Give!Guide 2013 Results

To our readers:

Here at Give!Guide Central, our annual effort to raise funds for local nonprofits coincides with the dropping of the New Year's Eve ball. At the stroke of midnight, we shut off the website's Donate button, and those of us who work with this crazy project step back in sheer awe and amazement at your generosity.

This past November and December, 7,427 of you contributed $2,453,083 to the betterment of our community. You did so without any sort of public recognition but with a public spirit that serves as fuel for this annual effort.

To get a sense of how generous you are, I did a quick comparison with the gold standard of our industry—The New York Times, which, for the past 101 years, has conducted its own annual giving campaign. The Times is America's most influential newspaper, and its readers are wealthier than the average Portlander. Yet, factoring in total readership and amounts donated, you're at least 10 times more generous.

G!G's primary goal—to get Portlanders 35 and under into the habit of charitable giving—has also been wildly successful. This year, 2,065 of you are under 35—twice as many as last year. Your generosity has moved this into a whole new dimension.

All 7,427 of you are just plain amazing. And good. And giving. And we can't thank you enough.


We call Willamette Week's Give!Guide an experiment that engages print and social media, Portland businesses and our incredible nonprofit community in a common purpose.

It really does take a large village to pull this off. Creative agency Grady Britton did incredible work to give us a new website. Great local companies (like Bob's Red Mill, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Widmer Brothers Brewing and A to Z Wineworks) helped with incentives. The folks at Leftbank Annex hosted a splendid kickoff party in early November, and Morel Ink donated thousands of great grocery bags and lawn signs. Portland Center for the Media Arts produced compelling videos. We also want to thank and acknowledge the remarkable Skidmore Prize winners, all our wonderful corporate sponsors and the thousands of incredible Portlanders who work at this year's 129 participating nonprofits.

Special props to G!G executive director Nick Johnson, intern Katie Mundal and designer Amy Martin.


 

A project like this engenders many good stories.

One is the incredible spirit of cooperation that existed this year among participating nonprofits. On Dec. 1, for example, A-WOL Dance Collective, Polaris Dance Theatre and the Circus Project teamed up to produce a wonderful evening of dance and aerial work, all as part of showcasing their participation in this year's G!G.

I heard another from a Portland family as midnight approached on Dec. 31. Their two children, both now in high school, save some of the money they earn during the year. Then, on New Year's Eve, they get together with their parents to make Give!Guide contributions. The parents match their children's gifts.

A couple of interesting statistics from the 2013 G!G: 

  1. For all 10 years of G!G’s history, Northeast Portland gave the most, but was nearly caught this year by Southeast.
  1. This year’s goal was $2.1 million. You reached it at 12:06 pm on Dec. 31—and in the next 11 hours  and 54 minutes, you gave $300,000 more—to set a G!G record.
  1. You gave $243,740 to the Oregon Cultural Trust. Oregon Food Bank was second with $128,622. Equally impressive was your support for smaller, lesser-known nonprofits. (For those of you who relish such statistics, there are more to be found at giveguide.org.)

G!G and the Skidmore Prize will return later this year, starting with applications and nominations this summer. (WW and wweek.com will carry announcements.) 

In the meantime, we are thrilled by your participation. We say WW's purpose is to make Portland a better place in which to live, work and play. Now, we may need to amend that—to making Portland a better place to live, work, play and give.

Thank you again for putting real, heartfelt substance behind the words we so honor on the Skidmore Fountain in Old Town: "Good citizens are the riches of a city."

PUBLISHER

PS: The next two issues of WW will contain our third annual Volunteer Guide. It's our way to help you give something other than money—a little of your sweat equity—to local nonprofits. See if there's something that interests you, and tell your friends.

Results, by Participating Nonprofit

1000 Friends of Oregon $17,329
A-WOL Dance Collective $1,490
AC Portland $8,011
Adelante Mujeres $6,782
Audubon Society of Portland $24,104
Basic Rights Education Fund $15,449
Bicycle Transportation Alliance $46,377
Bradley Angle $12,395
CASA for Children of Multnomah and Washington Counties $12,445
Cat Adoption Team $52,334
Central City Concern $20,131
The Children’s Book Bank $19,507
The Circus Project $10,820
Classroom Law Project $14,600
CoHo Productions $4,580
Columbia Riverkeeper $6,081
Community Cycling Center $48,431
Community Warehouse $21,485
The Dental Foundation of Oregon $11,513
Depave $13,321
The Dougy Center $8,875
Family Dogs New Life Shelter $14,850
Farmers Ending Hunger $7,520
Farmers Market Fund $6,471
FearNoMusic $4,305
Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon $42,677
The Forest Park Conservancy $27,110
Friends of Family Farmers $6,040
Friends of Outdoor School $15,677
Friends of the Children - Portland $13,603
Friends of the Columbia Gorge $43,510
Friends of Trees $23,312
Girls Inc. of NW Oregon $6,898
Girls on the Run Portland Metro $3,525
Growing Gardens $27,224
Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East $57,530
Hacienda CDC $8,656
Hand2Mouth Theatre $1,544
Harper’s Playground $10,879
Hells Canyon Preservation Council $11,056
Hoyt Arboretum Friends $11,430
Human Access Project $4,350
Human Solutions $12,355
I Have a Dream Oregon $16,138
Impact NW $13,910
Independent Publishing Resource Center $24,281
The Jeremy Wilson Foundation $9,465
JOIN $39,823
Know Your City $2,490
Latino Network $2,520
Lettuce Grow: Prison Food Garden Project $8,538
The Library Foundation $32,480
Literary Arts $16,972
Live Wire Radio $7,855
Living Yoga $4,356
Macdonald Center $6,552
Meals on Wheels People $37,673
Mercy Corps Northwest and Action Ctr $66,571
Miracle Theatre Group $3,547
Momentum Alliance $3,619
Morrison Child and Family Services $5,710
Museum of Contemporary Craft $9,570
My Voice Music $5,487
Neighborhood House $30,141
North by Northeast Community Health Ctr $33,003
Northeast Emergency Food Program $13,271
Northwest Children’s Theater & School $6,060
Northwest Classical Theatre Company $2,507
Northwest Documentary $3,352
Northwest Mothers Milk Bank $9,525
Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center $12,202
Operation Nightwatch $11,165
Oregon Cultural Trust $243,740
Oregon Food Bank $128,622
Oregon Humane Society $45,751
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry $5,900
Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. $11,665
Oregon Wild $20,846
p:ear $28,910
PAW (Portland Animal Welfare) Team $18,679
PDX Pop Now! $8,657
The Pixie Project $24,645
Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette $103,751
PlayWrite, Inc. $3,620
Polaris Dance Theatre $5,025
The Pongo Fund Pet Food Bank $112,110
Portland After-School Tennis & Education $2,445
Portland Children’s Museum $3,520
Portland Fruit Tree Project $18,235
Portland Gay Men’s Chorus $5,600
Portland Homeless Family Solutions $14,875
The Portland Kitchen $6,655
Portland Lesbian Choir $1,503
Portland Tool Libraries $5,010
Portland Women’s Crisis Line (PWCL) $12,475
Portland YouthBuilders $18,735
Potluck in the Park $8,895
Project Access NOW $11,451
Project POOCH, Inc. $19,903
Q Center $5,286
Raphael House of Portland $16,450
ReFIT: Remodeling for Independence Together $2,107
Returning Veterans Project $11,318
Ride Connection $3,290
The Right Brain Initiative $14,287
Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls $9,495
Schoolhouse Supplies $12,060
Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC) $6,800
The Shadow Project $20,631
Sisters Of The Road $66,318
SMART (Start Making A Reader Today) $18,300
SOLVE $5,164
Street Roots $22,964
Sunshine Division, Inc. $18,777
Tavern Books $2,295
TransActive Education & Advocacy $2,671
Transition Projects $15,615
The Tucker-Maxon School $12,065
Urban Farm Collective $4,987
Urban Gleaners $14,366
Vibe of Portland $5,877
Virginia Garcia Memorial Foundation / Health Ctr $11,182
Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project $3,905
Wallace Medical Concern $27,900
West Women’s and Children’s Shelter $11,541
Willamette Riverkeeper $8,428
Wordstock $6,940
Write Around Portland $14,364
Youth, Rights & Justice $5,166
Zenger Farm $5,946


Total $2,453,083

Great Business Partners

(Please patronize them.)

Adidas

A to Z Wineworks

Bank of America

Bike Gallery

Bob's Red Mill

Chinook Book

Comcast

Communion

Davis Wright Tremaine

Egg Press Collection

Fashion Buddha

IKEA

Intel

Grady Britton

Ken's Artisan Bakery

Kiehl's

Kind

Leftbank Annex

McMenamins

Morel Ink

New Seasons Market

Oregon Community Foundation

Oregon Public House

Pedal Bike Tours

¿Por Qué No? Taqueria

Portland Center for the Media Arts

Portland Center Stage

Quad Graphics

Rogue Distillery

Rose City Mortgage

Salt & Straw

Scout Books

The Standard

Steven Smith Teamaker

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Tender Loving Empire

Thompson Kessler Wiest & Borquist

Two Tarts

Umpqua Bank

United Way

Washman Car Wash

Whole Foods Market

Widmer Brothers Brewing

WWeek 2015

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