By most accounts, the fifth annual Colorado Gives Day on Dec. 9 was a resounding success, raising $26.2 million for Colorado nonprofits. Says Linda Tyler, executive director of the Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center: “This was only our second year participating in Colorado Gives Day, but we exceeded our goal. We timed our email blasts and social media efforts better, and we couldn’t be more grateful for our generous community that cares about wildlife.”
That said, Boulder County nonprofits engage with Colorado Gives Day to varying degrees – and with varying results. Anecdotal evidence suggests mixed opinions about how Colorado Gives Day fits into the mix of nonprofits’ overall fundraising efforts:
Charlotte LaSasso, Executive Director, Boulder County Arts Alliance
“For us, Colorado Gives Day was pretty good this year, about what we expected it to be. We send out emails, but we don’t come up with matching opportunities or such. It’s a matter of capacity, or lack thereof.
“We’re not real aggressive about Colorado Gives Day. We put ourselves out there mainly by cultivating relationships. We know there are people in the community watching us, interested in what we’re doing. It’s thrilling that we received an anonymous donation through The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County.
“We also send out letters – people seem to like that. Not everyone is online all the time, and not all donors like to make contributions online.
“One of the things we do is provide fiscal sponsorship to artists and small organizations that don’t have 501(c)(3) status so that they can solicit donations, among other things. In general, our fiscal sponsees have been doing quite well this year. We have 20 unique sponsees, which is up from prior years, and more of them are becoming active with Colorado Gives Day.
“We all know that Colorado doesn’t have a great giving record, and Colorado Gives Day is a way to encourage Coloradoans to be more generous. Colorado Gives Day creates buzz and provides structure. But it’s also a lot of work for nonprofits and, so far, we haven’t received any new donors that way. We do, however, get new donors through The Community Foundation.
“Bottom line, we’re just easing into Colorado Gives Day and weighing the implications, the net gain…bookkeeping-wise, like covering donors’ credit card fees, and otherwise. I’m not sure it makes sense for us to put all our fundraising eggs in the Colorado Gives Day basket, and it’s not really the right approach for large donors. But it’s certainly an aspect of our online presence.”
Julia Stephens, Communications Director, Boulder County CareConnect
“In the last year, we’ve been more aggressive in building out our overall communications. And while we’re seeing more donors, they’re giving smaller amounts – so we’re bringing in about the same amount of donations.
“What we’re seeing through Colorado Gives Day is expanded awareness about our organization, and our mission to provide safety-net services to elders and adults with disabilities. But we don’t put too much into it beyond an e-blast and social media.
“This is also the same time of year that we reach out to our inner circle with our Winter appeal. We’re way up from last year with twice the number of donors, and we’re seeing more people from Colorado Gives Day.
“What individual giving does for us is offset some of the grants we didn’t get this year. And while we’re holding steady in terms of our budget overall, we’re hoping to grow next year after some staff turnaround this year – and in anticipation of what we refer to as the Senior Tsunami. We have a new executive director, we’ve elevated the role of communications in my position as director, and we’ll soon have a new development staff member.
“We’re a more experienced staff, now, with a record of success – and we’re poised to better meet the growing needs of elders in our community. People can give through the Colorado Gives Day website or on our website, confident that – thanks to hundreds of volunteers – 86% of funds go directly toward our mission.
“We’re like the little engine that could. We’re a lot bigger than our small staff!”
Steve Fenberg, Executive Director, New Era Colorado Foundation
“We exceeded our goal for Colorado Gives Day. Our staff and board really took the event seriously this year. We did a lot of prep work, and we were more active the day-of.
“We’re in a unique spot. We do engagement work, and we had just gotten off the election period, which is when most of our fundraising happens. We wondered if our donors would be tapped out. So we centralized our mailer around Colorado Gives Day – it’s most of what we do for year-end fundraising.
“In many ways, we have more capacity now than we’ve ever had, and we want to make next year a building year. When we talk to donors, we’re talking about how a year-end donation now is an investment toward a stronger 2015 and 2016.
“We’re in a position to really grow and expand and, to that end, Colorado Gives Day brings in additional donors and money.”
Stephen LeFaiver, Executive Director, Teens, Inc.
“This year, we put all our efforts into Colorado Gives Day. We made phone calls to everyone we had numbers for, and we exceeded our goal by 25%. Now, we’re following up with a letter to some of our regular donors who haven’t donated, yet.
“We more than quadrupled what we’ve brought in on Colorado Gives Day in the past, but that’s including one large anonymous donation. Minus that donation, we more than doubled our previous attempts, which I think has to do with the tremendous effort we put into this year-end push. This experience taught us to involve our staff and board more.
“What hinders us a bit is that our main fundraising event was just a month prior. Not one person who donated at the event also gave at Colorado Gives Day. So, going forward, we’ll move our event forward by a month or so.”
