For 36 hours each May, Nicole Summers becomes a little skittish. During the annual Centre Gives fundraiser, Summers, who is executive director of Faith Centre in Bellefonte, checks fundraising totals and social media for information about new donations.
“I check the totals hourly — and, it is the first thing I check in the morning when I wake up, and the last thing I look at before I go to bed,” she says. “Everybody who works in a nonprofit wants their agency to be recognized.”
Faith Centre, which operates several faith- based programs and services, including a food bank and thrift store, is just one of about 100 community organizations that come together to raise money and awareness for their respective groups through the Centre Gives online fundraising event hosted by Centre Foundation.
Since 2012, the event has utilized social media — centered on the hashtag #CentreGives — to encourage people in Centre County and beyond to donate to organizations large and small — from the State Theatre to the Friends of the East Penns Valley Library. In addition to money raised, participating organizations receive information on how to utilize social media to tap into a new group of potential donors during the rest of the year.
According to the Knight Foundation’s “Giving Day Playbook,” a giving day is “a powerful 24-hour online fundraising competition that unites a community around local causes. Hosted by the area’s community foundation, the Giving Day raises money through a single online donation platform.”
Centre Foundation executive director Molly Kunkel brought the idea to Centre County in 2012. It began with 74 participating organizations that year, and is expected to include more than 100 for this year’s event, which is May 3-4.
In its first four years, Centre Gives has raised nearly $3 million for participating organizations, and the money raised has increased each year. In 2012, the event raised $540,000. Last year, it raised $892,000, and more than 5,000 individual contributions were received. Organizers hope to increase those numbers this year by spreading the word beyond the Centre Region.
“The community has really embraced the event, both in the number of organizations that participate and number of gifts that we have received,” says Irene Miller, fundraising and event director for Centre Foundation. “Our goal is to encourage more people in the community to be generous and philanthropic. The more donations that come in, the more the organizations can benefit.”
Centre Gives 2016 will begin at 6 a.m. on May 3 and continue until 6 p.m. on May 4. During that time, donations will be accepted at centregives.org. The minimum donation is $25, and giving online is the only way to participate.
Participants can spread their donations out among any of the participating organizations, which will receive 95 percent of the money they raise plus a match from a stretch pool of $100,000 provided by Centre Foundation. The more money a group raises on its own, the bigger piece of the pool it receives.
In order to encourage some healthy competition among organizations, Centre Foundation offers prizes for social-media participation and individual “power hour” challenges during the event. Winnings from those prizes are part of the organization’s overall fundraising total.
With so many organizations vying for the financial attention of Centre County, the foundation encourages groups to support each other so as not to overwhelm supporters during the Centre Gives window.
“There is lots of overlap in our organizations and the people they serve,” says Tracy Carey, former grant and scholarship coordinator for Centre Foundation. “We encourage organizations to reach out to their supporters and have them give, and to support each other throughout the event.”
Marc McCann, executive director of Global Connections, says his organization has set a goal of raising $1,200 during Centre Gives this year, which is nearly double what was raised last year. While it might seem ambitious, he says the group hopes to reach a new pool of donors this year.
“We are hoping to put more time and energy into it this year and engage more people,” he says. “We’re looking to engage some of the international folks that we’ve helped in the past who might be in a position to give now when they were not before.”
He adds that money raised from Centre Gives goes toward supporting Global Connections’ programming during the year. The organization holds English classes for non-native speakers and seeks to foster relationships between international and native Center County residents.
“We sent 21 international residents to Marion-Walker Elementary School, which led to some great interactions on both sides,” McCann says. “We are able to support programs like this through Centre Gives and our other fundraisers.”
For the Faith Centre, Summers says the money raised through Centre Gives helps supplement a lack of funding that has resulted from an unstable state budget. The organization raised $15,000 last year and is hoping to match that amount this year.
“We want to earmark the funds for our food bank,” she says. “We want to make sure that we have funds available if we need to write large checks to stock our shelves due to a lack of funding from the state.”
Jennifer Cifelli, communications director for Centre County Library, says the library is hoping to double the number of donors who contribute during Centre Gives. The library had 115 donors last year and is hoping for around 200 this year.
“At the library, because fundraising isn’t easy … the people who come to the library aren’t always the ones who donate to the library,” she says. “We love Centre Gives because it helps even small nonprofits like us broaden the range of their fundraising.”
She says that the library uses social media extensively during Centre Gives — not just to promote itself.
“We’re on pretty much all day, reminding our patrons and friends to get online and donate to their favorite nonprofits,” she says. “It’s actually a lot of fun, and there’s friendly competition among the staff to get donors, which makes the event really exciting.”
She says the library is planning to use a mix of new and old media to spread the word about Centre Gives to the library’s constituents. On the morning of May 3, the library’s Bellefonte location will hold a coffee and donuts breakfast and make its computers available to those who want to donate there.
Like Faith Centre, the library staff pays close attention to fundraising totals during the event.
“We check the leaderboard and our totals at least hourly so that we know where we need to step up our efforts,” Cifelli says. “It’s also helpful to know who has donated so that we can be accurate when contacting our biggest supporters during the event.”
Planning for Centre Gives begins in November or December each year, and the foundation spends the months leading up to the event showing participating organizations how to promote themselves and the event online.
“Our goal is to not only shine a spotlight on nonprofits, but to also give them tools they can use 365 days for the year,” Miller says.
In March, Centre Foundation held a series of workshops to provide best practices for online fundraising, public relations,
and social-media promotion. The events featured local marketing and public relations strategists Anna Nelson and Brad Groznik and were open to all participating Centre Gives organizations.
“We want to give them building blocks and a plan so they can spend April executing all the things we teach them,” Miller says.
Nelson, a digital marketing strategist in State College, led a workshop on social-media marketing in an effort to help organizations maximize their exposure during the 36 hours of Centre Gives.
“We’re trying to help them figure out how to tap into the energy that community has around Centre Gives,” she says. “There’s a
lot of conversation among everyone, not just nonprofits. How do you join that conversation and build on that energy?”
Carey says Centre Foundation encourages organizations to support each other on social media during the event to ensure that a consistent message is being spread to all of their fans and followers.
At the end of the day, Miller says the awareness about nonprofits that is spread through Centre Gives and the resources they receive from Centre Foundation are perhaps just as important as the money raised during the event.
“We really enjoy putting on this event every year, and, anecdotally, we’ve heard from our organizations that they appreciate some of the best practices we are able to share,” she says. “It’s really all about helping to connect the nonprofit network to the community they support.”
