It started with a phone call at 8:22 a.m. on November 17 – Give to the Max Day – from our technology partner, Razoo.  More than $866,000 had been donated – only 22 minutes into Give to the Max Day!  People were on GiveMN.org, donating like crazy to their favorite organizations.
 
At 10:30 a.m., donations reached $3.5 million. We passed $5 million by lunchtime, which was when we began our online chat on Twitter, where nonprofits and donors were tweeting about who gave to what organizations and how much organizations had raised.
 
The donations continued to come in.  By mid-afternoon, more than $7 million had been donated to Minnesota nonprofits, and at the end of the workday, more than $9 million.  We were blown away by the generosity and support we were witnessing – everyone who was coming together to support our nonprofit community at a time when they needed it most.  With another 10 or so hours to go, just how much more could we raise?  As you all know by now, Minnesotans helped raised $14 million dollars – $14 million dollars (it’s worth repeating!) for nonprofits across the state.
 
I have heard from so many of you about your excitement that day: that you were following the leader board and that you would burst out into applause when you got e-mails letting you know another donation had been made. It was wonderful to know that nonprofits were cheering for each other and coming together to rally, not just for yourselves, but for the greater good.
 
My inbox is full of amazing stories – from people who have never made a donation to a charity before to those who were amazed at how easy and inspiring it was to do giving online.  From organizations who don’t have a Web site to those who run sophisticated social media campaigns.  Please continue to send your stories to me at info@givemn.org.
 
I want to learn with you all.  What percentage of donors was new to your organizations?  How will this impact your holiday giving campaigns?  How will you continue to leverage GiveMN as a part of your fundraising strategy?  What would you like to see next from GiveMN?

I have two hobbies – I run and I bake.  Mostly I run so that I can eat what I bake.  My specialty is cupcakes.  I love to bake cupcakes with my boys and give them to my friends and neighbors as just a nice little surprise.  Now I am thinking that I might bake about 38,000 cupcakes and just start handing them out randomly… to all of my office mates (from The Minnesota Community Foundation) who have welcomed me warmly and conceived this amazing idea, to MAP for Nonprofits for its amazing outreach to the nonprofit sector across the state, to the Razoo team who worked 24/7 to get ready for GTM Day, to Padilla who got us a zillion media impressions and of course, to the nonprofits who jumped on board and embraced Give to the Max Day. And to every single Minnesotan who clicked their way to history – all 38,778 of you – thank you, thank you, thank you.
 
I generally have a stash of baked goods in my office, so please drop in and let’s share a cupcake to celebrate and strategize about what’s next!