Give!Local fundraising tops $80,000 in final weeks

Posted on by Jeff Fobes

With just over two weeks left in this year’s giving campaign, Give!Local has surpassed both previous years’ final totals. Direct contributions now exceed $69,000; adding in $12,000 in matching grants, this year’s total giving now exceeds $80,000. The Give!Local campaign ends Dec. 31.

So where are the donations coming from? Geographically, the east side of Buncombe is generat­ing the most funds, with East Asheville and Swannanoa producing more than a third of the funds raised thus far.

About 95 percent of the funds raised to date are coming from within Buncombe County, demonstrating Give!Local’s acutely local focus. The accompanying map gives a detailed look at the funding by area.

More than half of Give!Local’s 37 participating non­profit organizations have raised over $1,000 thus far.

Give!Local every penny counts DonationButtonSmall donors, the 200 people who have given less than $250, constitute the bulk of Give!Local’s partici­pants. Many of these people may not be able to get IRS tax credits for their donations, but Give!Local rewards their generosity with a voucher book filled with free­bies and discounts from area merchants.

The 50+ people who gave more than $250 will be mailed a coupon book plus additional gift certificates and vouchers from local businesses.

The Give!Local platform will be open until Dec. 31 at midnight. Visit givelocalguide.org where you can give to one or many of this year’s 37 great nonprofits.

Give!Local 37 nonprofits 2017

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes
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