Missoula Gives surpasses $500,000 goal, raising $767,000

During a crisis, the Missoula and Bitterroot communities stick together

May 2, 2020, Missoula, Mont: Missoula Gives 2020 was a huge success! Missoulians and Bitterrooters showed up (virtually) to support their communities raising over $700,000! This collective effort, with 3,234 individual donors, supports the important work of nonprofits in our communities.

Missoula Gives, an initiative of the Missoula Community Foundation, is a 26-hour online fundraiser that allows generous Missoulians and Bitterooters to connect with causes they care about. As a result of the current pandemic, Missoula Community Foundation had to pivot, deciding that it was important to create connections virtually in this time. In a matter of weeks, they curated and hosted a streaming event with storytelling, comedy, interviews, music and lots more. The nonprofits’ stories and work were also highlighted throughout the day. There was even a Missoula Gives song written by local musician Travis Yost.

“We are blown away! Last year we raised $410,000, this year we raised $767,000!” said Marcy Allen Executive Director of the Missoula Community Foundation, “We hit our goal of  $500,000 just before noon with 7 hours to go and didn’t stop there. It was so fun to spend a day amplifying the voices of the nonprofit community and to witness the generous response from the community.”

While there were 30 fewer participants this year than last, they had 1,000 more individual donors. Gifts were nearly doubled from 3,400 last year to 6,700 this year. Overall visits to the Missoula Gives site went from 5,800 last year to 9,400 this year.

“We are a community that cares and our hope is that we can continue to work as a collective to address the challenges we face.” said Allen. “We are so much more powerful together. I am so touched by the generosity that was shown at Missoula Gives this year.”

Since this is such a critical time, the Missoula Community Foundation has decided to keep missoulagives.org open until the end of next week. If you were unable to give April 30 -May 1, you can still search the 138 nonprofits and give to your favorites. www.missoulagives.org