| Online charity drive breaks $220,000 |
By: JIM HAMMERAND, Staff Writer
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Posted: Saturday, November 21, 2009 12:11 am
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NORTHFIELD — The numbers are in, and they’re good news for St. Olaf College.
The college was the most successful Northfield nonprofit organization in Tuesday’s Give to the Max online fundraising day, securing $176,714 from 629 individuals and earning $6,150 from a pool of matching funds.
“I don’t think we’ve ever raised that much in one day for the annual fund,” said Matthew Fedde, St. Olaf’s associate director of annual giving.
That fund goes directly toward school operations, programs and scholarships. Funds raised Tuesday equaled nearly 5 percent of the $3.7 million donors gave to the fund in the 12-month period that ended in May, Fedde said.
The college conducted what Fedde said was a minimal amount of notification through social networking sites and e-mail messages sent to 25,000 addresses. About half of the donations came from outside Minnesota, he said.
Donations to Minnesota groups through giveMN.org Tuesday totaled just over $14 million from about 39,000 individuals. Those donors saw their gifts proportionately matched with $500,000 from the Bush Foundation, Minneapolis Foundation and St. Paul Foundation.
Carleton College appeared to be another top recipient, taking in $23,720 from 73 donors and earning a match of $938. Beth Dahle of Carleton’s development office said the college didn’t promote the event, but said she watched the leaderboard Tuesday with great interest.
“It was inspiring to see so many Carleton associates and alumni involved in philanthropy,” she said.
Other nonprofits took in more than $45,000. The Community Action Center, for example, received $12,285 from 54 people and another $500 in matching funds.
“That was amazing. It really floored me,” said Jim Blaha, director of the CAC. He expected donations to continue through the site, but wondered whether the process might strike donors as impersonal.
“Will this take us another step away from the donor, or is this the way we should be thinking about it?” Blaha said. Still, he called the site a “nice additional tool to have at our disposal.”
The Northfield Arts Guild raised $9,815, including the match, from 81 people. Northfield Youth Choirs collected $6,365 from two dozen donors, earning a $257 match. That latter amount is enough to hire instrumentalists for a concert, according to the nonprofit’s donor solicitation page.
Youth choir Artistic Director Liz Shepley said the gifts will help her organization give scholarships, which have been hurt by the soft economy.
“Individual donations have been strong, but grants and business donations have been down for us,” she said.
The day was not without hiccups. Donation processor Network for Good was so overwhelmed with transactions that receipts were not issued for some donations. To fix this, according to a notice posted at giveMN.org, all donors would receive duplicate receipts but credit cards will not be charged again.
— Jim Hammerand covers the city. He can be reached at jhammerand@northfieldnews.com or 645-1114. |
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