When it all ended Friday at midnight, Live PC Give PC had broken its records for both funds raised and the number of donors.
Park City Community Foundation reports Live PC Give PC surpassed their goal of 4,500 unique donors – with 4,790 people contributing to area non-profits. They also raised over $2.4 million -- a $400,000 increase from last year. Park City Community Foundation board member Mike Ruzek reports that changing the organizations focus to unique donors was a success.
“Moving away from a dollar goal to a donor goal. In light of it being a community event it really resonates with the fact that we want more donors and getting kids involved and getting other people that haven’t been aware of Live PC Give PC involved. We’ll go back to the drawing board and see what we should change where but so far it seems to be working quite well.”
The organization hit the goal just before 10:00 pm during one of three power-hours throughout the day. Park City Community Foundation Community Impact Director Ollie Wilder explains the impact the power hours had on the day.
“The next 200 unique donor donations after each of those hours started would get you $20 extra. So, $4,000 each time, there was actually $12,000 in play in those three power hours. That was Vail Resorts Epic Promise and Park City Mountain that put that money forward for us.”
Wilder says 18 organizations were awarded additional sums for being at the top of five different leaderboards, as well as the overall winner.
“Once again Mountain Trails Foundation beat everybody. They had 880 donors for that one organization, so they win the first prize of $2,500 on the all non-profits leaderboard which is also sponsored by Vail Resorts Epic Promise and Park City Mountain. Second place on that was Park City Education Foundation they get $1,500 for that. Nuzzles & Co. came in third with 562 donors and they get $1,250 dollars."
The leaderboard results are listed below:
Caring for Each Other Leaderboard Sponsored by Intermountain Park City Hospital:
$1,250 awarded to People's Health Clinic with 434 donors.
$750 awarded to Peace House with 311 donors.
$500 awarded to The Hope Alliance with 247 donors.
Energizing and Enlivening Leaderboard Sponsored by Park City Community Foundation:
$1,250 awarded to KPCW Radio with 315 donors.
$750 awarded to Mountain Town Music with 276 donors.
$500 awarded to Kimball Arts Center with 153 donors.
Keep On Moving Leaderboard Sponosred by Park City Community Foundation:
$1,250 awarded to National Ability Center with 261 donors.
$750 awarded to Youth Sports Alliance with 226 donors.
$500 awarded to Park City Ski and Snowboard with 217 donors.
Protecting Where We Play Leaderboard Sponsored by Andeavor Foundation:
$1,250 awarded to Summit Land Conservance with 424 donors.
$750 awarded to Recycle Utah with 350 donors.
$500 awarded to Bill White Farms with 174 donors.
Sparking Minds Leaderboard Sponsored by GBS Benefits | Jeff & Lydia Kluge:
$1,250 awarded to EATS Park City with 218 donors.
$750 awarded to PC Tots with 203 donors.
$500 awarded to the Joseph James Morelli Scholarship Fund with 144 donors.
KPCW asked if the increased success was due to more giving or better gamesmanship from nonprofits.
“Of the $2.4 million, $1.1 million actually came in online on the platform. The rest of it gets reported by the nonprofits as other gifts that are associate with Live PC Give PC. That $1.1 million in online gifts is up from just over $900,000 the year before. I mean there’s no way to fake that, the offline donors don’t get counted for the prizes and for our big goal. So, these are very real people that are really giving. And you’re right the, nonprofits are getting better at actually getting the word out and rallying for the cause.”
Ruzek and Wilder say that there is one spot where nonprofits could look to improve, that’s with matching grants.
“There was $571,000 in matching grants which is a 53% bump from last year.” Ruzek said, “So that really just shows that the nonprofits have realized and figured out how to use this day and leverage this day and leverage their donor bases to make this the success it is.” Wilder added “Of the 114, a little over half had matching grants. That’s a big bump but it shows you that there’s still room for growth. There are a lot of nonprofits that still didn’t have matching grants and they might’ve done even better. So, you know I think there’s still room here.”
Wilder and Ruzek explained that the matching grants come from an individual donor or company and is the responsibility of the nonprofits to find. Park City Community Foundation says they haven’t picked a date for the 2019 Live PC Give PC but it’s often the Friday after election day.
Ruzek added, “Great community event all together now in eight years this is over 10 million dollars that’s been raised by this little day of giving which is just tremendous for our town. So, congratulations to all."
