Congratulations to the 2020 A Better Bakersfield Winner!
K
ern Community Foundation was not prepared to receive the Beautiful Bakersfield Award for helping to create “A Better Bakersfield” through our Give Big Kern Online Day of Giving in 2019 — much less for a second year in a row in 2020! Because this award is not ours alone. We live in a wonderfully generous community that has rallied around Kern County’s hard-working nonprofits through Give Big Kern since the Foundation launched this crowdfunding effort in 2016, setting aside the first Tuesday in May (May 4th this year) as “One day to celebrate the giving spirit of Kern County!” To date, Give Big Kern has raised more than $1.7 million and received some 385,000 pledged volunteer hours from thousands of community members in support of local charities. Through the giving day platform givebigkern.org, nonprofits can raise unrestricted dollars and engage volunteers to help with current needs, while additionally vying for cash prizes. These benefits are provided free of charge to local charities thanks to the generosity of sponsors who believe in Give Big Kern. So again, the award belongs to our entire community. More than just a Giving Day Give Big Kern is an integral part of the Foundation’s Nonprofit Strengthening Initiative, which aims to increase the visibility, capacity, sustainability and resiliency of Kern’s nonprofits. Leading up to Give Big Kern, the Foundation makes available plenty of training and visibility opportunities to help nonprofits hone their skills in marketing, public and media relations, social media strategies, best practices in online fundraising, engagement of board members/donors/ volunteers and more. By strategically following up with participants beyond Give Big Kern, we encourage them to continue utilizing these skills throughout the year, thus helping to further nonprofit strengthening. 2020: The year COVID couldn’t stop good! As a fundraising effort that is 100 percent social-distancingcompliant because it happens online, in 2020, Give Big Kern was well poised to come to the rescue of struggling nonprofits, many of which had to abandon live fundraising events to prevent community spread of the novel coronavirus. Through training and strategic messaging, we helped 125 participating agencies “pivot” their online fundraising appeals to reflect quickly evolving and very real challenges.
METRO | PAGE 6
Kern’s generous community responded tremendously, donating close to threequarters of a million dollars (72 percent more than 2019) and pledging upwards of 155,500 volunteer hours to local causes. “While this pandemic has certainly presented a whole host of challenges for the community, it has also shown us how much we can accomplish when we work together,” Foundation President and CEO Kristen Beall Watson said. “Give Big Kern is just one example, but we have seen so many more,” she said, highlighting other efforts that include close to $700,000 received and granted out through the Foundation’s COVID-19 Relief Fund; the creation of a regional inclusive economic development effort known as B3K Prosperity; and new and innovative web-based ways to support nonprofit resiliency through the soon-to-be-unveiled Nonprofit Empowerment Center on the Foundation’s website, kernfoundation.org. “The crisis has reinforced Kern Community Foundation’s commitment to creating ‘A Better Bakersfield,’” Beall Watson affirmed. Give Big Kern 2021’s enormous potential! Because so much living — and giving — continues to happen online, and more local nonprofits are choosing to participate in our day of giving as they discover the value of online fundraising, Give Big Kern 2021 has the potential to outperform even 2020. Our lovable mascot, Billy the Give Big Goat, encourages Kern residents to “Give B-i-i-i-g!” once again in 2021, in support of local causes they care about. Nonprofits wanting to fundraise, and sponsors wanting to support the Give Big Kern effort, can visit givebigkern.org/ info/faq or write to Louis@kernfoundation.org now to find out how to get involved, as preparations are just getting underway. Individual donors and volunteers wanting to give back to participating nonprofits they care about can visit givebigkern.org starting April 4, one month out from Give Big Kern Day. The website will begin receiving donations and volunteer pledges then, and remain open till May 5, one day after the big day, so that even late stragglers can give back — after all, it wouldn’t be a celebration of giving if we didn’t make it easy for everyone to join in the fun! – Louis Medina, Kern Community Foundation
