Registration deadline for East Texas Giving Day coming up
The sixth annual East Texas Giving Day is coming up on April 27, and the deadline for nonprofits to register is March 31.
This online event, hosted by the East Texas Communities Foundation, takes place one day only to help rally support and funds for community programs provided by local nonprofit organizations.
It is an 18-hour event. To participate, a nonprofit must be located in, or primarily serve, one of the 32 counties in ETCF’s service area.
One nonprofit in the Texarkana area that benefits from this event is HandsOn Texarkana.
HandsOn is always active on Giving Day, typically
holding in-person events to accompany the virtual platform. However, the presence of COVID-19 has caused them to cancel these events.
This past year they’ve canceled their two biggest fundraisers that provide them with the annual funds to go about normal operations. They are looking to help offset those losses with this event.
“We don’t get any city, state or federal funding,” Executive Director Kathey Graves said. “We have two fundraisers, and East Texas Giving Day helps make up for us not being able to have those. The reason it’s important is because, not only does it bring in money for our programs we provide at no cost to the community, but also it makes people aware of HandsOn and what needs in the community we meet.”
The first year HandsOn participated in Giving Day, they raised $10,000. Last year, they reached their goal of $12,000. This year, they’re increased their goal to $15,000.
Administrative Assistant Amy Lemley said the Giving Day platform makes it easy to donate.
“It makes it very easy to donate to your area nonprofit, and then it stays with those nonprofits that you donated to,” she said. “So, you’re not giving to some big, global fund that just gets distributed. If you want it to go to HandsOn and their program, the money you give goes to HandsOn. It’s not split between everything.
“Say you want to support four other nonprofits — you can donate to each one of those on this platform and only check out one time. You’re not having to go to our website and someone else’s website and make multiple donations. You just go through and pick out all of the nonprofits you want to support and place your donation once.”
Graves said fund-matching is also attractive to some participants.
“If someone out there wants to give matching funds to an organization during Giving Day, they match dollar-for-dollar,” she said. “So, their money goes twice as far, which is attractive to some folks.”
Graves and Lemley said donating is important to the community, as the money that’s donated is guaranteed to be utilized where it’s intended.
“One of the main things that we need to come across is that those funds stay right here in Bowie County,” Lemley said.
(East Texas Giving Day, an online event, will be held 6 a.m. to midnight, Tuesday, April 27, 2021 at EastTexasGivingDay.org. Ongoing updates about the event will be posted on ETCF’s Facebook page at facebook.com/SimplifiedGiving and the foundation’s website etcf.org.)