GiveBIG Washington is an annual fundraising campaign for IRS tax-exempt organizations located in Washington. GiveBIG helps nonprofits to raise unrestricted funds online, acquire new donors, and encourage deeper engagement by board members and current contributors.

The campaign culminates with a 48-hour event on May 5-6. Full dates for 2021, including early giving, have not yet been set.

GiveBIG At-A-Glance gives you an overview of the activities that you may choose to do for your GiveBIG campaign based on what’s best suited to your organization. This has not been updated for 2021 yet.

Have a question? Please contact the GiveBIG Support Team at givebig@501commons.org.

Registration for GiveBIG Washington 2021 will open on January 26, 2021.

KEY DATES

January 26, 2021: Nonprofit registration opens

May 4-6, 2021: GiveBIG Washington event

ELIGIBILITY

Which organizations are eligible to participate in GiveBIG Washington 2020?
Tax-exempt organizations (approved by the IRS) with a headquarters or a service location in Washington State are invited to participate in GiveBIG Washington 2020. This includes the following situations:

Global organizations headquartered in Washington State that provide services outside of the United States.
A "service location" means the organization is providing a direct benefit to Washington residents or communities at a site located within the state.
Organizations that are approved by the IRS, such as 501c4, 501c6, or 501c19, organizations can participate but must indicate on their profile if donations to the organization are not tax-deductible.
Tax-exempt Washington state government programs like animal shelters or youth programs.

Nonprofit organizations that are approved by the State of Washington but do not have tax-exempt status from the IRS are not eligible. Individuals are not eligible.

Most charitable organizations are required to file annually with the Washington State Charities Program if they ask for or collect contributions from the public. Filing as a charitable organization is separate from filing as a nonprofit corporation. Please check to see if your nonprofit needs to register with the Washington Secretary of State. You are required to do so if you are either raising at least $50,000 in any accounting year or if you are using the service of a commercial fundraiser.

Can my organization participate if we are fiscally sponsored?
Yes, as long as all other eligibility standards are met. When registering you will be asked to indicate if you are fiscally sponsored. You will then be asked to enter the EIN of your fiscal sponsor and your fiscal sponsor contact. Funds raised during GiveBIG will be distributed to your fiscal sponsor in their name with a disbursement email noting where the funds should be directed.

FEES

What fees are associated with participating in GiveBIG Washington 2021?

2021 participation fees have not yet been set. However, they will be equal to or less than fees in 2020. To estimate your 2021 fee, please use the below information.

In order to fund the media and promotional activities, outreach, fundraising training for nonprofits, and campaign staff, all participating organizations will pay a registration fee. While sponsors, including 501 Commons and Encore Media Group, are providing some support, fees are essential for producing GiveBIG Washington.

The registration fee is in addition to the 4.6% processing fee on individual donations. The processing fee pays for the CiviCore platform and usual credit card processing fees. Donors have the option to cover the processing fees. In 2020, 86% of donors covered the processing fee. If a donor does not cover the fee, the 4.6% is deducted from the amount disbursed to nonprofits.

What are the registration fees for GiveBIG Washington 2021?

2021 participation fees have not yet been set. However, they will be equal to or less than fees in 2020. To estimate your 2021 fee, please use the below information.

Returning organizations will pay 2.9% or less of what they raised on the platform in 2020. Fees are capped at $5,000. If you raised less than $1,000 your fee is only $10. Donor matching funds are not included in the assessment of your fee, only processed donations.
New organizations will pay on a sliding scale, based on your contributed revenue budget. This is the amount you are expecting to raise for your current fiscal year (2020/2021 or 2021), minus any earned income, capital campaign funds, in-kind donation, or interest/investment earnings on funds you hold.

Contributed Revenue Budget	2021 GiveBIG Fee
$1 - $150,000	$10
$150,001 - $300K	$25
$300,001 - $600K	$50
$600,001 - $1.2M	$100
$1,200,001 - $2M	$150
$2,000,001 - $3M	$250
$3,000,001 - $4.5M	$500
$4,500,001 - $7.5M	$1,000
$7,500,001 - $10M	$1,500
$10,000,001 - $15M	$2,500
$15,000,001+	$5,000

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

What if I forget my password?

Click the Forget Password? link on the login page and then you will receive an email with instructions to reset your password. If you no longer have access to the email on your account, please contact the GiveBIG Support Team.

How do I add a user to my organization's profile?
You may add as many user accounts to your organization's profile as you would like, whenever you like, by logging into your GiveBIG account. However, only the GiveBIG Campaign Lead will be sent the majority of email communications. If your lead leaves your organization, be sure to update your GiveBIG account.

Once you log in go to My Users, click the blue Add a new user button. You may also inactivate users by using the red Inactivate User Profile button next to the user you wish to inactivate.

How do I stay informed about GiveBIG Washington?
We will email your GiveBIG Campaign Lead updates on your registration, the Fundraising Accelerator newsletter, fundraising training announcements, and more. Ensure your GiveBIG Campaign Lead on your GiveBIG profile stays up to date and that you have added givebig@501commons.org as a Safe Sender to prevent GiveBIG Washington emails from ending up in your spam or junk mailbox.

Stay up to date by subscribing to our GiveBIG newsletter. In our emails, the GiveBIG team will provide information that will help you set your GiveBIG campaign on a pathway to success. Follow 501 Commons on LinkedIn or Facebook for nonprofit-focused news, including information about GiveBIG Washington.

HOW TO NAVIGATE YOUR ACCOUNT

Dashboard

The Dashboard contains announcements, important event dates, and your event goals, including your public fundraising goal and any matching gift funds you have secured. Goals are set by clicking on the "Add More" or "Update Goals" buttons. To learn more about setting goals, please review the GiveBIG Campaign Guide.

My Public Profile
The My Public Profile includes all other information that shows up on your profile page as well as information for internal campaign use.

Profile Overview
The following information will show up on your public page: Legal Organization Name, Category, Logo, EIN, Address, Email, and Phone number that you selected to be shared publically, Mission Statement (shows up under Overview), Description, and any social media links you provided. You can also select if your donors will be asked if they want to volunteer with your organization under the "Ask donor for volunteer interest?" field.

Multimedia
A maximum of 8 images and or YouTube/Vimeo links can be shared on your profile.

Donation Levels
Your organization can create prepopulated donation levels that donors see when checking out with your organization. Donation amounts must be at least $10 and labels have a 40 character limit. You can give them titles like "Major Donor" or examples of what their donation could cover like "$50 could buy a school uniform" or "$1000 can provide a spay/neuter clinic". Be careful that your wording does not imply a promise, as all funds received through GiveBIG are unrestricted.

Events
You can share a public GiveBIG related event your organization is hosting between April 15 through May 6. You can also schedule a post-GiveBIG event through July 1. Events can be in person or remote, but remote events should be interactive, not just a repeat of your campaign page. Events submitted in this way will show up on the Nonprofit Events page.

My FUNdraising Pages
Once a FUNdraiser customizes and submits their fundraising page, you will be notified by email and their page will show up under Active FUNdraising Pages. You will not have to approve the page for it to be published. You and the FUNdraiser can edit FUNdraisers for your organization. We recommend you talk with the FUNdraiser before doing any edits to their page. Should the FUNdraiser not make or approve edits to their page you can make their page inactive, especially if it is unhelpful or inappropriate. The page will then show up under Inactive FUNdraising Pages along with expired FUNdraisers. Inactive pages cannot be reactivated. Nonprofits also have the option to create their own FUNdraisers. The FUNdraiser is under your organization's name and it provides a mechanism to raise funds for a specific project or office of your organization. While these funds are still unrestricted, we ask that you take donor intent into consideration when creating these pages.

My Users
Organizations can add additional email logins to their account. These additional users can then use their email to log in to the account and can be select to receive an email notification every time a donation is made to your organization. Users can also be inactivated should the organization no longer want that user to have access to the account. If there are no active users then you will be unable to login to your account and will need to contact the GiveBIG Support Team to regain access.

My Donations
All donations made to your organization on the GiveBIG platform show up on the Processed Donations tab. If you participated in GiveBIG 2019, your prior year's donations are still accessible in the system. This report can be filtered and searched by First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone Number, and Gives Day (2019 vs 2020). You can export an Excel file of your donations at any time.

The report includes contact information as well as the Net Donation after processing fee coverage, if the donor is anonymous or wishes not to be recognized publically if they are interested in volunteering (if you noted that your organization selects volunteers on your Profile Overview) if they are a first time donor, tribute information, and if they will pursue an employer match of their gift. To see all fields, scroll all the way to the right and select "Click here to display additional donor and donation data"

DONATIONS

Where can we find our Donation Report and list of donors?

Your Donation Report can be found and exported to Excel/CSV by logging into your organization’s GiveBIG account. Go to My Donations to access your report.

What do the column headers of our Donation Report mean?
Anonymous
If a donor selects the following it means:

Not Anonymous = Disclose my name to the nonprofit. The nonprofit may recognize me publicly.
Publicly Anonymous = Disclose my name to the nonprofit, but the nonprofit should not recognize me publicly.
Completely Anonymous = Do not disclose my name to the nonprofit. I wish my donation to be anonymous.

If a donation is Completely Anonymous the donor declined to share their contact information with your organization.

Donor Recognition
Please identify your donor and their gift by this field. This is for use for couples, families, businesses, etc. so they can indicate if more than one individual is behind the gift.

In Honor/In Memory, Tribute Name
At checkout, the donor may indicate if they gift was made as a tribute. The GiveBIG platform does not send confirmation of this gift to the listed tribute. We encourage you to use this information to thank the donor. A simple way to do this is to include in their thank you letter, “Thank you for your contribution in honor/in memory of _____.” In memory is used to honor those who have passed away, while in honor is used to honor someone who is living.

Employer Match/Employer Match Other
This donor is planning to pursue an employer matching gift from their company. The donor may select from a list of common matching employers or enter their own unlisted company. Employer matching gifts should be made directly to the nonprofit, not through the GiveBIG website. The only employer matching gifts that come through the GiveBIG website are GiveBIG Business Champions who make their match on the platform.

FUNdraiser
This donation came in through a FUNdraising page with the listed title.

Do donors receive a receipt for their donation?
Yes, donors receive an email confirmation that serves as their receipt (sample receipt). It includes a list of all the nonprofits they gave to and their EIN, and tax-deductibility status. If they do not see an email receipt right away, they should check their spam or junk inbox before contacting the GiveBIG Support Team. They can resend a copy of their receipt(s) to the email they checked out with on the GiveBIG homepage.

We strongly encourage each organization to also send their own donor acknowledgment letter within 48-hours to cultivate donor relationships.

This acknowledgment should be for people who gave to your nonprofit directly, as well as any donations coming from personal FUNdraising pages, which also appear in your Donation Report (review the column FUNdraiser).

Gifts made to your organization, and any fundraising pages tied to your organization, through GiveBIG will show as being processed to GiveBIG on your donor’s bank statement. However, the donor’s electronic receipt will show the name of each organization the donor gave to along with the amount given to each organization. The FULL amount they donated, including any donation fees, is the amount that can be used for tax credit/deduction purposes.

What if I receive questions from a donor that I can’t answer?
If a donor contacts you about one of the following, please refer them to the Donor FAQ page and/or put them in contact with the GiveBIG Support Team.

Receipt is needed.
- Organizations can re-send receipts by finding the donation under and scrolling to the far right to click on the three dots to reveal the ‘Send Receipt’ button. This will automatically resend their receipt to the email address the donor provided.
- Donors who have a Donor account can log in to the website and print a receipt.
- Donors without a Donor account can resend their receipt using their email on the GiveBIG homepage.
A credit/refund is needed
- Donor must contact the GiveBIG Support Team for assistance.
An incorrect dollar amount was entered as a donation
- Donor must contact the GiveBIG Support Team for assistance.

DISBURSEMENT

Disbursement for 2021 has not yet been set. This information pertains to GiveBIG 2020.

How and when will my organization receive our donations?
Donations were sent via direct deposit on June 11, 2020. June 1 is the last day to edit your banking information. An email explanation of your total and notice of disbursement will be sent to your GiveBIG Campaign Lead, your listed Executive Director/CEO/President, and your listed Finance Contact.

Why is June 1 the last day to edit our banking information?
As part of the Terms of Service you agreed to by participating in GiveBIG, 501 Commons is authorized to conduct a performance test on June 2 to assure the accuracy of your entered banking information. During the test, a small payment will be made and then canceled - netting to zero - to test the account.

How can we edit or confirm our direct deposit information?
Login to your GiveBIG account and go to My Public Profile, select Edit Organization Profile, and scroll to the bottom to update and save your updated information.

How much will we receive during disbursement?
Your disbursement will match the Net Donation column from your My Donation report, not the Amount column. This is due to the 4.6% platform fee that may have been covered by your donors on an individual basis. This is a separate fee from your original registration fee that covers credit card processing and the cost of using the platform. Please use the Net Donation column to preview the amount of your disbursement after the platform fee. Make sure you are only viewing gifts from 2020.

Why do some of my donations have a Net Donation of $0?
If you received notice of a DAF or IRA donation through GiveBIG, that donation will come directly from the donor, not through 501 Commons. Thus the Net Donation is $0.

Why do some of my donations have a Donation Amount of $0?
If a donor has requested a refund (usually for an accidentally duplicated donation) or they have disputed the charge on their credit card, then the Donation Amount will be set to $0 and this donation will not be distributed on June 11.

Nonprofit FAQ