Community-wide giving campaigns are a growing trend in the nonprofit world. Place-specific giving days are happening around Montana this month. The Seeley Lake Community Foundation is now running our community-giving campaign, the Change Your Pace Challenge, for the month of May. Let’s take a deeper look into this popular form of philanthropy.
Giving Tuesday — the Tuesday after Thanksgiving — is the most well-known giving day in the US. It was formed in 2012 as a response to commercialization and consumerism in the post-Thanksgiving season — Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Since then, it has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate and celebrate generosity. Giving Tuesday brought in approximately $3.1 billion to nonprofits in 2023, and has raised $13 billion total since the campaign’s launch in 2012.
Here in Montana, local community foundations often sponsor community-wide giving campaigns — ie. Greater Helena Gives — this month. This is because a major role a community foundation can play is to help encourage and make it easy to support local nonprofits.
What is the point of a community-wide campaign for giving? Place-based giving campaigns typically strive to promote a community that is generous, engaged and committed to investing in its future. Rather than simply giving for giving’s sake, they can be an inspiration to build a world you want to live in. Giving days are often a way to bring energy to people’s favorite causes, harness the power of many individuals giving back all at once, and amplify the word about the great work local nonprofits are doing. And these types of campaigns are popular, both with nonprofits and donors. For example, Missoula just raised over $1 million dollars for over 200 nonprofits through Missoula Gives.
Why is this method of giving so effective? People can donate to nonprofits every day of the year, right? There are many factors at play, but a combination of community-wide advertising, a sense of urgency, competition and community spirit seems to be the key to why giving days have been — and continue to be — so successful. And, they can be a great way to grow the strength of your gift.
There are different ways to structure community-giving campaigns, which you can see across the state. Some are structured with prizes for organizations that hit certain milestones, while others distribute matching funds equally across all participants. Many campaigns are only — or primarily — available through online platforms, lasting anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. Some are tied to an event like a fun run or block party. Some campaigns charge fees to participating organizations and/or encourage nonprofits to secure their own matching funds. Some have Challenge Funds that kick in after an organization has raised at least a certain amount. Or the opposite — only a certain amount raised per nonprofit is eligible for matching funds. Whatever the structure, giving campaigns often reflect what works well for that particular local community. In larger communities with over 100 participating nonprofits, it’s common to have incentives like prizes for different levels and different categories, rather than matching dollars for every participant. Some campaigns put the onus on nonprofits to come up with their own matches and run their own fundraising efforts, while other giving campaigns handle most of the legwork.
The Seeley Lake Community Foundation just launched the ninth annual Change Your Pace Challenge, or CYP, our campaign for community-wide giving for the greater Seeley Lake area for the month of May. The structure of CYP is more geared to the small-town atmosphere of the valleys. It’s a month long and is based mostly around direct mail. You can donate online to all participating organizations through the SLCF website, but we typically see over 70% of donations come in via check, along with a filled out CYP donor brochure form (available at the SLCF office). SLCF helps raise money for the CYP Match Fund, which is distributed to all the participating groups. We calculate the Match Percentage after all the totals are in. The CYP Match Percentage is based on the first $5,000 donated per organization, to make sure our smallest groups benefit the most. In 2023, CYP raised over $95,000 for 16 local groups, including over $37,000 for the CYP Match Fund. This was our largest Match Fund ever, and it meant every eligible donation was matched 82 cents on the dollar — the strongest match percentage we’ve ever had.
This year, 20 organizations are participating in CYP from the Seeley, Swan and Blackfoot valleys. This is the most groups ever involved! Our aim is to make it as easy as possible for organizations to participate — we’re especially aware of trying not to place a heavy burden on our all-volunteer groups — and importantly, to make it easy for people to donate to their favorite causes. For CYP, there’s no fee for organizations to participate, and the SLCF covers all credit card fees, creates a brochure with information on all the participating groups and sends out a mailing.
The Change Your Pace Challenge has raised over $632,000 for local groups over the last eight years. While that might be a far cry from the millions of dollars raised in larger cities in Montana, it’s pretty darn good for our small valleys! Perhaps a more comparable place to look than what is going on in Missoula, Bozeman, or Whitefish is in Columbus, Montana. The Columbus Community Foundation’s “ColumbusMTGives” campaign, hosted the first week of May each year, has raised over $781,000 in the past nine years.
In short, this popular trend is occurring in droves around the state this month. Giving days and community-wide campaigns for giving are one of many ways to support the places you love, just like shopping at local businesses and giving back through volunteer service. Consider giving to support your favorite local causes in whatever way works best for you!
Reader Comments(0)