NonProfit News Pod: How Businesses Can Fuel Big Day of Giving.

Jeff Holden: [00:00:00] Welcome to this nonprofit podcast News Pod. This is a dedicated news pod, the first of five, specifically addressing our Sacramento Region Community Foundation's Big Day of Giving, or Be Dog as we've come to know it. I'm joined by Kelly Siefkin, chief Philanthropy Officer with the Community Foundation.

Kelly, welcome. 

 Kelly Seifkin: Thank you so much for having us, Jeff. 

Jeff Holden: Here we are again. May 7th is coming up quickly and it is yet another big day of giving. 

 Kelly Seifkin: We are looking forward to such an incredible opportunity with over 900 nonprofits participating this year, the largest ever. 

Jeff Holden: I love it. I mean, every year we always have this expectation of more is more, is more and and more is more right now, isn't it?

 Kelly Seifkin: More is more because that means more unrestricted dollars raised for incredible work. Nonprofits doing great work in our region. [00:01:00] 

Jeff Holden: So we're talking a little bit today about businesses and their engagement with Big Day Of Giving. How can businesses get involved? 

 Kelly Seifkin: I think a lot of folks really think that it's up to the individual donor and absolutely that's a great place for every family to start when Big Day of Giving rolls around.

But businesses actually play a huge role. You'll see that we are offering all kinds of great prizes during the day, and those are all made possible by businesses. A business that makes an opportunity available, and we'll grant those dollars out on the big day. Businesses are actually also who makes big day of giving possible sponsorship through local businesses is really how we're able to reach so many people and raise those millions of dollars every single year.

Businesses also have other things that they can benefit from from Big Day of Giving. And a big one is really engagement. So businesses often turn to Big Day of Giving. When they wanna engage their staff, they can offer maybe friendly challenges or highlight their favorite [00:02:00] nonprofits or even offer a match.

And the foundation can even help you set all of that up, which is great. Another thing that businesses like to do is be creative. When Big day of giving rolls around. Um, you can hang up posters in your windows offer discount for maybe customers who wanna give through their phone while they're at your business.

We even have a local law firm that hosts an ice cream party on Big Day of Giving to encourage everyone to come to the break room and make a gift. 

Jeff Holden: I love it. 

 Kelly Seifkin: We make it really, really easy for businesses. We have ready-made graphics to really elevate causes that are important to your business. We have an entire toolkit at your disposal.

There's really dozens of opportunities to get involved before May 7th. 

Jeff Holden: So I'm thinking, you just gave me this litany of opportunities. That's, oh, that's a whole lot of choices, a whole lot of things I have to think about. Where can I go? Is there someplace I can go to find out and just sift through the ideas that might make sense for my organization?

 Kelly Seifkin: Absolutely. At Big Day of giving.org, we have a partners tab, and there's actually. [00:03:00] A section just for business resources. Scroll through, find something that's a really great fit. You are also welcome to always call the foundation and talk to a friendly human and find out what's the best fit, fit for your business.

Jeff Holden: How do businesses engage beyond Big Day of giving? I'm sure you have a variety of options and as people are listening, going, you know, I've always thought about this. I know Big Day of Giving and our people given the business gives and we participate to some degree. I know there are a variety of other options as well that you host for businesses.

What do those look like? 

 Kelly Seifkin: It's important that businesses remember that philanthropy is year round, and so I think one of the greatest things that's very popular with businesses is they come to Sacramento Original Community Foundation and open a business fund. It's a great alternative to opening a private foundation.

You can grant to any nonprofit of your choice year round. You can engage staff in contributing or maybe selecting the nonprofits at. [00:04:00] Receive these grants. Businesses have found it's really helpful as an alternative to operating their own foundation. Saves, you know, and cost keeping up with and. But it also helps a lot of businesses say no, and I know you're familiar with this, Jeff.

Businesses are approached for support year round the foundation and opening a fund really helps streamline giving for a lot of businesses, which is great. Another thing that businesses find valuable when they partner with their foundation is engaging staff through volunteerism. Mm-hmm. So we are really able to provide opportunities such as being grant or scholarship reviewers.

Maybe you have a, a way that you would like some of your staff to contribute a couple of hours of time to really see what impact dollars can we have locally. And then we encourage all businesses to learn from giving Edge. That's the database that runs Big Day of Giving It lists all of the. Hundreds and hundreds of nonprofits in our community that have [00:05:00] open volunteer opportunities, board positions, businesses are often looking for ways to invest in leadership and help them grow, and that's a great, great tool that's available.

We often have businesses invite the foundation to come out and share information with employees or customers about charitable giving and investing locally. We also have businesses that do things like encourage starting a giving circle for a special department. They can, we can help any business run a giving day just for their team.

You can join us this fall at the Philanthropy Summit. There's so many ways year round to work with the foundation to really elevate your business in terms of visibility, but also do a lot of staff retention and really showcase what you're doing for the community, for your customers. 

Jeff Holden: And I love the fact that you also have pre promoted Philanthropy Summit because that means there is going to be a third annual.

And so looking forward to that, what a, a tremendous asset to the community for [00:06:00] nonprofits to gather for philanthropists, uh, those interested in giving and certainly businesses now to really engage deeper into the community and the community of giving to learn what their opportunities, their options, and ways to engage are.

 Kelly Seifkin: This community has really shattered from the rooftop. We didn't know that the response would be so outstanding, and we will be back this year for a third installment. We'll do some educational sessions. We'll have a great keynote speaker. We'll allow time for that networking, and we'll make sure that people who are interested in philanthropy have all of the resources they need to be successful.

Jeff Holden: So Kelly, not to forget about Big Day of Giving, certainly we're interested in Philanthropy Summit, but coming right up Big Day of Giving May 7th, what are the expectations? Have you set a goal or better yet, what was last year's total? Do you recall? 

 Kelly Seifkin: Last year, the community raised $13.8 million on Big Day of Giving, and after doing that for 13 consecutive years.

There's $117 [00:07:00] million that these nonprofits have raised to really shape and change our community. 

Jeff Holden: Knowing that we've grown from roughly 850 last year to 900 this year, it's just such a great opportunity for nonprofits to not only engage and receive some funding, which is unrestricted, but also the ability to brand themselves, to get the community to be aware that they exist.

Otherwise, who knows? 

 Kelly Seifkin: It's so incredible the visibility that Big Day giving brings to all of our nonprofit partners. But I think another thing that people forget outside of the dollars is it is that exposure for new donors to find the nonprofit. Become engaged. Maybe they are interested in becoming a volunteer.

Maybe they're a great fit because a family member had received services in the past. We have great information where more and more people are coming and giving to one new nonprofit each year that they don't know about. Con our plus [00:08:00] one, you know, support your regular four or five and find one more.

We've got great tools that allow you to do that. 

Jeff Holden: And what's so good about this as a business, if you're thinking about ways to get your people involved in even the smallest of a philanthropic effort, what a great way to do it by having your business engaged in Big Day of Giving. 

 Kelly Seifkin: We've seen so many businesses have success.

By modeling this for their employees, whether it's a competitive strategy or a collaborative one, you might be able to encourage at the end of the day to support an X number of nonprofits or maybe reached a total collective goal. Some businesses like to seed the pot and give employees a certain amount of dollars to make a contribution, and then our.

Pleasantly surprised when those dollar amounts go up and above and beyond because people really love how being philanthropic makes 'em feel. 

Jeff Holden: And all this information will be available in the link. I'll have the link in the [00:09:00] show notes, so it's just easy access. Click take a look and see what you can do with your business this year if you haven't been participating.

And if you have, you might find some new options, ways to engage, things you hadn't thought about, whether it's customer engagement, staff engagement, whatever. 

 Kelly Seifkin: Thank you to all of our businesses that have been with us for years and years, and we welcome all the new ones that wanna be part of Big Day of Giving going forward.

Jeff Holden: And thank you, Kelly for sharing the concept to be thinking about it from a business perspective. 

 Kelly Seifkin: Thank you. 

Jeff Holden: Remember, big Day of Giving is May 7th. Thanks for listening. If you like our program, please subscribe, give us a positive review and share with someone you know. This nonprofit podcast News Pod is a production of Hear Meow Studio