by Grant Oliphant
President and CEO

The Pittsburgh Foundation’s 24-hour Day of Giving event on October 4 is more significant than ever in terms of engaging our region’s donors in the critical work of our community’s nonprofit agencies. The after-effects of the economic recession still linger and government spending cuts at local and national levels are taking a heavy toll on the already depleted resources of many of our charitable agencies.

The Foundation hopes and believes that we will exceed the $3.3 million raised in last year’s community-wide event. Already, we know that more local nonprofits will participate this year than ever before, with over 600 organizations having completed new or updated profiles on the Foundation’s on-line PittsburghGives and WestmorelandGives platforms to ensure that they may benefit from a share of the matching funds that will be available.

This number compares with 433 nonprofits registered for last year’s Day of Giving, and 355 for our first Match Day event in 2009. To all those organizations that dedicated their time and commitment in assembling the necessary data to complete their on-line profiles, we congratulate and thank you and we welcome your involvement.

Not only is this further endorsement of our PittsburghGives program, it also underscores the changing trends towards charitable giving among communities across the U.S. Sophisticated but easy-to-use on-line programs engage citizens in ways that were inconceivable a decade ago, and the Foundation has this year again provided a series of free classes for nonprofits on the uses of various social media tools.

PittsburghGives was designed purposefully to inspire nonprofits to expand their bases of donor support and to strengthen their funding streams. Already it has become a powerful resource for our region, while serving as a national model for similar initiatives developed by other foundations across the nation.

Since the PittsburghGives program was launched two years ago, special giving events have so far generated $7 million for local nonprofits. For last year’s Day of Giving, the $3.3 million raised was the equivalent of $38 per second; 7,778 individual contributions were received – an eight-fold increase on 2009; the average gift size was $313; gifts were received from donors in 44 of the 50 U.S. states; 96 percent of the nonprofits profiled on PittsburghGives received gifts.

We will shortly announce the total for this year’s matching fund, but we can confirm it will be a minimum of $500,000 with a further $100,000 available for Westmoreland’s Day of Giving that will run simultaneously. And with your help, I know we can set new records for the way our community supports the invaluable work of our nonprofit organizations.