ColoradoGives.org

By Dana Rinderknecht, Director of Online Giving, Community First Foundation I admit it. I loved School House Rock as a kid, especially the one where a bill becomes a law ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKyihoV9z8 ). This year, thanks to the work of the Colorado Nonprofit Association and in collaboration with Mile High United Way, Community First Foundation was a part of passing a bill into a law. HB1190 became a law on May 3 rd , when Governor Hickenlooper signed it. Dana Rinderknecht What is HB1190? Well, according to the legislative website: … allowing a taxpayer to make a donation to an intermediary nonprofit organization for the Enterprise Zone Contribution Tax Credit What this means is that donors can make donations via a nonprofit such as Mile High United Way or ColoradoGives.org to pre-approved Enterprise Zone organizations.  Donors then receive the additional tax credit available. The process to pass a bill was almost exactly like they talk about i...

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation Time to Update During open enrollment each year—from March to August—we remind nonprofits featured on ColoradoGives.org (formerly GivingFirst.org) that it’s time to update their profiles. We ask you to do this annually so donors know that the info shared on the site is current and reliable. And we have a handy dandy guide to help you know what to update, along with suggestions on when to do it. Required updates include noting changes to your management, financials, and programs. Content & Presentation: Both are Important Short, concise appeal. Content is the meat-and-potatoes of your ColoradoGives profile, but presentation is important, too. Many people come to ColoradoGives.org to “shop” for a nonprofit to support, especially on Colorado Gives Day. Your profile is like a digital brochure; you need to give it the same amount of attention you’d give a printed piece. Here are some tips for b...

We are happy to introduce our new Online Giving Coordinator, Lisa Lujan. Lisa joins us after working in development at Firefly Autism, an organization featured on ColoradoGives.org. She brings a perspective from the other side of the fence as a nonprofit—helping us understand the needs of nonprofits even better.   —     Community First Foundation and the ColoradoGives Team Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator Updating a profile can seem like a daunting task, but here are just a few tips to help make the process easier in order for you to create a stellar ColoradoGives.org profile in a reasonable amount of time. Use the Profile Update Schedule ( http://goo.gl/kV2S6 ) – A high level overview of ColoradoGives.org profiles, this document gives a summary of the most important aspects of your profile to update as well as a suggested timeline of when to update each section. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Rather than try to do the entire pr...

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...

Marla J. Williams By Marla J. Williams, president and CEO, Community First Foundation and Stephanie Tuthill, board chair, Community First Foundation Coloradans, you are amazing! Congratulations and thank you for setting a new Colorado Gives Day record. In an inspiring demonstration of support for more than 1,200 Colorado nonprofits, you came forward from across the state to contribute $15 million on Colorado Gives Day 2012. This is an increase of 20 percent over last year. And this means that over the course of the last three Colorado Gives Days you have teamed together to donate more than $35 million.  Stephanie Tuthill We hope you feel good about the impact you are making—Individuals like you gave from $10 to $200,000 and each one of those dollars is truly valued by the nonprofits that do important work every day across our state. Work that brings food, shelter and medical services to those who would otherwise go without; work that protects our environment, improves...