The Great Give® 2012: Over $500,000 for Nonprofits Serving Greater New Haven
More than half-a-million was generated for nonprofits serving the local region during The Great Give 2012 Oct 16-Oct 17. See the prizes awarded and which local nonprofits benefited.
4056 Gifts Overall; Area Nonprofits Attract More than 1500 Gifts from First-time Donors
| The Great Give® 2012 is the third online community wide giving event to benefit nonprofits serving Greater New Haven. |
New Haven, CT (October 18, 2012) – The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven announced today the winners of The Great Give 2012, giveGreater.org®'s 36-hour online event designed to raise money for local nonprofits serving Connecticut's Greater New Haven region. More than $335,000 in individual donations was raised from more than 4,000 individual gifts between October 16 and October 17 to benefit nonprofits; an additional $150,000 was awarded by The Community Foundation and $20,000 by the Valley Community Foundation (VCF) in grant prizes to incentivize giving.
"The Great Give 2012 was a great success for local nonprofit organizations," said William W. Ginsberg, President & CEO of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. "Even beyond the amount raised, the way in which so many local organizations used The Great Give 2012 to expand their donor bases is very important. In addition, with over 10,000 visits to our giveGreater.org® website over this thirty-six hour period, this community now knows much more about the work of our great non-profit organizations. So the benefits of The Great Give 2012 will continue to be felt far into the future."
Three Grand Prizes of $20,000 each were awarded to the nonprofits that raised the most money, got the highest number of donors and received the highest number of new donors. These Grand Prize winners were New Haven Legal Assistance, Squash Haven and Solar Youth. A complete list of non-profit grant prize recipients is available on The Community Foundation's website at www.cfgnh.org.
"Our goal was to attract new donors for local non-profits and increase the visibility of non-profits within the community," says Penny Canny, Senior Vice President of Grantmaking & Strategy at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. "The beauty of an online campaign like The Great Give 2012 is that both larger, long-established organizations and smaller new organizations are afforded an opportunity to get in front of new donors and through social media, have a more level playing field from which to compete for large grant prizes."
The use of social media in The Great Give 2012 played a big part in increasing nonprofit visibility, not only locally but across the nation. Gifts were made from 42 states and several countries.
"Our Facebook analytics show that 'people talking about us' during The Great Give 2012 was up 80%," reports Kelly Hebrank, Deputy Director or IRIS, a $1,000 Early Bird Prize winner. Another prize winner, Center Stage Theater of Shelton also remarked that there was an increase in their Facebook friends and sharing of their posts.
The Great Give 2012 is the third fundraising campaign of giveGreater.org®, an online knowledge and giving resource launched in 2010 by The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven in partnership with Guidestar, a leading source of nonprofit information. The website was created to increase knowledge about and giving to local nonprofits. It provides one searchable database for people to find, learn about and give to nonprofits serving the Greater New Haven area, year-round. Including the results of The Great Give 2012, over $1.3 million has been distributed in new and matching funds since giveGreater.org's launch. The site is currently also sponsored by Higher One®.
Since 1928, donors to the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven have built the community's endowment currently valued at more than $340million. In 2011, The Foundation's Board of Directors distributed more than $19 million in grants from over 900 different named charitable funds, supporting a wide range of programs and projects. The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven's 20 town service area includes: Ansonia, Bethany, Branford, Cheshire, Derby, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton, Wallingford, West Haven, Woodbridge. For more information about The Community Foundation visit www.cfgnh.org, find us on Facebook at www.facebook.org/cfgnh or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cfgnh.
Attachment:
Great Give 2012 Prize Recipients List
Contact:
Tricia Caldwell
Communications Manager
203-777-7090
tcaldwell@cfgnh.org
