BAND BOOSTERS: Karol Hartley (right) gets information about the Big Rapids High School Band Program from Jean Walling at the 2011 Match Day on Thursday. She stopped by the event on her lunch break to donate.
Match Day exceeds last year’s total by about $50,000
Organizers did not finish counting the total amount of money generated during Match Day on Thursday, but are confident that they beat last year’s total. They estimate more than $300,000 was pumped into 109 nonprofit organizations during the one-day event at the Holiday Inn and Conference Center. The foundation contributed $50,000 to the match pool. More than $253,000 was raised during the event last year.
“Today went so much better than we ever dreamed,” said Tim Zehr, foundation first vice president and event organizing chair. “These nonprofits have done everything they can to get every dollar here that they could find. From a performance standpoint, we couldn’t have asked for any more from these nonprofits and what they gave us.”
Donations were matched up to 50 cents on the dollar up to $2,500 per donor. All donations and match dollars will “pass through” the community foundation and be presented to the qualifying nonprofit in December. No fees will be deducted by the community foundation.
Match Day was changed from a first-come, first-served setup to spread out the match dollars given to participating nonprofits. Donations to organizations were all matched up to a certain amount.
The change allowed donors more time to obtain information from nonprofits that set up booths at the event, which helped increase on-the-spot giving.
“Last year was a first-come, first-served set up for whoever came in with sufficient donations. Then we ran out of match money and we weren’t going to provide anymore,” said foundation President Judge Scott Hill-Kennedy. “That didn’t work out so well. So this year, no matter when you came in, we matched donations. We also increased the space here, because we had more than double the organizations who wanted to participate this year.”
The format change also increased foot traffic throughout the day. Rather than have a large influx of donors early on, a steady flow of people walked through the event all day obtaining information from the 52 nonprofit booths set up.