Give NOLA

Two blog posts back to back? I am spoiling you guys! But more so, I couldn't resist telling everyone about the awesome fundraiser that took place this past Tuesday, May 6th in New Orleans. Sponsored by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, nonprofits all throughout Southern Louisiana participated in GiveNOLA for the first time. Here's how it worked:

- For the entire day of May 6th (12:00am - 11:59pm) you could make donations to your favorite nonprofits through the GiveNOLA website
- Organizations were broken into Small (budget of under $1 million) and Large (budget over $1 million)
- After the 24 hours of giving whatever percent your organization raised of the total amount raised you would be given that same percent of a $200,000 fund (called the Lagniappe fund...so for example if the total amount raised by nonprofits was $2 million and your organization raised $20,000 you raised 1% of the total amount raised and would get 1% of the $200,000 fund landing your organization an extra $2,000!)
- You could win additional money by ranking 1st ($10,000), 2nd ($5,000) or 3rd ($3,000) in either most money raised or most unique donors (there were 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners for both small and large organizations)
- Every hour there was also a random drawing where every organization that received at least one donation during that hour was eligible for. If you were picked during that hour you won an additional $1,000 for your organization! (So, an additional $24,000 was given out to 24 randomly picked nonprofits)

I was completely blown away at the generosity of people towards the nonprofits in New Orleans.Over $2.2 million dollars was raised from a total over 19,000 gifts! Project Homecoming raised over $20,000 and with the matching percent of the Lagniappe fund will have raised a total of over $22,000! We can accomplish so much with that money and it puts a smile on my face to see how much was given in such a short period of time to not only Project Homecoming but other wonderful nonprofits all over the city. If you are curious about other organizations that were involved or are just curious about GiveNOLA in general, click here to explore the website.


Lesson from the Journey: Everyone who says that New Orleans isn't worth rebuilding should just take a quick look at the GiveNOLA website. There is some fantastic work being done down here that people not only want to see down but support. It's amazing.