The eighth annual daylong Do More 24 campaign helped to raise a combined $2.3 million for more than 500 nonprofits around the state last week.
Organized by United Way of Delaware and Spur Impact, the donation drive helps to coalesce the needs of all nonprofits around the state and raise awareness of their programs. It works with sponsors who offer incentive bonuses for nonprofits that reach certain goals over the 24-hour period that ran March 2-3 this year. This year’s total fell shy of last year’s record $2.6 million haul, but still produced lots of valuable funding for organizations.
The largest sum raised in the 2023 campaign was more than $100,000 for OperaDelaware in Wilmington, while the Barbara K. Brooks Transition House in Georgetown raised almost $75,000. The Boys and Girls Clubs of Delaware saw the most individual donations for a large nonprofit with 521 totaling almost $54,500, while The Shepherd’s Office in Georgetown received the most for a small nonprofit with 640 donations totaling almost $68,000.
For nonprofits large and small, the donation drive has become an important funding source, especially as it arrives after the winter holiday season when many people make donations. For the organizers, it’s an opportunity to help organizations think about how they are reaching the public.
“We want to help build capacity for these nonprofits,” said Tierra Fair, vice president of engagement and partnerships at United Way of Delaware (UWDE), who noted that the number of nonprofits assisted has grown from about 100 to 500 in the past four years.
One of the ways that UWDE and Spur Impact can do that is by hosting training sessions on marketing in the months preceding the donation drive. They schedule local experts, such as Stephanie Cory Consulting in Wilmington, to talk with nonprofits about social media usage, video production, donor cultivation, and volunteer recruitment, among other topics.
The partners also launched “Social Media Ambassadors” a few years ago, which matches college students from the University of Delaware College of Arts and Sciences to help them utilize social media platforms to reach audiences. That grew from about a dozen original ambassadors a few years ago to more than 100 this year.
“The help that they were able to give is indescribable. The nonprofits were so grateful,” Fair said, noting that many of those assisted were one- or two-person organizations. “And a lot of [the students] have never worked at a nonprofit so it was a great bit of career exploration for them.”
Fair and Jennifer Saienni, director of nonprofit engagement at Spur Impact, also personally meet with nonprofits to help them brainstorm fundraiser tactics and marketing ideas in the months ahead of the event.
“We want you to not just feel like you’re on your own with this, but you have partners,” Fair said.
To take advantage of the resources before the 2024 Do More 24 campaign, sign up at domore24delaware.org/contact.
