Stiff competition for local nonprofit
March Madness isn’t just about basketball this year.
Local nonprofit Allied Arts has been advancing its way through its own version of the annual basketball tournament in a national fundraising based bracket competition, Brackets For Good.
Allied Arts defeated San Diego-based Reality Changers on March 17 in the “Supported 16.” Now the organization goes on to face The Commit! Partnership of Dallas in the “Engaged 8” competition, which concludes at 8 p.m. Friday. If Allied Arts wins, it will advance to the final four, or “Philanthropic 4.”
“We’re thrilled we made it through the first three grueling rounds,” said Deborah McAuliff Senner, president and CEO of Allied Arts. “Oklahomans are competitive. Here we are up against a nonprofit from Texas. We don’t like to lose to Texas.”
Brackets For Good, an Indiana-based nonprofit, launched the nationwide fundraising tournament Feb. 24 to see which of the 64 charities selected to compete will win and earn a $100,000 prize. Brackets For Good coincides with the 2017 NCAA college basketball tournament. The competition runs five weeks and concludes March 31.
Allied Arts was the only Oklahoma charity chosen to participate in the event.
For each dollar donated, competing nonprofits earn one point. Each week’s competition begins immediately following the close of the preceding week’s competition. When the buzzer closes competition at 8 p.m. Friday, the next competition begins at 8:01 p.m. and runs until 8 p.m. the following Friday, Senner said.
Donors have the option to contribute an additional amount as a “buzzer beater.” Competitors may keep tabs on their opponents’ regular donations through the Brackets For Good website, but buzzer-beater donations are kept secret until the very last seconds of that week’s round.
“We’re huddling to see what our game strategy is to take out the competition,” Senner said. “Just like the Thunder have an MVP in Russell Westbrook, we need a Russell Westbrook, too. That’s our strategy. We don’t want to overplay our cards if we don’t need to but we’re in it to win it.”
Should Allied Arts win the championship, the $100,000 prize from sponsor AT&T will go a long way toward reaching fundraising goals in Oklahoma’s economic downturn, Senner said.
“The arts groups that we are funding touch all 77 counties (in Oklahoma),” she said. “This would help us keep our statewide reach and build on it. That’s what we have our eye on.”
In addition to higher profile arts projects, Allied Arts funds arts education particularly for low-income and at-risk youth, arts outreach into underserved communities, and healing arts for the sick, for veterans and for the elderly, according to the organization’s promotional material.
“I first got involved with Allied Arts about 15 or 16 years ago,” said Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, who will be tweeting on behalf of the organization Friday night during peak competition. “They support so many great projects. Not a lot of people know about the educational aspects. They fill a need in a society that sees less and less funding for these types of things. It’s hard to imagine our city today without Allied Arts.”
Brackets For Good is a charitable organization that helps build awareness, raise funds and expand marketing capabilities for local nonprofits through competitive, online fundraising tournaments.