More than a thousand Bay Area non-profits are participating in Silicon Valley Gives (SV Gives), a 24-hour collective online fundraiser. The annual event is organized by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which also lines up additional money and donations from local companies, like Microsoft.
In the past, SV Gives has only offered giving opportunities to Silicon Valley organizations, and San Francisco organizations that substantially serve communities in Silicon Valley. But this year, the Foundation has thrown its doors wide open for San Francisco non-profits of all kinds. “The big social problems that these non-profits are trying to solve don’t respect county borders,” says Lisa Barr, a co-lead at SV Gives for planning and outreach.
Since its inception in 2014, SV Gives has raised roughly $8 million each year. But Barr says money is only one of the goals. “It’s not about raising as much money as possible,” Barr says. “It’s about capacity building.” By that, she means helping non-profits — especially the small ones — get better at making effective pitches to potential donors, especially online.
The set up not only creates a big, regional event for individual organizations to piggy back on. SV Gives raises money, $4 million this year alone, from companies to boost the donor haul with matching grants and in-kind donations, like a free laptop from Microsoft.
The non-profits cover every conceivable cause, including the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, the Northern California Innocence Project, and Destination Home, which fights homelessness in the South Bay.