Seattle’s economy is booming at an incredible rate — but not all Seattle residents are profiting equally from the city’s economic success.
While tech and other industries have brought thousands of high-paying jobs to the Seattle area, the disparity between high-earners and those struggling with the increased cost of living has grown wider and wider.
This year, the Seattle Foundation’s GiveBig campaign — a one-day philanthropy challenge taking place on Tuesday, May 3 — will launch on Kimbia, a platform that GiveBig organizers hope will take donations to the region’s non-profits to a new level.
The GiveBig campaign started in 2011, when its first day of giving raised $4.1 million. Over the past five years, the annual event has raised a total of $56 million for non-profits in the Seattle area. This year, GiveBig has set a goal to raise $20 million for more than 1,600 organizations registered through the program.
That goal is achievable because the new platform makes donating much easier, according to Seattle Foundation’s President and CEO Tony Mestres, previously a Microsoft general manager of marketing and vice president of sales.
The most important feature may be its mobile capabilities. The Seattle Foundation cites statistics showing that the use of a mobile device to donate via nonprofit websites has jumped by 80 percent nationwide since 2013.
“We think that having a fully mobile enabled platform could significantly increase [mobile donors],” Mestres said, “especially for younger generations, who are on mobile all the time.”
One sign of the change: The Seattle Foundation teamed up with the Seattle Sounders to encourage fans to donate on their phones during the Sounders game on Saturday.
The platform will also allow residents to donate throughout the year. The platform launched on April 18, and residents can “pre-order” their contributions until May 3, when the donations for the challenge will be tallied. The site will also remain open for donations after GiveBig.
“While it is a really important day, and a challenge to support nonprofits, it is just a day,” Mestres said. “The nice thing about this platform is that donors and nonprofits can keep using it throughout the year.”
The new platform will also feature a “giving cart,” where donors can add multiple donations and check out all at once. “It’s like you’d expect in any other online commerce capability,” Mestres said.
When residents add a donation to their cart, they can also see if their donation will be matched, along with metrics on how much has been raised for that organization.
Through GiveBig, everyday residents can contribute to efforts aimed at closing the increasing gap between Seattle’s wealthy and those down on their luck.
“Once upon a time, charity was really about what the well-off did for those who had fallen through the cracks,” Mestres said. “But the cracks have become crevices.”
“Last year, our largest gift was $25,000, from a philanthropist,” Mestres said. “Our smallest was just shy of a dollar in change that a woman gave us who had been helped by Mary’s Place,” an emergency shelter for homeless women and families in Seattle. “I have to tell you that that donation was, for me, the one that I was proudest of last year.”
The GiveBig campaign page can be accessed here on desktop, tablet or smartphone.
