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East Bay Gives: What You Need to Know for 2016

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Often we are part of a one- or two-person show in our organizations, and finding the resources to lead a full-fledged individual giving campaign can be an uphill struggle (and then some). The East Bay Gives (EBG) fundraising day and platform aligns with EAP/SFBA’s value of relevancy and proactivity. The crowd source and mobilization tactic is here to stay, and this is a great opportunity for small nonprofits (and fiscally sponsored projects) to try out with the support of a major local institution.

As January creeps right around the corner, so too does the special annual day of donations and fundraising! Orchestrated by the East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF), in partnership with electronic fundraising platform, Kimbia Inc, EBG presents a 24-hour day of prizes for nonprofits in Alameda and Contra Costa from community funders. From the East Bay Gives website from last year:

East Bay Gives 2015 is an opportunity to mobilize everyone in the East Bay on the same day for 24 hours.  Last year, on May 6, 2014, from midnight to midnight, East Bay Gives raised more than $200k for 140 nonprofit organizations, and we’re excited about the response from our community that indicates we will be even more successful this year. Join us! Spread the word about East Bay Gives, and be sure your favorite nonprofits are registered so that you can give local on May 5, 2015.

Sound like something your organization can use? In case you missed their webinar on Friday, December 11th, here are some key takeaways that we at EAP/SFBA compiled for your convenience!

  1. Goals from the East Bay Community Foundation: EBG’s goal for 2016 is to raise $1 million from funders and donors in 24 hours. The prize pools will consist of $150k, which will be dispersed over the course of that day. EBCF also hopes to engage over 5k donors, and 500 nonprofits to register.
  2. How the prizes work and what it looks like: Two prizes each hour are granted. That’s 48 within the 24 hour giving day. There will be prize challenges each hour (i.e. last year’s 8-9am challenge: $1,000 each to the first five NPOs receiving a donation in the 8:00 AM hour). This year’s challenges are subject to change, but here’s a link to last year’s Prize Rules and List to use as a reference. There are also “Golden Tickets,” which are smaller, special prizes awarded at random. Think of this as a small lottery ticket.
  3. Why East Bay Gives? Registering with EBG provides an organization with an online vehicle if they don’t already have one. This platform is an opportunity for exposure and is a powerful way to gain a donor base through the EBG profile on the leaderboard, where there is a list of participating organizations. Your organization will be listed with a blurb, photo, links and all other pertinent information about you! Additionally, think of it as the difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday: more people spend on the Monday, than they do on the Friday. Ergo (for better or worse), our culture is more likely to give online, and tend to give bigger donations online than in person.
  4. Requirements, Registration, Eligibility: First rule of fight club – you have to be a registered 501c3. The second rule of fight club – you can be fiscally sponsored by a 501c3. Educational or religious institutions are not allowed (bummer, but this is explained on their website). The good news is that there is no registration fee! Participating orgs must attend one orientation in person OR online, and must have a Facebook page. There will be “bootcamps” designed to help your org optimize things like board engagement strategy; social media tips/tricks/advice; workplan timeline and several others. Registration opens on January 4th, 2016 – March 15th, 2015. East Bay Gives takes place on May 3, 2016.
  5. Strategy is essential: Last year, organizations were able to receive prizes amounting to ~$40,000! While this seems like a competitive fundraising effort, it is not. Delegating a staff person with the capacity, and employing a strategy will maximize your chances at receiving the most prizes. It must be emphasized that this 24-hour day of giving requires a lot of time, energy and commitment. Though there has not been feedback about burnout, EBCF informs us that there are high levels of communications both internally and externally each week leading up to the day of giving in May.

Sounds exhilarating, right? Why not take a chance at getting an extra $50k of funding to start your organization’s New Year! The stakes are even higher this year, as the East Bay Community Foundation has improved upon the previous two years. There are tons of other notes and advice that can be found on the East Bay Gives website. It’s full of rules and FAQs – and be sure to get on their mailing list or ‘like’ them on FB to stay up-to-date with information about registration on January 4th, 2016! For further questions or clarifications, you can also contact the EBG team members Jeri Boomgaarden, Sarah Merkle, and Dawn Robinson at givelocal[at]eastbaycf[dot]org, or reach them by phone at (510) 836-3223.

We wish all those interested in participating the best of luck! And of course, we want all of our Emerging Arts Professional networks to receive nothing but the best, so if you are reading this, send this to your friends with orgs who can use some extra funds. I know I want all my co-founding, co-directing, co-conspirators–oops I meant collaborators to see the benefits of this process.

Happy fundraising, y’all, we hope all the strategies and donors come your way in the New Year.

 

Event Recap: At the Mercy of the Crowd(funding)

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By Deborah French Frisher 

It seemed impossible to match the frequency outside Gray Area Foundation for the Arts last week on San Francisco’s Market Street when the Giants played the second game of the World Series several city blocks away.

And once inside the no-nonsense GAFFTA location for the panel event At the Mercy of the Crowd(funding), the field of what is possible at the intersections of technology, arts, and culture was alive with a voltage of enthusiasm just as palpable.

The panel addressed the full room full of innovators in a presentation and Q & A that gave new meanings to the terms of  pitch, strategy, team, and fans or friends.

Coaching from the panel
The diverse panel was moderated by the Stacy Bond, creator and executive producer of SonicSF. Panelists included Alex Kane, musician; Eleanor Hanson Wise, co-founder of The Present Group; and John Spokes, director of development,
USA Projects.

Stacy introduced her role on the panel with a generous disclosure about how her experience in crowdsourcing funds through Kickstarter had fallen short of their vision for a launch, creating a credible space for sharing not only successes, but the failed attempts that are inevitable and lead to successful strategies through lessons learned. Eleanor described successes of The Present Group in providing a subscription service for clients to receive and view cutting edge on-line art, web hosting with incentive prizes and an experiment in art micropartronage. Alex described his resourcefulness in a college social media marketing class of enrolling class members to make their assigned project his Kickstarter campaign, describing the critical value of a small mass of friends that moved his campaign as a solo musician. He also spoke about the soft value of getting the word out about one’s project through the crowd funding process. John brought a seasoned presence to the panel, describing the role of the artist in the ecology of culture, providing not only an introduction to the philosophical framework of USA Projects, but validating the challenges and gifts of most of the people in the room.

The thrill of the full house that evening generated the kind of intelligent hope and informed commitment to find one’s community and enlarge the spirit and service of that community through your shared vision. The event at GAFTTA offered concrete ideas for how to get your game on as a team so that the crowd (funding) will come.

Take-home tips

  • Go together, not alone. Have a supportive circle, a group of friends that can amplify your reach through social media.
  • Take confident hold of the important roles played in culture and its economic ecology by artists, tech innovators, and cultural administrators when sustaining the original passion through the long concrete hours of work that goes into project crowd funding.
  • Practice pitch perfect; it takes feedback and revision of content to choose the words that get your project’s idea out of your brains and into someone else’s heart.
  • Rejection or falling short of the funding goal is an opportunity for clarification.
  • Repeat yourself, oh, yes, say it again and again and be sensitive to the timing: a burst of enthusiasm in the beginning, a slump in support after, and a subsequent need for that second wind to bring the project home in the life of your crowd funding campaign.
  • Make innovative offers with meaningful benefits to those who give to your campaign and, thereby, become partners in reaching your goal. Cultivate community and involvement.

Thanks to folks at GAFFTA for the open door on Market Street and it’s role in making sense that night of the madding crowd(funding).

 

About Deborah
Deborah French Frisher is a writer working as project Director for GlobalChill.org, assistant professor in drama therapy at California Institute for Integral Studies, and author of the burgeoning blog her French press.