Results From First Jefferson County Gives Fundraiser Far Surpass Initial Expectations 

JEFFERSON COUNTY – Just over 800 donations totaling more than $90,000 shared across 40 Jefferson County nonprofits. All in the span of 24 hours. Jefferson County’s first county-wide fundraising drive smashed any of the organizers’ initial expectations for the brand new event.  

“I think everybody is very pleased. It's almost miraculous how smoothly everything went yesterday. Like the donation totals aside, which were marvelous, we're very happy,” said Jefferson County Gives board member Ben Schwartz. “More than any specific dollar amount, we needed to demonstrate that this can work here, right? And I think we did that and much more.” 

A group of nonprofits from across Jefferson County has been working towards this day for the better part of two years. And this week, that day arrived, with 40 nonprofits of all different sizes, reaches and objectives coming together under one roof or another to champion their individual causes, and promote Jefferson County as a whole at the first Jefferson County Gives fundraiser.  

“We know people support the food pantry. We know people support our emergency assistance programs when they think about it.  We know that we have people's support when they think about it,” said Schwartz, who doubles as the communications director for Blue Valley Community Action, one of the participating nonprofits. “Well, this is an opportunity to get everybody to think about all these groups, and bring a big spotlight on a lot of worthy causes all at once. And so then hopefully people will think about everybody more often.” 

Jefferson County’s first county-wide fundraiser was inspired by longstanding successful similar drives in neighboring counties like Gage and Seward, and especially in Thayer. And instead of competition between neighbors, over the past two years there has been plenty of collaboration between people who are separated by only about 30 minutes of drive time to ensure that a fundraiser in Jefferson County could succeed as well.  

“Jefferson County, we had communications with them about that. I was part of the group that helped get Big Give Thayer going, I wasn’t solely on it, but was one of the big pushers for it – and they came and talked to us, and they said what should we do, what can you tell us we shouldn’t do? What is good, what is bad? And we shared, because we want them to be as successful as we are,” Kristi Zucker, a member of the Deshler Community Fund, said at the Thayer County Economic Development Alliance annual event Thursday.  

“Gage County has a tremendously successful annual Giving Day, they do great work there. Seward County has a good one too,” Schwartz said. “We drew a lot of inspiration, actually, from Thayer County in that, the spirit in which it was formed. It was started just by a couple of friends or a small group of friends who's like, you know, we could do this. And so that's kind of the spirit that we adopted here in Jefferson County, saying, yes, if these other counties can do this and do a great job, we can do that here too.” 

The Jefferson County Gives board had no idea what a realistic fundraising total expectation should be for the first year of the event. But they raised more than $50,000 by noon, and more than $70,000 by 5 PM – and by midnight, that total settled at $92,421.91. All 40 participating organizations received at least some donations, and more than half brought in more than $1,000. Those figures far surpassed anyone’s initial expectations, and they prove that an event like this can succeed in the future in this county as well. 

“801 times yesterday, someone made the decision to support a nonprofit organization in Jefferson County,” Schwartz said.  “And that number was the one that I kept looking at. Obviously, I was also looking at the dollar amount as it went higher and higher, right? And that was fantastic. But 800 times yesterday, someone in Jefferson County, or someone who loves Jefferson County, made the decision to make a donation. To reach the amount that we did is not only a tremendous success for this first effort, but it shows like, hey, we can do even better than this. And that's a very exciting prospect.”