More than 20 Vashon nonprofits raised roughly $230,000 during the Seattle Foundation’s annual GiveBIG fundraising campaign last Tuesday and Wednesday, despite difficulties with the giving website that caused it to crash.
The annual online fundraising effort is usually a one-day event that encourages donors to “give big” to their favorite nonprofits, but website issues on Tuesday made donating tough, as the site would crash and donations would not go through. The Seattle Times reported that the problems stemmed from “an online donations payment platform hosted by Kimbia, the technology partner for the Seattle Foundation.” The event was extended through Wednesday when the issue seemed to be resolved.
In spite of the issues, the Vashon Schools Foundation, the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust and Vashon Youth & Family Services (VYFS) raised the most of the island nonprofits. The Vashon Schools Foundation brought in $42,515, the largest amount of any island nonprofit, but short of its $55,000 goal; the Land Trust exceeded its $30,000 goal and was given $31,766 and VYFS was given $18,760.
Donna Nespor, Vashon Schools Foundation coordinator, said that the organization was hoping to raise $55,000 during the event, as GiveBIG is the kickoff of its annual spring fundraising campaign. The goal for the whole campaign is to raise $268,000 before the school district’s budget is finalized in July.
The foundation helps the district make up for funding gaps, purchase textbooks and fund mental health education and initiatives.
Nespor said the foundation is focused on continuing to fund social and emotional education such as the SOLE program at Chautauqua Elementary School and Sources of Strength at McMurray Middle School. SOLE teaches respect for self, others, learning and the environment. Sources of Strength is a suicide prevention program.
“We have a three-year commitment to these programs,” Nespor said.
She said the foundation is also working on keeping up a “robust science program” at Chautauqua. New math books for Vashon High School are also on the foundation’s funding radar.
At the Land Trust, Executive Director Tom Dean said that the organization needed a minimum of $30,000. Donors gave $31,766.
“We were very pleased,” Dean said Friday. “Our donors were tenacious, and they kept at it despite the website issues.”
The Land Trust is in the midst of finding a farmer to work on the historic Matsuda Farm that was purchased in 2015 as the organization’s first farm conservation project. The Land Trust is also working with King County on a plan to connect the island with trails, giving pedestrians an alternate route to travel the island.
VYFS rounded out the island’s top three organizations receiving the most GiveBIG money. The organization is one of Vashon’s social services providers and received more than $18,700. With the Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG “stretch funds,” (a pool of Seattle Foundation funds distributed among participating nonprofits) VYFS will nearly meet its $20,000 goal set for the event, Executive Director Kathleen Johnson said.
“We came in with over $18,000, which is the more than we have ever received during this event. It’s excellent, especially given the dysfunction of the day,” she said.
Johnson said GiveBIG is a crucial source of operating funds for the organization.
“It’s not sexy, but it keeps our doors open. It’s really critical,” she said.
Also exceeding its fundraising goal was the Vashon-Maury Community Food Bank, which received $17,855, far surpassing its $12,000 goal.
“Thank you, our wonderful supporters, for forging through myriad technical glitches to assist in making sure our community is nourished,” the food bank’s volunteer program manager Emily Scott said in an email.
But other nonprofits fell short of their goals. Voice of Vashon (VoV) budgeted $20,000 to come from the GiveBIG event, but the organization received $16,141.
“That’s about $5,000 short of what we got last year and, thus, about $5,000 short of what we budgeted for this year,” VoV Station Manager Susan McCabe said. “After the disastrous Tuesday website melt down … things looked much worse. But we climbed back a good bit by pulling in an extra $4,000 (Wednesday).”
McCabe said there’s “huge anger” over the website crash.
The Land Trust’s Dean said that the website debacle left a “puzzling” picture.
“The Seattle Foundation far exceeded their donations from last year, so, in that respect, it didn’t seem to have any real dampening effect. I have been puzzling all day as to why some Vashon nonprofits didn’t do as well as they did last year,” he said.
