Last year, North Texas Giving Day raised $66 million dollars through 103,000 donors, benefiting more than 3,300 local nonprofits during an 18-hour period. Today the online giving event will aim to top that.
The premise is simple: Thousands of nonprofits sign up to fundraise, and Communities Foundation of Texas provides a platform for donors all over the country to give to their favorite (or new) charities throughout the day. This year, the foundation is partnering with the technology platform Mightycause, which it says will help potential donors find charities that align with their interests and pet causes.
“Each year thousands of donors show up for our community nonprofits and this year, we want to help all donors—those who have participated before and those that may participate for the first time—identify their unique passions and make gifts that can help make our communities safe spaces to be well, be happy, and be whole,” said Monica Christopher, senior vice president and chief giving and community impact officer at CFT. “We want to continue to grow the spirit of giving by engaging and activating more donors as each individual gift, no matter the size, helps the collective.”
We’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention that Big D Reads, our citywide effort to read Jim Schutze’s book, The Accommodation, is also in the queue this year through the Big D Reads Fund at CFT. Supporting the fund helps Big D Reads do things like buying 30,000 paperback copies of a book to give away, for instance.
If you’re a new donor and aren’t sure where you want your money to go this year, going to northtexasgivingday.org will give you the ability to view nonprofits by specific interests. Maybe you’d like to contribute to a music education effort or an animal rescue. Or perhaps you’d like to contribute to an arts organization or support educational endeavors in area schools.
The new platform will allow you to search based on your interests and filter them further by operating budgets (maybe you’d rather your money go to a smaller organization), the counties served, who the organization primarily serves, who leads the organization, and even by organizations that have an equity statement. You can also further your donation by searching for organizations that have matching offers.
“It really does start online, and for some people, it’s almost like a shopping experience in the way that you can go and add different nonprofits to your cart and make your gifts all at one time,” Chris McSwain, director of community engagement for North Texas Giving Day, told People Newspapers.
Our sister publication also gave local nonprofits the opportunity to make elevator pitches for today, too. You can see them here.
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