Amplify Austin & the Momentum of Giving Events

Congratulations, Austin, you raised more than $7.7 million for local nonprofits. 44,000 unique donations were made supporting more than 200 charitable organizations.

For the past two years, this day-long giving event has engaged large and small nonprofits, and raised awareness for a variety of causes. While the nonprofit I work for has never been at the top of the donation leaderboard, we see this as an important opportunity to introduce new individuals to our cause.

How’d we do this year?

Staff giving was up more than 150% over the previous year. I consider myself blessed to work with a team who are financially and emotionally invested in our mission.

New donors.  New folks to new organizations. Our new donors this year were from entirely new segments than the new donors the prior year, which means that the awareness side of the event is working.

Our social media engagement went up over 3,000 individuals. Lots of likes and follows happening.

The Downside

Online giving events, particularly for startup nonprofits, can be a lot of work, especially for in house graphic design, social media promotion, and development outreach. We had to schedule a lot of emails via a mass marketing platform and had some constituents unsubscribe. It’s important to segment the database as much as possible but we still lost some folks. Also the cash prizes for most donations in a given hour or most unique donors will never materialize for a smaller nonprofit, especially when going up against expansive foundations and community organizations with well-developed individual donor programs.

Austin isn’t unique.

Giving days are gaining momentum in communities across the US. City governments, community foundations, and large corporations see the public relations value of initiating these types of engagement opportunities, and I'm gearing up for the North Texas Giving Day. Be sure that you're taking advantage of opportunities in your area!