By Joseph Kuzma
The Community Foundation serving Southwest Colorado spearheads regional participation in Colorado Gives Day — an easy, online initiative for donors to contribute to nonprofits across Colorado.
This year’s Colorado Gives Day — Tuesday, December 6 — was extremely generous with $53 million donated to nonprofit organizations statewide and more than $626,641 donated to organizations in the southwest corner of the state. Local donations in 2022 eclipsed last year’s donations by $150,000, a 31 percent increase.
Local donors are able to choose from 130 organizations listed on the website, swcogives.org, and make safe, secure, online gifts to local organizations directly serving the five-county region of Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan counties.
“As the Southwest Regional Champion for Colorado Gives, we work closely with our local nonprofits, providing mentoring and guidance that helps to bolster the giving campaigns of individual nonprofits,” says Briggen Wrinkle, Executive Director of the Community Foundation serving Southwest Colorado. “We are fortunate to live in such a generous community. Local donors really stepped up to support nonprofits.”
The Community Foundation’s mission is to power philanthropy, encouraging people to give where they live. This year’s collaborative marketing efforts prompted 3,638 individual donations, a 36 percent increase over last year’s donor numbers.
“It was a pleasure working so closely with our nonprofits and to learn and grow with them,” says Joseph Kuzma, Community Outreach Manager for the Foundation and coordinator of Southwest Colorado Gives. “We have so many outstanding nonprofits in our area, and each provides a critical role to keep our communities vibrant and healthy. It was great to see the generosity of our communities and to know that we are all in this together.”
Overall Gives Day totals will increase throughout the month of December as each nonprofit receives its share of the $1.4 million statewide Incentive Fund provided for Colorado Gives Day. Online donations may still be made at swcogives.org, as this is a year-round electronic giving platform to benefit local nonprofits.
Joseph Kuzma is Community Outreach Manager with Community Foundation serving SW Colorado