Pittsburgh event to be part of major national initiative

PITTSBURGH, Pa., April 24, 2014 – The Pittsburgh Foundation will host its sixth annual Day of Giving on Tuesday May 6, 2014 to coincide with Give Local America, a national event to encourage and inspire local giving with over 100 communities participating across the United States.

Announcements for this year’s event have been sent to the region’s 700-plus nonprofit organizations registered to participate on the Foundation’s PittsburghGives and WestmorelandGives on-line sites that in 2013 attracted a record turnout of almost 19,000 individual donations in a 24-hour giving period.

Almost $8 million was raised last year for the region’s nonprofits, and since the launch of the program in 2009, the Day of Giving events have raised over $30 million for local charitable organizations.

Organized by the national Council on Foundations, Give Local America will mark the centennial anniversary of community foundations in the United States. In 1914, the first community foundation was founded in Cleveland; now, 100 years later, there are more than 700 community foundations across America and more than 1,400 throughout the world. The Pittsburgh Foundation is the 14th largest and established in 1945, one of the oldest foundations in the country.

“We are delighted that Pittsburgh’s Day of Giving has helped to inspire a national event that will benefit the vital work of nonprofit organizations across the United States,” said Grant Oliphant, The Pittsburgh Foundation’s President and CEO.

“When we first launched our local event, none of us envisioned the success it would become, not only here in Pittsburgh but also in serving as a model for similar initiatives that have been introduced by a number of our community foundation colleagues across the U. S.” 

Due to its unexpectedly high rate of growth, The Pittsburgh Foundation introduced minor modifications to the program for 2013 and 2014 which are likely to result in further changes to the program from 2015 onwards.

For this year’s Day of Giving, the match pool for Allegheny County is expected to be approximately $750,000, and for Westmoreland approximately $50,000, both similar to recent annual events. The match pool in Westmoreland County was provided thanks to generous support by donors Sean Cassidy and Gina Sciarrino, Old Joe Charities, Inc and Hamil Manufacturing as well as other contributors in the local community.

In its first-ever Day of Giving, Butler County will have 27 organizations participating in the event and the Endowment for Butler County, a fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation, has provided a match pool of more than $10,000.

To ensure a robust match percentage for participating nonprofits, the Foundation has determined that only the first $1,000 per individual per organization will be eligible to receive matching dollars from the match pools as was instituted last year.

For last year’s Day of Giving, the match pool awarded 13 cents on every dollar received by nonprofits in Allegheny County. In Westmoreland, which had a separate match pool, the match was 20.8 cents on the dollar.

“Our primary goals in launching this initiative were to help nonprofits increase the number of donors to their organizations, to help them grow individual giving and support using social media tools and to build a database of nonprofits to serve as a research resource for our community,” said Grant. Oliphant. “The success of the program has extended well beyond our initial objectives.”

PittsburghGives and the Butler County Day of Giving may be accessed at: www.pittsburghgives.org and WestmorelandGives at: www.westmorelandgives.org.

Day of Giving Statistics

Year

Individual Donations

Dollars Raised (in millions)

2013

19,000

$7.7

2012

17,000 plus

$8.5

2011

13,000 plus

$6.4

2010

7,000 plus

$3.3

2009

900 plus

$1.5

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