By Grant Oliphant
President and CEO

Pittsburgh, take a bow. Your generous and passionate commitment to local charitable causes in supporting our community’s Day of Giving achieved more than just set new on-line fundraising records. In the immortal words of the actor Michael Caine, “You blew the bloody doors off.”

More than 13,600 individual acts of kindness – almost double the number of donations for last year’s event – incredibly contributed nearly $6.5 million to nonprofit organizations in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties – almost twice the total for 2010.

Over the 24-hour midnight-to-midnight giving period on October 4, that equates to around $75 per second. Gifts ranged from the $25 minimum to $15,000 and more, the biggest being a donation of $25,000.

During the next few days, our Foundation staff will be verifying all of the data and completing financial reconciliations. Every dollar donated will received an equal, pro-rated share of the available matching funds, and once all the administrative formalities are finished, we will be able to announce what the match is.

But I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate all of you who participated, all of our nonprofits who have supported The Pittsburgh Foundation’s PittsburghGives program, and, of course, our funding partners who provided funds for the match pool, including the Foundation’s Jack G. Buncher Charitable Fund, The Buhl Foundation, The Heinz Endowments and the Leonard C. Grasso Charitable Foundation.

This is also a moment to recognize the enormous and successful work of local nonprofits to embrace social media tools and on-line technology so effectively in reaching out to their supporters, prospective donors and other key constituents. The Foundation ran special social media classes in Pittsburgh and at the Greensburg headquarters of our affiliate, the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County, and these were attended by more than 400 charitable organizations.

Since we first launched our PittsburghGives on-line fundraising and research resource in 2009, the program has been responsible for raising $13.5 million for our region’s nonprofits. And that program, which was developed in close consultation with our community and is now recognized as one of the most successful in the U.S., is now being used as a national model by other community foundations and organizations across the country.

Congratulations to you all on a truly magnificent achievement.