Capital Region Cares Capital Region Cares 2018-2019 | Seite 116

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Feature
A
ngel Watson could barely keep her son Charlie away
from the 916 Ink booth at the Sacramento Summer
Night Lights festival when they visited in August
2017. The Sacramento nonprofit that seeks to em-
power youth through creative writing was offering a
book-writing activity by encouraging kids to answer various
prompts. So when 916 Ink sent Watson an email in the fall
inviting 9-year-old Charlie to write his own book as part of
the Word Squad enrichment program, she signed him up as
well as her older son Andre, a high school senior.
Each week Watson brought her sons to the drop-in after-
school program where they would work on writing poetry,
fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as editing and revising
their work. She began to see noticeable improvements in
their literacy abilities and interest in writing. “I’ve seen a big
difference in their creativity,” says Watson, “and it really helped
build their self-confidence.” At the end-of-year party, the young
authors each presented one of the books they wrote to a crowd
of fellow students and parents. Their names in print next to
their individual story creations was an unexpected bonus.
At 916 Ink, Sacramento area youth in grades 3-12 learn to be
confident writers and published
authors through creative writ-
ing workshops, field trips and
summer camps. Its workshops
focus on increasing literacy and
communication skills and im-
proving vocabulary. It operates
on a shoestring budget, but in
recent years, its fundraising ef-
forts have gotten a boost from
the Sacramento Region Commu-
nity Foundation’s Big Day of Giv-
ing. “There’s no other day where
more people are talking about nonprofits in the region. It’s this
real touchpoint for the community, which is phenomenal,” says
916 Ink executive director Ian Hadley.
Launched in 2013 as the Arts Day of Giving, SCRF’s 24-hour
fundraising event and yearlong capacity-building program has
since expanded to include all nonprofit sectors. In its first year,
the program raised $500,000 through 78 arts organizations and
2,500 donors. Five years later, the annual program pulled in re-
cord donations of nearly $7.4 million from 587 nonprofits and
21,000 donors, bringing the total generated since the inception
of the program to more than $30 million. In addition to con-
necting people with the causes they care about, the Big Day of
Giving has made a significant impact on nonprofit awareness
and engagement throughout the region by helping more than
600 local nonprofits raise unrestricted funds, increase visibili-
ty, collaborate with their nonprofit peers, and strengthen their
own organizations and the region.
Its four philanthropic initiatives are broad and encompass pro-
grams that make measurable differences in the arts, education,
food access and philanthropy. During the development of the
Big Day of Giving, SRCF was also defining the details of a stra-
tegic plan for the organization, with a goal to elevate individual
philanthropy in the region as one of its primary objectives.
“We know we aren’t blessed with a bunch of Fortune 500
companies in the region, so we felt it was an appropriate role
for the community foundation to really look at how to foster
individual philanthropy,” says SRCF CEO Linda Beech Cut-
ler. The BDOG program offers individual donors a simplified,
low-stakes point of entry to philanthropy, providing a gate-
way to make donations of any size to participating nonprof-
its. Year after year, the foundation has found that roughly 30
percent of the BDOG donors are new to the organizations
they’re giving to, or are new to donating at all. In addition, a
full 50 percent of the donations are $15-$50, with the collec-
tive impact at this level totaling $758,650 for those who gave
through the BDOG website.
To participate in the annual BDOG program, nonprof-
its must meet a set of eligibility requirements and complete
training to help build capac-
ity in areas such as donor en-
gagement, board development,
collaboration and marketing
outreach. A detailed profile
that delves deep into the non-
profit’s story, board makeup,
finances and programs is also
required and updated annual-
ly. SCRF provides these tools
for nonprofits to use BDOG as a
springboard for capacity build-
ing all year long. “Its impact is
designed to be greater than a single day,” says Beech Cutler.
916 Ink has been participating in the BDOG for four years
and takes the SRCF guidance seriously. “We try to under-
stand the overall strategy for the day and start early with our
social media and community engagement,” Hadley says. The
nonprofit raised over $41,000 this year from 479 donations. It
also retained 72 percent of its donors from last year.
To help donors remain engaged all year long, SRCF
launched the GivingEdge, an online giving portal and search-
able database for information on local nonprofits, including
BDOG participants. “It’s a year-round, living, breathing tool
that promotes donor information and nonprofit transparen-
cy,” says Beech Cutler. “It’s a great engagement tool that has
gotten extremely good feedback on how it’s being used by
both the nonprofits and the donors.”
In 2015, Big Day of Giving
pulled in record donations
of nearly $7.4 million from
587 nonprofits and 21,000
donors.
BIGGER THAN A SINGLE DAY
Founded in 1983, the Sacramento Region Community Founda-
tion manages over 590 charitable funds for local families, busi-
nesses and nonprofits with an asset size of over $145 million.
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NONPROFIT COLLABORATION
While the SRCF created the BDOG program and continues to
run it in many ways, the nonprofits — who are the financial
beneficiaries of the unrestricted funds — have taken on more
ownership and responsibility for events, along with matching
and prize dollars. The program went from a handful of BDOG