ColoradoGives.org

Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist Give Where You Live. I love this catchy phrase because it distills a compelling message into just four short words. We use this message to get people thinking about their communities and what they love about them. At Community First Foundation we’re celebrating the 10th Anniversary of local giving through ColoradoGives.org . This online giving website has facilitated more than $200 million in donations in the last ten years. Nonprofits in every county of the state have benefitted from Coloradans heeding the call, “Give where you live.” Learning about the troubles around the world can be overwhelming. But I know I can do something in my own small world, in my own small way. For me that means teaching English as a Second Language and donating to arts and environmental organizations in my town. My favorite arts organizations are those that open a window to other cultures and perspectives through theater and film. As part of o...

Samantha Barlow, Communications Coordinator The staff at Community First Foundation  enjoyed this delicious lemon cake for our 10 th Anniversary of ColoradoGives kickoff party. Yes, it’s been 10 years since we launched the online giving site with just 60 nonprofits profiled. Thanks to impressive community engagement, the site now features more than 2,000 organizations. Ten years ago, people were just starting to dip their toes into online banking and financial transactions. Creating this site helped us strengthen organizations that didn’t have the resources to accept online donations. With no setup or monthly maintenance fees, ColoradoGives.org is very affordable. The only fee – two percent – is used to cover third-party vendor charges for credit card and electronic check processing. The 10 th Anniversary of ColoradoGives.org marks an incredible milestone. ColoradoGives.org has powered over $200 million in donations to more than 2,000 nonprofits since its in...

Kevin L. Mullin, MNM, CFRE, Executive Director of Estes Park Medical Center Foundation On Colorado Gives Day 2016, Estes Medical Center Foundation experienced a 250 percent increase in dollars raised over the previous year. With a new executive director from out of town and only one staff member, how did they do it? Executive Director Kevin Mullin shares the “secret sauce”… Like many organizations, the Estes Park Medical Center Foundation (EPMC Foundation) is always looking for ways to increase donations for Colorado Gives Day . In the robust nonprofit community in Colorado, there are many groups doing important work and often vying for the same philanthropic dollars. In order to succeed in 2016, we knew we needed to give donors a compelling case for support and to engage more prospects. The Estes Valley is comprised of people who are not unfamiliar with adversity. Fires, floods, impassible roads and other calamities seem to befall the area on a regular basis. ...

Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator My heart sank as I read the thank you letter. It was addressed to me, when I had hoped it would be addressed to my four-year-old who had specifically chosen an organization as  “her” nonprofit to give to on Colorado Gives Day . I had even left details in the special instructions section detailing my daughter’s involvement and her name. She would’ve been so excited to get mail addressed specifically to and thanking her! Talk about a great opportunity to begin a life-long relationship. Alas, that is not what happened. Which brings me to the point of this blog: do you know your donors’ data? The ColoradoGives program at Community First Foundation has declared 2017 “The Year of Thanking Donors.” You can take donor appreciation to the next level by intimately understanding every donation you receive. In the Donation Information section of your ColoradoGives profile, you can pull an Excel report 45 columns worth of  information. Here are th...

Samantha Barlow, Communications Coordinator When nine-year-old Jenna received a $20 Giving eCard to use on KidsforColoradoGives.org , she did something remarkable. Rather than donate this money straightaway, she took it to her school so her classmates could join her in experiencing the joy of giving. “We had a lot of fun,” said Jenna. “We learned about all the charities around here in Colorado. We had no idea there were so many!” Jenna received the Giving eCard from a Community First Foundation board member, Janet Heck Doyle. The Foundation recently launched KidsforColoradoGives.org , an online giving site for kids. “I thought a lot about who to give the eCard to since I don’t have young kids,” said Janet. “I knew Jenna from the Rotary Club and thought, ‘What better way to use this than to introduce her family to the site?’ Little did I know it would mean introducing a whole classroom to KidsforColoradoGives.org.” KidsforColoradoGives.org is a kid-friendly c...

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...

By Chic Naumer, CEO, CiviCore Our family tradition is to gather around the computer and participate in Colorado Gives Day — the online, 24 hour day of giving  —   together. This past year was different...in a great way. Our two daughters, Stella and Claire, donated through the new KidsforColoradoGives.org website, the kid-friendly sister site of ColoradoGives.org . We gave Stella and Claire a budget and emailed each of them a Giving eCard to use on the kid site. They loved the autonomy of spending “their own money” and excitedly began planning how many organizations they wanted to give to and how much money they would have for each. They dove into the process of researching causes and organizations. Stella, age 10, is interested in environmental and animal issues. Claire, age nine, is interested in helping people with disabilities and is a big supporter of the Anchor Center for Blind Children. They each spent an hour reading the profiles about different organiz...