For its inaugural year, the Spring It On event appears to have been a big success. The first year for these types of fundraising initiatives can be more of a learning curve, in order to introduce the program to those who are, for the most part, unfamiliar with the widespread give-a-thon. As it turns out, 1,307 donors contributed $72,500 to the 24-hour campaign, which was held on March 1, 2013. “Spring It On provided a focal point for our community to be part of something that can have a tremendous impact on a variety of organizations and the citizens they serve within a very short timeframe,” said Michael Weiner, United Way president and CEO. “In addition to financial support, we believe Spring It On helped to educate local citizens about the tremendous contributions made by the nonprofit community every day. Ultimately it worked – the Buffalo Niagara region truly demonstrated its generous spirit.”
Besides launching the community marketing and fundraising effort, individual non-profits also set out on their own to raise awareness for the Spring It On campaign. By doing this, financial giving goals were established and organizations looked to reach those goals in a number of ways. Social Media became a key player in helping the groups to get the word out, which ultimately turned into a helpful exercise for some non-profits that don’t normally go that route. While raising money is the main goal for many of the organizations, the effort also proved to be fruitful in a number of other ways. Any time that a major give-a-thon can push organizations to increase message awareness by creating promotional photos, videos, etc., that goes a long way towards strengthening additional fundraising efforts throughout the year. Then, the following year the groups are even more prepared for the annual give-a-thon.
For those that didn’t do very well, it might be a wake up call to rethink strategies. For others who were able to reap the financial rewards, the efforts will most likely be increased the next time around. It’s an overall win-win for the non-profits and for Buffalo.
You can see the amount that each organization raised here.