Giving events on Mightycause are online giving marathons that have the power to bring entire communities together. Or, in the case of GA Gives on #GivingTuesday, entire states. On December 3, 2019, nonprofits raised an incredible $3,358,495 for their causes through participating in GA Gives. Here’s a breakdown of how this giving event became such a tremendous success.

screenshot of the ga gives site

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About GA Gives on #GivingTuesday

GA Gives on #GivingTuesday is an event organized by the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, in partnership with a legion of generous corporate, foundation, civic, creative, and media partners. They have been hosting this event since 2012 and in 2017 unified with #GivingTuesday — a day that takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The Georgia Center for Nonprofits’ goals for the event are:

  • To build civic awareness and appreciation of the work and worth of nonprofits across Georgia, and their pivotal role in making our state a better place to live, work and play
  • To serve as a connector of citizens and nonprofits, helping people find and connect with causes that matter to them
  • To create a homegrown generosity movement encouraging charitable contributions through GAgives.org and other platforms, and
  • To support nonprofits in developing successful campaigns, by leveraging GAgives as part of their annual fundraising program.

Each year, they have steadily grown their event, raising an ample $783,000 in their initial year and building to more than $3 million in 2018 and 2019.

Mightycause announces Giving Day partnership with GAgives.org

Engaging Nonprofits

While nonprofits work hard to engage donors leading up to and during a giving event, the host works tirelessly before the event to organize and engage participating nonprofits. The Georgia Center for Nonprofits has built an event that nonprofits are eager to participate in, with its years of proven success, but getting buy-in and full participation from nonprofits in Georgia is still essential to the event’s success. Such a huge undertaking can’t be done on autopilot.

Nonprofits that register to participate in GA Gives on #GivingTuesday unlocked a wealth of free training and resources to help them fundraise smarter and reach their goals. GA Gives offered a robust Nonprofit Toolkit (built in with Mightycause’s fundraising experts), offered free training webinars on subjects like leveraging social media and campaign strategy, and resources like walkthroughs, checklists, and blog posts. They also worked to provide support and coaching to nonprofits through their email list.

Engaging Sponsors

Giving events are a perfect opportunity to engage sponsors, media, and other community partners. They can help grow your event, widen your audience, and provide prizes and incentives to nonprofits. For GA Gives, the Georgia Center for Nonprofits worked with companies like the Coca-Cola Foundation, Mercedes-Benz, the Arby’s Foundation, and Gas South. They leveraged these partnerships to provide powerful incentives for the nonprofits participating in GA Gives.

Prizes, Prizes, Prizes!

GA Gives had a creative and varied prize structure, offering lots of chances for nonprofits to win. The main tools to inspire competition and provide a structure to the event are leaderboards, which rank the nonprofits for the duration of the event with prizes for the top spots, and Power Hours. Power Hours are competitive fundraising sprints where nonprofits race against each other to bring in either the most money or highest number of donors in the space of an hour. GA Gives took an innovative approach to this structure, putting their sponsors and their favorite causes front-and-center. Here’s a look at some of the incentives for nonprofits:

  • The Coca-Cola Women’s Empowerment Matching Fund Challenge: For this incentive, a group of pre-selected organizations focused on empowering women (though education, workforce & skills training, and more) were eligible for receiving matching funds for up to $225,000 (with a generous cap of $75,000 per organization.)
ga gives leaderboard
The Coca-Cola Foundation leaderboard
  • #GreatnessLivesHere Leaderboard & Power Hours: These competitive prizes were limited to organizations focused on Children, Youth, and K-12 Focused Education in Metro Atlanta. Mercedes-Benz sponsored the leaderboard (which spans the duration of the entire event and ranks participants from the prize pool by the number of unique donors) as well as six separate Power Hours where the pre-selected organizations competed to win an additional $2,000 for their organization that brought in the most donors in the space of the hour.
ga gives power hour screencap
Mercedes-Benz Power Hour results
  • #ArbysEndChildhoodHunger Leaderboard & Power Hours: The charitable arm of the popular restaurant chain Arby’s provided prize money to incentivize organizations working to alleviate childhood hunger and food insecurity. They sponsored a leaderboard, as well as providing $6,000 in prizes for six Power Hours, giving the organizations focusing on childhood hunger many chances to win.

GA Gives provided a wealth of chances for nonprofits to win, and allowed their sponsors to be showcased. Not just by adding their logo to the GA Gives site, but by showing their support for nonprofits working for causes they care about. This made participation in GA Gives attractive for nonprofits and sponsors alike!

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The Results

Over 1,100 nonprofit organizations in Georgia participated in GA Gives on #GivingTuesday, collectively raising over $3.3 million dollars for their causes. The event helped more than 14,000 donors connect with nonprofits and causes in Georgia. GA Gives was a tremendous success, and Mightycause was proud to be the chosen platform of GA Gives.

“Mightycause was a great partner and platform for GAgives.org,” said Luiza Raposo, Senior Director, Marketing & Communications at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. “Despite team changes on both sides, the planning and execution was smooth and everyone was pleased. I’m looking forward to many more successful events to come!”

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