Santa Clarita Valley residents joined online in sharing a flurry of donations from around the globe for Giving Tuesday, one of the few “holidays” that offers a break from consumerism and encourages everyone to give to their favorite nonprofit cause.
In a brief respite from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, thousands took the opportunity to share their Christmas spirit ahead of the holiday.
The website, GivingTuesday.org, listed about 20 local nonprofits that signed up as part of the campaign but, naturally, donations are welcome year-round.
Representatives for one of those nonprofits, Family Promise of Santa Clarita Valley, which is a local organization that supports families in need, said the “Giving Tuesday” campaign complements the nonprofit’s end-of-year fundraising efforts.
“We have seen an uptick in donations,” said Laurie Ender, board president for Family Promise. “This community is always so generous — ‘Giving Tuesday’ provides us with a great way to reach people who want to help.”
Statistics for giving year-round are on the rise in the United States, according to data available on CharityNavigator.org.
In 2017, for the most recent year available, the total giving to charity was $410 billion, an increase of about 5% over the previous year. Even more encouraging, “Giving has increased in current dollars every year since 1977, with the exception of three years that saw declines: 1987, 2008 and 2009,” according to CharityNavigator.org.
Created in 2012, Giving Tuesday is touted as “a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world on Dec. 3, 2019, and every day.”
While the goal isn’t profit, per se, it’s a competitive market among local nonprofits for the support that people are willing to share, with approximately 1,040 nonprofits registered to addresses in the Santa Clarita Valley (which includes nonprofits that operate outside of the SCV but are registered to addresses locally). So for events like Tuesday, every little bit helps.
Click here https://bit.ly/33R0BsZ for a complete list of organizations that have 501c3 status with the IRS, as well as a registered Santa Clarita Valley address.
The top-10 nonprofit organizations in the Santa Clarita Valley, ranked by value of listed assets, includes the following:
- Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital ($497,226,293)
- California Institute of the Arts ($256,160,907)
- The Masters University And Seminary ($94,710,308)
- Alfred E Mann Foundation For Scientific Research ($93,529,351)
- Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Health Foundation ($37,987,329)
- Los Angeles Residential Community Foundation ($19,089,967)
- Hinz Family Charitable Foundation ($17,853,775)
- Valley Fund Corp. ($16,113,182)
- Grace To You ($15,537,959)
- Santa Clarita Valley Committee on Aging ($12,717,858)
The numbers were taken from the most recent disclosures available online, as reported through 990 EZ forms available at IRS.gov.
Charity Navigator is also a website that lets you look up information on file for most nonprofits, as is https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits, or if you’d like to see the federal filings, visit: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos.