The Community Foundation for Southwest Washington announced the updated total amount of money raised during Give More 24! for Southwest Washington nonprofits: $696,311.
The foundation previously said $676,311 was raised during the all-day giving spree on Sept. 24, but that number didn’t include several timed prizes.
Give More 24! asked people to go online and give as little as $10 to local causes. In total, 2,361 donors from 37 states and nine countries gave 3,640 gifts to 110 different nonprofits in Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties, the Community Foundation said. Nonprofits will get their checks by the end of next month.
“People like to focus on the money, but this event aims to create a space for our community to engage with local nonprofits,” said Jennifer Rhoads, president of the Community Foundation. “This year, we recorded an 87 percent increase in unique donors, and that is more of a success than any dollar figure we could reasonably set.”
The first gift at midnight went to the Salmon Creek Lions Club. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington got the final gift — at 11:59:43 p.m. — and also completed the day with the greatest number of gifts, the Community Foundation said.
The causes that attracted the most funds were education, housing and shelter, and health.
“We like the design of it,” said Maury Harris, the foundation’s marketing and communications specialist. “This year we changed from a midnight to midnight approach.”
In 2014, the event was split over two days, running from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. This year’s approach was better received, Harris said.
Most gifts came from people in Southwest Washington, who gave as little as $10 and as much as $5,000. More than half of the gifts came from Vancouver residents. Longview, Battle Ground and Portland were the next most active givers. The demographics pretty much panned out how the Community Foundation predicted, Harris said. He said the smaller communities of Battle Ground and Longview had a grass-roots approach to the day and did their own outreach to get businesses involved.
Donors and businesses offered an $80,350 “stretch pool” for matching donations that encouraged donors to reach fundraising goals. There were also 19 $1,000 prizes nonprofits could win for meeting targets, such as raising the most money between 2 and 5 a.m.
Next year, the Community Foundation aims to reach more young adults, between 18 and 29 years old, Harris said. The tentative date for Give More 24! 2016 is Sept. 22, 2016.
