They gave: Jewish organizations benefit from GiveNOLA Day

A year after technical glitches nationwide put a damper on GiveNOLA Day, this year’s event went off without any issues, and many Jewish community agencies attracted significant donations.

GiveNOLA was a day for online giving, from midnight to midnight, on May 2. In all, GiveNOLA Day attracted 38,283 gifts to 710 organizations, bringing in $4,889,567. Last year, about $4 million was raised.

The top earner was the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, with $323,141 on 107 gifts. The highest number of individual gifts was Team Gleason, with 1,415 donors giving a total of $69,327.

The organizations with the most money raised gets a $10,000 bonus in both the large and small organization categories. Similar awards go to groups with the most individual donors. Bonuses are given through fifth place.

With a large final push the Federation has $121,676 on 156 gifts, with the highest take of any small organization and fifth overall. There were eight groups overall that were in six figures.

Among small organizations, the Federation was 16th in the number of gifts.

The Federation, which raised $96.851 from 119 donors last year, emphasized “Small Gifts, Big Impact” and a goal of 150 donors.

Cait Gladow, director of marketing for the Federation, said “GiveNOLA Day provides an exciting format to engage both our current donors and potentially new donors as well. We tried to appeal to both this year in our messaging, and we particularly emphasized the impact of small gifts. We’re thrilled at the response from our community, and look forward to GiveNOLA Day 2018.”

Isidore Newman School had $49,240 on 79 gifts, just making the top 10 in dollars given and eighth among large organizations.

Most Jewish groups participating showed large increases, with Jewish Community Day School, Tulane Hillel and Jewish Family Service each at least tripling last year’s donations.

Jewish Community Day School increased to $15,736 on 91 gifts. Tulane Hillel had 75 donors giving $11,968, and Jewish Family Service took in $9,742 on 55 gifts.

Jewish Children’s Regional Service attracted $4,612 on 66 gifts, Jewish Endowment Foundation had 27 gifts for $4,156, the Anti-Defamation League took in $4,043 from 79 donors.

Avodah had 39 gifts for $2,442, the National Council of Jewish Women’s Greater New Orleans Section had 35 donors for $1,529, Hadassah took in $711 from 21 gifts.

Northshore Jewish Congregation in Mandeville had 12 donors give $583, New Orleans Council for Community and Justice had five gifts for a total of $260, and Shir Chadash had $251 on 14 donations.

Four registered groups did not attract any donations, including a ministry that works to “make the good news of Jesus known to the Jewish people.”

The New Orleans Jewish Community Center, which has been working on a capital campaign for its Uptown expansion for the last 18 months, opted not to do GiveNOLA Day “so we can focus all fundraising efforts on finishing the capital campaign.”