, the donations have been distributed to the nonprofits, and everyone has been thanked for their generosity, the excitement tends to wane.    Not for me, though. It’s at that point I get to work with the data. When I tell you that looking at Colorado Gives Day data is exciting, I know that some of you are probably thinking, with an eyebrow slightly raised, “Exciting. Really?” Yes, exciting and here’s why: the data embodies all that energy, and turning our attention to it not only allows us to relive the experience ourselves, but also enables us to share it with others. Just consider the donors. Over 27,000 people jazzed, sitting at their comput...

Chris and Paul Duncan are longtime residents of Arvada who donated to their favorite charities online this past December. Paul works in a forensic engineering business and Chris is a personal trainer. They have four children, and strong commitment to philanthropy. Here’s what they told us about their experience with Colorado Gives Day: How did you learn about Colorado Gives Day? We learned about it through the informative flyers from Work Options for Women. How do you typically make your donations? We make numerous year-end donations, with about half of them online and half via check. There are advantages to both, but donating online is certainly quick and efficient. It’s a simple process that saves us a lot of time making donations to multiple organizations. What organizations have you supported recently? We donated to a number of organizations on Colorado Gives Day. A few of these were: Work Options for Women because they assist women in helping themselves. They use the p...

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 conc...