This holiday season, the Mountain Xpress launches Give!Local, a new online fundraising program aimed to help local nonprofits through micro-donations. With the same love behind it for local development as the Buy Local/Shop Local movements, Give!Local aims to develop a new generation of donors while strengthening nonprofits (and local businesses).
Give!Local allows local donors to place their holiday donations online, all in one place, and reap rewards in the process. Donors like you would choose among the site’s four main nonprofit categories (Animals, People, Environment, and Arts). Give $5 to a new nonprofit you’ve never heard of. Give $30 to your favorite nonprofit to support. Split another $45 among another half dozen nonprofits. Where and how much money you give is entirely up to you.
Once all your donations have been made for the season, both you and participating nonprofits are able to cash in. Nonprofits like POP receive 100% of your donation, minus online credit card fees. Based on your total giving level, you too, are able to cash in—at a variety of local businesses.
Sounds like a win-win to us!
Using this strategy, the Mountain Xpress hopes to build a sustainable giving model that has been proven to work in a number of other cities, most notably in Portland. Donors are able to give very small, micro-donations to many of their favorite causes, instead of perhaps one larger gift to a single organization. And, in turn, they receive access to perks at local businesses and restaurants, also bringing in added business to those establishments.
Asheville’s Give!Local website is still in the works, but we’ve seen a preview and it’s looking pretty. We can also confirm that the first-year donor levels will start at $10 and go up from there, so every donor is making a full investment into the program.
We’ll bring you more information about the program as we receive it. In the meantime, mark the first week of November in your calendar as the time to pick up the Mountain Xpress with the glossy Give!Local program booklet insert. And begin planning your gifts to the POP Project and our sister organizations listed below.
Become a Participating Business
The Mountain Xpress is still looking for participating businesses who want to offer donor perks, matching gifts, or sponsorships. Contact us for more info, or contact Susan at the Xpress directly and tell them POP sent you.
Give!Local 2015 Participating Nonprofits
Arts for Life
Asheville Design Center
Asheville Humane Society
Asheville Music School Sound Education
Care Partners Foundation
The Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design
Charlie’s Angels Animal Rescue
Four Seasons Compassion for Life: Heart Songs Program
Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Friends of the WNC Nature Center
Heart of Horse Sense
Helios Warriors, Inc.
Helpmate, Inc.
Homeward Bound of WNC
Irene Wortham Center
LEAF
The Lord’s Acre
Loving Food Resources
The Magnetic Theatre, Inc.
Montford Park Players
Mountain BizWorks
MountainTrue
Muddy Sneakers
The North Carolina Arboretum Society
Organic Growers School
OurVOICE
The POP Project
Sleep Tight Kids, Inc.
Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (SAHC)
Wild South