New website, new bigger and better events, full Board of Directors, new committee members, new sponsors, new partnerships, and a new focus for 2012 will take Denver Gives to new heights!
Denver Gives has been a fledgling nonprofit organization since January of 2009. Starting as a group of people who wanted to raise money by throwing parties and donating the money to one local charity, Denver Gives has now served over 40 different nonprofits, utilized over 50 volunteers which donated over 500 hours of volunteer services providing everything from event staffing to no cost consulting! $10′s of thousands of dollars in money and programs and services have gone to help small local nonprofits in the Greater Denver Metro area. And we have done this all running as an ALL VOLUNTEER organization. Currently, we have ZERO paid staff and function only using volunteers to provide our FREE programs and services!
Starting at the end of September, Denver Gives will have a new website that will be cooler, slicker, and more efficient and user-friendly. We are so excited and can’t wait to show you all what volunteers can do! THANKS SCOTT! Keep reading to see how this new website will benefit the nonprofits in our community!
We are now operating on a FULL BOARD OF DIRECTORS! Oh wait… Dammit! We are not full… one of our Directors is moving to Hawaii! Paul, you suck! 
But in all honesty, yes we do still have one position on our Board of Directors, so if you are interested, please email us, but with that said, we are SO happy to have a full Board. Our new site will have who they are and a little bio on each of them and a snippet of why they joined Denver Gives. So yet another reason to look at our new website!
Our Committees are going strong! Although we are not full on our committees, the newest members are strong and excited to work with Denver Gives to improve upon our community presence and put together some KICK ASS events!
As we move forward with newsletters, we will be highlighting our new sponsors and partnerships, but this one we are very excited about! Jeremy Hubbard, News Anchor for CW and Fox31 networks in Denver is Hosting our Rock & Runway event in April 2012! We are so happy to have him and we hope you look forward to seeing him at the Rock & Runway event!
With all this new enthusiasm, and new progression, it’s not uncommon that people do not know how we got our start, so here is a little background and a look at 2012 and what we are planning…
Starting out, we threw parties, raising from $200 – $700 dollars and donated that went to a local charity. At our first event we had over 75 people and raised over $500! Since then we have definitely had our ups and downs, but the one thing that we have forged ahead with is providing quality programs and services for small local nonprofits at ABSOLUTELY NO COST to those nonprofits! We now provide 3 distinct programs and services for nonprofits that are local, having no national affiliations, and small, having an annual budget that is under $500,000. These NO COST programs are as follows:
EDUCATIONAL SERIES for SMALL NONPROFITS (ESSN)
This is an educational service we offer specifically for small nonprofits. After surveying small nonprofits on the topics that most interest them, we hand-pick presenters and/or trainers and determine the best format (presentation, panel discussion, etc.) for each topic. As a small nonprofit as well, we have the unique knowledge of what is important to hear about, how to present the information and how the “audience” will be best served, because we are indeed our own best “client”. To date we have given presentations/trainings specifically designed for those small nonprofits that have limited financial, volunteer, and staff means on topics such as Social Media, Grants, Finance, Board Manuals, Marketing, and more. We have also facilitated collaboration between nonprofits, bringing together materials and other resources from several different nonprofits that are have been shared among multiple nonprofits. To this end, that will lead to our next FREE service for nonprofits…
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Denver Gives, being a small nonprofit ourselves, know there are resources out there, but have a lot of trouble finding those resources. Everything from accountants to venues to hold events, there is so much information out there, but equally as many places to try to find it. In the next few months Denver Gives will be launching a fully searchable database of resources that nonprofits can use to find an accountant that other nonprofits have used, to templates for things like budgets and board manuals, to venues that hold from 5 to 5,000 people for meetings and events that work with nonprofits. Throughout our short history, we have gathered information from other nonprofits, other nonprofit resource providers, through our own research and through our Charity Partnerships Committee that we will be putting on a searchable database that any nonprofit can access. We are very excited to have Digital Marketing Engineer, Scott Rodgers working on this database and our new website for us! Again, the power of volunteers! And speaking of our Charity Partnerships Committee, what is the third program that we offer small local nonprofits.
CHARITY PARTNERSHIPS COMMITTEE
Beginning in 2010, Denver Gives had a unique idea. Given we were originally as a young professionals group, we kept hearing how hard it was for professionals to find volunteer opportunities. What we decided to do was create a program that would have a pre-defined time requirement while providing a maximum impact for one local nonprofit while also potentially impacting all nonprofits in Colorado! Our Charity Partnerships Committee is made up of volunteers, as many as we can get from various business disciplines such as Marketing, Public Relations, Law, Accounting, Event Planning, Graphic Design, Volunteer Management, Fundraising, Grants, Finance, Banking, Nonprofit Management, For-profit Management, Operations, Information Technologies, and more…, that make a 3 month commitment to help ONE local nonprofit. This nonprofit is hand selected by Denver Gives and meets our giving criteria as local and small. They have value in our community and have little resources to move on to the next level and state a need for assistance. They also agree to provide the Denver Gives Charity Partnerships Committee with EVERYTHING the volunteers request, including but not limited to financial statements, itemized budgets, interviews with board members, volunteers and even donors! This is a very invasive program and not for every nonprofit, but the rewards for being that open are immense! The volunteers on the committee sift through the information for the first month. The second month they analyze the data specific to their area of expertise and come up with recommendations on what that small local nonprofit could do better within that business discipline. The third month, the volunteers research and come up with resources that the nonprofit could use to implement the recommendations given by the volunteers! The nonprofit will not have to utilize time trying to find the resources, which we have already said are a challenge to secure, they can focus that time on providing the programs and services they are giving to the community. This analysis can be invaluable to an organization. Recently, we have had the benefit of Mercury Payment Systems of providing a $1,000 grant to the nonprofit utilizing the full Charity Partnerships Committee program that goes to implement one or more of the recommendations made by our committee! It has truly been a great program and something that the nonprofits that have taken advantage of the full program have truly benefited. The Chanda Plan Foundation was our first recipient of this program and we will be posting the results of the required 6 month follow-up in our next newsletter.
As you can see, Denver Gives is much more than parties, although we LOVE our parties! In 2012, we have bigger and better events including the following:
2nd Annual New Year’s Eve Masquerade at the top of the D&F Clock Tower right on the 16th Street Mall.
ROCK & RUNWAY, hosted by Jeremy Hubbard of CW/FOX31 News! This event will be like nothing you have attended. If you like music, fashion and the jetset lifestyle, this is your event not to be missed!
2nd Annual RIDICULOUS POKER RUN! – If you like cars and local Denver attractions this is your event!
MOONLIGHT & MARTINIS! If you like a nice night under the stars, with good friends and KILLER martinis, you simply must join us!
CRANBERRY JAM! Yep, we are bringing back this fun event being held on the weekend before Thanksgiving, featuring local Rock and Reggae bands!
We are also bringing back our 3rd Thursday Happy Hour Socials! Just $5 for members and only $10-$15 for guests, depending on the venue. We are bringing back our Host/Hostess volunteer positions for those happy hours and hope you look forward to meeting them as much as we look forward to seeing you!
And let’s not forget our new Memberships for 2012! Members are indeed the backbone of Denver Gives. They allow us to be in a position to continue to offer ALL our Programs and Services FREE of charge to local small nonprofits! For as little as $25 per year, our members make a difference for local small nonprofits! For more on our memberships click HERE.
