Day of Giving Redux: Sept. 21
Make-up date set to help nonprofits recover from disrupted May 3 event
Pittsburgh, July 19, 2016 Nearly 1,000 southwestern Pennsylvania charities, civic and arts organizations that participated in the May 3 Day of Giving event that was cut short due to technical problems, will be able to re-engage supporters for a second round of the popular program that has raised $41 million for worthy causes since its beginning in 2009.
Thousands of nonprofits across the country had to suspend participation or devise alternative platforms for online giving when the Texas-based crowd-funding company managing the event had systems problems that disrupted website-based donations. As a result, most participants, including those in Allegheny, Butler and Westmoreland counties, had fundraising results that fell short of expectations.
In the Foundation’s survey of participants, the vast majority of respondents reported either that they wanted to have a second event, or that they would decide whether to participate based on their own situations and how the new event would be structured.
Based on those and other responses, the Foundation has set Wednesday, Sept. 21, from 8 a.m. until midnight, as the date for the recovery Day of Giving.
“We appreciate all of the survey responses, phone calls and emails we received asking for a make-up day and offering suggestions on how to structure it,” said Maxwell King, president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation. “With the decision made, we will be dedicating every section of the Foundation to providing an event that meets the expectations of our nonprofits and their supporters.”
In a letter to event participants informing them of the new date, King also announced that the foundation planned to switch to a new online fundraising company. That process has since been completed and the make-up Day of Giving will be managed by CiviCore, a Denver-based firm that has 15 years of experience managing large giving day events, including an annual statewide event, Colorado Gives, which raised $28 million. In addition, the company provides year-round giving platforms and online payment processing to its clients.
King described the effort to choose a replacement company to manage the online giving process as “exhaustive with specific focus on candidate companies’ ability to recover and continue to provide service in the event of a technical problem.” CiviCore, which uses Amazon web services and has redundancies and backup systems as part of its technical framework, met the Foundation’s expectations, he said.
In addition to providing new online giving management, the Foundation has assured participating organizations that the company will manage only the southwestern Pennsylvania region’s event on Sept. 21. The Foundation also will have its own backup online donation capability if all other systems fail.
To re-energize the make-up day event, the foundation also has committed to contributing an additional $100,000 to the $94,000 remaining in the incentive pool from the first event for Allegheny County nonprofits, and to restoring the $50,000 match pool raised by the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County for its region. The Foundation also will manage disbursement of the $10,000 incentive pool provided by the Endowment for Butler County.
“While our foundation and many other community foundations across the country sponsoring the May 3 event were not responsible for the technical failures that occurred, we all feel a deep responsibility to ensure a smooth second run that will be successful for participants,” said King. “We look forward to providing an event that is worthy of the record-setting generosity and caring spirit that has been a hallmark of the Day of Giving program since its beginning.”