10th Annual Levé Charity Ball Raises $145,000

Portland, December 6th, 2013.  More than 800 supporters showed up at Leftbank Annex to celebrate Levé’s ten years of giving to the community.The Levé board and committee members posed for a group shot at the 10th Annual Charity Ball. The event also ushered in a new decade of giving. Levé is an all-­volunteer organization providing  financial and volunteer support to needy people in our area. (photo credit, Ben Pigao)

From Leve:

What We Are Doing

For 2013, in honor of our 10th anniversary, we have decided to partner with each of our past nine nonprofit partners (instead of seeking a new partner) and are seeking matching donations from local community foundations and donors. We are embracing this as an opportunity to reintroduce these incredible organizations to YOU, our friends and supporters. We hope to maximize our collective impact by incentivizing new levels of engagement in time, leadership, and money, from our entire community, especially from the next generation of philanthropists.

Why Now?

One of our goals each year is to educate our network about our nonprofit partner. With this new format for 2013 (and all the work we’ve previously done to educate our network about each of our past partners), we have the opportunity to highlight the second part of our mission: activating the next generation of philanthropic donors and volunteers. There is an extreme gap in philanthropic support from 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds in our local communities and nationwide, the negative impact of which will only get worse in years to come. There are a lot of significant barriers at play including student loans, sub-par employment opportunities and the recession. But there also is the fact that giving is no longer the expectation for our generation. We hope to change that by bringing awareness about this issue and demonstrating that it can be easy (well, sometimes), and fun and rewarding (always!).

Our Goal

Our 2013 financial goal is much more ambitious than ever before. We are aiming to secure $100,000 in funds (ideally through ten, $10,000 donations) from local foundations and larger individual donors by June 30, 2013 that we will use to challenge current and new donors to match leading up to and at Charity Ball. Our ultimate goal is to raise $200,000, to be distributed evenly between Levé and each nonprofit partner.

We will feature one of the nonprofits each month, beginning in March, with statistics about its impact in our communities, information about what our support means for each organization, opportunities for getting involved and other fun facts.

We believe that by that activating increased philanthropic involvement among our network, they will realize the immeasurable rewards that come with giving back. And in the same vein, we believe this effort will bolster the greater nonprofit community with increased support from and exposure to the next generation of donors and volunteers. We also believe we can help shift the momentum of giving trends and transform our generation’s engagement in philanthropy long-term.