Arizona Gives Day allowed Arizonans to give to causes they are passionate about in a 24-hour online donating experience, and raised more than $2 million for Arizona nonprofits earlier this month.
“Arizona Gives was founded kind of based on a national trend of giving days around the country, and the idea is really crowd funding for nonprofits,” said Stephanie Petrilli, Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits communications manager.
Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits, along with Arizona Grantmakers Forum, hosted the third annual event on April 7.
They wanted to create another season of giving in Arizona, since a lot of nonprofits rely on individual donors for support, Petrilli said.
“This was definitely our best year ever and we were very pleased with the results,” she said.
St. Vincent de Paul placed in the top three for most dollars raised in the category of large nonprofits with more than $57,000.
“I don’t think we really had a set goal in mind,” said Mary Chou-Thompson, director of community relations for St. Vincent de Paul. “When we sent out our first email in the morning we had said that our goal was $40,000 and we definitely exceeded that.”
She said the amount was impressive, since last year the organization raised $30,000.
During the summer, the needs go up due to the heat and because kids are out of school and can’t take advantage of school lunch programs, Chou-Thompson said.
“The money will help us feed, clothe, house and heal people in need,” she said.
Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation qualified to be in the top ten for small nonprofits in Arizona’s day of giving, with more than $13,000 raised.
“We based our information from last year when our goal was $6,000 and we raised almost double that, closer to $11,000,” said Nicole Underwood, director of operations for Roosevelt Row Community Development. “This year we did the opposite. Our goal was $20,000 … We raised the bar a little bit higher, but we still did fairly well.”
This is their second year participating in Arizona Gives Day.
“Everything we do definitely focuses on the support of the artist community in the area,” Underwood said.
Their main goal is to support upcoming developments, so this year with the money raised, they will be focusing specifically on the largest project, which is their shipping container project, Underwood said.
“Seeing that overwhelming support really is a testament to how important this district is,” she said.
Friends of the Phoenix Public Library has participated in Arizona Gives Day all three years, and the group has received more money each year.
“Our goal was $5,000, which would have easily covered summer reading programming at three targeted libraries in the city and we actually ended up with a little over $5,200,” said Alexis Ronstadt, community relations manager for Friends of the Phoenix Public Library.
Each library needed $1,500 minimum to pay for the programs, so that is specifically what the money raised will be used for, Ronstadt said.
“That means when they bring out the Challenger Space Center and they do a program on space or bring out reptile adventures and they show kids reptiles, all of those program presenters need to be paid,” she said.
Petrilli said plans for an Arizona Gives Day 2016 have not yet been made.
“We still haven’t officially set the date for 2016 yet,” Petrilli said. “We always have to pause and evaluate the results and do a little research, but if we do [decide to] do it, our goal will be to grow it even further and involve more people.”
Contact the reporter at Madison.Rowbotham@asu.edu
