Events

Community Options, a national nonprofit organization that supports people with disabilities, is working to promote greater health and wellness this Valentines Day. The organization has put together a national 5K Run, Cupids Chase, which will take place in 24 cities across 10 states on February 12, 2011.

Mary Pat Christie, First Lady of New Jersey, is the Honorary National Chairperson of Cupids Chase. Christie is working with Community Options to bring greater awareness to the cause and promote corporate social responsibility and health and wellness.

At the Alternative Gift Fair checks and cash turned into donations for the charities that were represented there.

For the past 12 years, the holiday event has supported an array of local and international charities. Shoppers, for example, can make a gift that will pay for formula for infants in Malawi through the African Mothers Health Initiative, a school lunch that Pueblo a Pueblo will provide to youngsters in Guatemala, or a rafting trip the Sierra Club will offer to needy inner-city kids.

Chris Ulmer turned his passion for running into a fundraising drive for Teach for America, asking supporters to donate money for each one of the 250 miles he plans to run from Penn State to his home in Willow Grove, Pa., upon graduation.

On Nov. 16, 2010, GiveMN shattered our goal of 40,000 donors in 24 hours by engaging 42,596 unique donors who donated to their favorite nonprofits using the GiveMN.org platform on Give to the Max Day. All told, Minnesota nonprofits collectively raised $10,041,021 in one incredible day.

Since our outreach efforts focused on providing nonprofits with social media resources, email templates and content such as a video PSA for use on their homepages, it would seem those efforts paid off when it came to driving traffic.

Hundreds of Denver-area nonprofit organizations are hoping for a generous outpouring of gifts during Colorado Gives Day, a 24-hour online charity drive beginning at midnight Wednesday.

Colorado Gives Day is an inaugural program of the Community First Foundation, an organization devoted to raising money for nonprofit groups in the seven counties of metro Denver.

Gifts will be accepted through GivingFirst.org, which allows donors to browse a database of more than 500 charities. Organizers are hoping to raise $1 million during the 24-hour drive.

Blackbaud announced that Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation selected Blackbaud Friends Asking Friends® as the online and offline event management solution for its newest fundraising event, Road Hockey to Conquer Cancer. The Foundation, which supports Canada’s leading cancer research institution, Princess Margaret Hospital, is using Friends Asking Friends combined with an innovative social media campaign to expand its supporter base and raise money for cancer research.

Wednesday is World AIDS Day, and many celebrities will stop communicating via Twitter and Facebook. They will not be resuscitated, they say, until their fans donate $1 million.

It’s all part of the latest gambit by the singer-songwriter Alicia Keys to raise money for her charity, Keep a Child Alive, which finances medical care and support services for children and families affected by H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa and India.

In just one day, 42,596 donors logged on to GiveMN.org during the second annual Give to the Max Day on Nov. 16. This was 4,000 more donors than in last year’s successful giving day. Minnesota nonprofit organizations were given $10,041,021 in 24 hours, reflecting donations as well as matching grants and prizes that were awarded. GiveMN has helped raise $27 million for nonprofit organizations across the state since launching in November 2009.

More than 3,000 Minnesota charities, churches, schools and nonprofits are bracing for one of their biggest fundraising days of the year Tuesday -- "Give to the Max Day."

The 24-hour online giving blitz, which raked in an astounding $14 million last year, has generated a blizzard of creative ideas to call attention to the big day.

Florida Gulf Coast University students showed a lot of skin and stripped down to the bare essentials Saturday in the main courtyard to raise money for charity. The Nearly Naked Mile, organized by FGCU’s chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon, caused all of the almost-nudity. Students came wearing clothes they no longer wanted and then striped them off, creating an entire table’s worth of clothes in a pile at least two feet high that will be donated to Goodwill.