Thousands of people across the state of Arizona showed support for their favorite nonprofit organizations by participating Tuesday in Arizona Gives Day.
Arizona Gives Day, hosted by the Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits and Arizona Grantmakers Forum, is a 24-hour period in which supporters of local nonprofits donate money. The organizations that participated were given the opportunity to raise awareness about their work and many took to social media to spread the word.
“We’re definitely trying to get social media and people on social media more involved this year,” said Jennifer Purcell, director of community engagement for the Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits. “We’re helping with that additional avenue of communication so that we can possibly catch some people’s interest.”
Downtown organizations such as Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation, Ben’s Bells Kindness Education Program, Keep Phoenix Beautiful, Heritage Square and many more, benefited from the day of giving.
Tom Waldeck, CEO of Keep Phoenix Beautiful, said the donation money they receive will be put to good use.
“Most of our funding is more corporate and the City of Phoenix funding, but we take anything,” he said. “It all helps.”
Local First Arizona, an organization that emphasizes the importance of supporting locally owned businesses, is a supporter of the event. Community director Erica Pederson, said the foundation works with three major issues: access to healthy local foods, local entrepreneurship in the Latino community and economic and community development in rural Arizona.
“We are raising funds to support those three specific initiatives of the foundation,” Pederson said.
According to the Arizona Gives Day website, Arizona Gives Day has raised a total of $4.5 million for Arizona nonprofits since its founding in 2013.
Contact the reporter at JLott3@asu.edu.
