News
Generous citizens put “amazing” in The Amazing Raise
GiveRichmond’s 36-Hour Online Giving Challenge Raises Over $631,000 for Local Charities
In just 36 hours, a total of 6,453 charitable gifts were received through The Amazing Raise - GiveRichmond.org’s first ever 36-hour online giving challenge. Beginning at 6 am on Wednesday, donations began to flood in to the website from people who were doing their part to help local nonprofits receive incentive grants from The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia. Within the first hour, $39,000 was raised. By the conclusion of the event at 6pm on Thursday, 270 organizations had received just over $630,000 - $488,000 in donations and $142,000 in grant prizes.
The Community Foundation, which administers GiveRichmond.org, offered a $100,000 incentive pool to help leverage personal donations. Prizes were awarded to the organizations that were the first to receive 50 gifts of $50 or more, as well as those that received the most gifts in a specific time period. An additional $50,000 allocation was activated when the event reached 5,000 total donations just after noon on Thursday. The 5,000th gift was a $25 donation from Martin McFadden to artspace, which in turn received a bonus grant of $2,500. Martin strategically completed donations on two screens to artspace and another nonprofit, Monument City Music, which later won a $2,500 grant prize as one of the top 20 organizations with the most gifts. “Both organizations will benefit equally from my gift. How’s that for a win-win?” he shared.
The event and the incentive prizes were designed to focus on participation. “Our goal for The Amazing Raise was to expand and increase philanthropy in the region,” said Darcy Oman, President & CEO of The Community Foundation. “We hoped for 5,000 total gifts and surpassed that with nearly 6 hours to go. It was absolutely thrilling to see so many people come together in support of our local nonprofits and their work to strengthen our community.”
The Amazing Raise generated buzz on social media sites, at the watercooler and in living rooms throughout the event. People also watched the progress of their favorite nonprofits on a live leaderboard at GiveRichmond.org. While some organizations were poised for friendly competition from the outset, others joined later after witnessing the excitement. Lawson Wijesooriya, Executive Director of the Blue Sky Fund, became energized in the 18th hour. “As I sat on my bed at 11 pm, I began to craft a plan to win the 50/50 End Challenge prize," said Lawson. "I figured a $50 donation is very doable and joining a campaign like this made it more attractive for friends to give. Many of our donations came from people that had never given to Blue Sky Fund before.” They won the prize.
More Information:
View The Amazing Raise 2011 leaderboard
View final results by organization
View charts - Donations by region, NTEE code and budget size