NonProfit NewsPod: BDOG 2026 Record Setting $15.4 Million Raised

Jeff Holden: [00:00:00] Welcome to this nonprofit podcast, NewsPod, where we amplify the voices of nonprofits making a difference in their communities. I'm joined once again by Kelly Siefkin, Chief Philanthropy Officer at the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, to close out our series on BDOG Big Day of Giving 2026. Kelly, what a big day of giving it was indeed.

Kelly Siefkin: I'm overwhelmed. I am exhausted. I am proud. It is the biggest Big Day of Giving we've ever had. It's certainly amazing, and I was up working on some things, and I said, "I'll go check the site at, like, 10:15 or so," and I remember you, myself, Carrie all talking, saying, "Boy, wouldn't it be cool if we could, like, get over last year?"

Which we kind of expected. 14 million would be awesome, and it was, like, maybe [00:01:00] 10:30, and it was 14-something, and I'm thinking, "Oh, my gosh, it's... It might get to 15." And if anybody went to the site in real time, it's a tally, and you could see it would load bundle and then, you know, roll the scroll like a slot machine of sorts.

Jeff Holden: Yes. And the money and the dollars were just rolling, and I'm looking at it going, "That's not... That's, that's tens of thousands- Yeah ... it's scrolling." Yeah. And, you know, I, I would go back every 15, 20 minutes and say, "Oh, my gosh, it's gonna hit 15," and by about 11-something it was at 15, and I said, "Wow." And then it added another $400,000.

Yeah. How cool, how amazing. Just what an accomplishment. I, I, I want you to share- Mm-hmm ... some of the details that we know to date. I know everything isn't already accounted for, and you still have some work to... I assume you still have a lot of work to do. But if you could just give us the, the, the overview, the high level for those who have not heard, starting with the total dollar amount, organizations, [00:02:00] everything that you can, uh, you can share at this point.

Kelly Siefkin: Absolutely. $15.4 million. Remember, our largest event was 13.8. I cannot believe how many individuals from this community stepped up. It, 62,017 donations, and that came from 29,091 donors. So donors made more than one donation, which is really incredible to see. It, 886 organizations received gifts, record numbers.

I think a lot of people really leaned into the Golden One proportional match because 715 organizations really benefited by that boost, which was wonderful. Collectively, this region has raised $132 million now since 2013, and you can find all of these in, you know, statistics plus a whole much more on bigdayofgiving.org.

If you're curious to see, you know, what the giving was like by organizational size, they have that [00:03:00] main leaderboard that you spoke about, Jeff, and you could see by total dollars raised and total numbers of donations. If you're curious about mission category, wanted to see how it worked in the animal organizations or within the housing, you can search by that way, and also by county.

Jeff Holden: There's a lot of ways you can slice and dice this information, but I think the big message to get across is, uh, is one of gratitude and one of excitement for the nonprofits that live here in our region. Well, it definitely demonstrates, too, that people in Sacramento care. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't just about the massive behemoth organizations.

No. It was organizations as small as all-volunteer organizations- Yeah ... two, three, four people. Yeah. And I think maybe that $10 gift, the ability to give such a, a nominal amount to get people started, helped. I know you'll have the stats on that at some point in the- Yeah ... not too distant future. But of all those organizations, and when you look at the top 10, it was nice to see that there were legacy organizations- Yeah

that serve the community. You know, the Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services, and Volunteers of America, and Salvation [00:04:00] Army. Yeah. Who you would expect, and they've got this big presence in the community. They serve a lot, a lot of people, and they're known. And- Absolutely ... uh, it's almost as it should be. And then as we got into those, those next tiers, the surprises of seeing some of the- Oh

organizations, for you, I'm sure, for us, because of course they're alum of the program, and we're rooting for everybody that's come through the program, and just to see their performances, just, just amazing. Just amazing all the way around. And to your point, yes, we were so proud to be a part of this year's program as well.

Start to finish, talking with so many things from, from where you and I started with the first NewsPod- Yeah ... just about the basics of it six weeks ago, which seems like an eternity, doesn't it? It does. And just all the opportunities for partici- participation, and what people can do and how they should do it, and we did see those who followed some of the protocol, who took the training- Yeah

who engaged the way that you were expecting them to, [00:05:00] they did better. Yeah. And, and that's what... That's the really important thing about BDOG, giving, it's, it's very much like life. You get out of it what you put into it. And so I think the, the organizations that found a mentor, and the ones that rallied their board to make a match, and the ones that took the tools that were available to them and used them for fundraising were very successful.

Kelly Siefkin: But something you said was very interesting, Jeff. I think we had the number of organizations go up and the number of dollars go up, and I sort of want to remind people that we're... It's not supposed to be a competition. There's not a limited pie that we're fighting over. When more organizations participate in things like this, a greater spotlight lands on philanthropy, and more people than ever give, and that improves the sector overall.

Jeff Holden: And to your point, this is not a finite number. No. The number is infinite- Yeah ... based on the number of participants and the people and the dollars. So you're right, it's, it's not a competition- Yeah ... other than with yourself to say, "We wanna do better than last year." Absolutely. And certainly [00:06:00] everybody does in any way, shape, or form, even as we were talking, the organization itself- Yeah

the Sacramento Region Community Foundation. Totally. Can we do better? Yep. And, and every year isn't going to go that way, but it really is exciting to see a year like this when there was so much uncertainty and so much concern over the economy that people were still willing to step up, and not in a little way.

I mean, in a- Yeah ... big way. It's, it's just a huge, huge acknowledgement for philanthropy in Sacramento. Were, were there any surprises for you? Uh, there were a few. I think we started to receive some great feedback from participants, you know, donors about the ease of giving as well as from, like, those new methods that we've been offering.

Kelly Siefkin: So we've seen increased participation from donor-advised funds, not just through the foundation, but through other institutions. That was great. We saw a spike in PayPal this year, which was really interesting. Number of QCDs went up, I think because they're the hottest giving vehicle right now. I'm not surprised that they came through BDOG as [00:07:00] well.

And, you know, some donors took advantage of our new donation model of stocks. And you know, when we throw something out there, we're not sure how individuals are gonna respond, but we have to always remember there's a wide variety of ways people can support the nonprofit. So as the foundation offers those, it's great to see those results.

You know- And, and we- Go ahead ... I was gonna say, we did address those in a couple of episo- episodes pre- Yeah ... BDOG as well. Which is wonderful. Prizes are always a surprise, which is what they're meant to do. We gave out over $107,000 in prizes, and that's thanks to Western Health Advantage and some other of our prize sponsors.

The Mega Boost this year was, uh, granted to the Old City Cemetery Committee. So they received a $5,000 boost from a gift that was made, um, during the BDOG. I wanna share with you their entire goal, their entire goal for BDOG was $5,000. Oh my goodness. So we know that these prizes make a huge difference for nonprofits in our community.

And then the [00:08:00] final thing that surprised me was we received more matches than ever before. And not, like, $50 more in that matches. We received over $1 million more in matches than last year. Those are companies, those are individuals, those are boards coming together, putting up those max dollars, which often incentivize donors to give.

Jeff Holden: That's an amazing number, a million dollars in just matches. A million dollars more than last year in matches. Yes. It's incredible. Yeah, so if you're not playing- ... you can't get, you know? And, and those matched hours are there. Yeah, they are. Amazing. Just amazing. Well, we don't wanna keep anybody too long.

Everybody's exhausted after the work. Uh, I mean, it seems like it was weeks ago that it just happened. It was only a few days ago. Yeah. And it's, uh, amazing to think that, you know, here we are rolling now and, and- Yeah ... moving forward into, oh, what's 2027 gonna look like? But it was really important to share this because we did those prior five episodes [00:09:00] all leading up to it, and there are people who maybe they've been too wrapped up, they were busy.

We had Mother's Day weekend, and- Yeah ... oh, uh, uh, what happened? And so we really wanna get it out and share and give people the acknowledgement that- Yeah ... they deserve for the work that they put into this. What a, an incredible community we live in, and I know we can't thank everyone individually, but are there some people we should recognize before we wrap it up and put a ribbon and bow on it?

Kelly Siefkin: Yes. I'd love, I'd love for everyone to thank Western Health Advantage. They've been our lead sponsor for years now, and that $100,000 of prizes I spoke of comes from their generosity. Golden 1 has that proportional match. There's another $100,000 that people are getting just by using their Golden 1 cards.

All of our sponsors are incredible. We're so, so fortunate. I wanna thank all the nonprofits who worked tirelessly and their boards who maybe led some of those matching gifts. Most importantly, of course, I want to thank the donors. They gave generously, whether that was $10 or $10,000. It's a [00:10:00] much larger number of donors that showed up last year.

And I, I also wanna do a shout-out to the foundation staff. We have a team of 20 people here, and we work on Big Day of Giving nearly year-round. There's, there's, uh, co-leads for that, both, uh, Basie and Monica, and under their leadership, we wanna make sure that we're doing things better and more efficiently and creatively year after year so that it's the best success that a nonprofit and a donor could experience.

Jeff Holden: Well, everybody certainly did what they needed to do this year, and congratulations again. Thank you. And, you know, in closing, how about a whopping 15 million thank yous to the Greater Sacramento region, to you, Sacramento Region Community Foundation. Congratulations again. And now it's time to be sure that everybody has their calendars marked for, what is it?

May 6th, 2027, if I'm not mistaken. You got it. That is next year's Big Day of Giving. Kelly, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your support in what became a record-setting year. Thank you. [00:11:00] Thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you these past six weeks and finally seeing the result of all this work. Mm.

This is what it looks like when philanthropy at every level shows up. Thank you. Thank you. 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 Me Now Studio.