Back to Blog

The Power of Collaborative Giving Days with The Orange County Community Foundation

Giving & Gabbing is GiveGab’s official podcast, featuring interviews with our philanthropic partners that highlight their unique digital fundraising and engagement stories. By offering this podcast, we strive to educate and inspire fundraising professionals from across the country – and perhaps even provide [a small morsel of] entertainment.

In Episode 8 of Giving & Gabbing, Jackie and Karin are joined by Carol, Director of Donor Relations & Programs at The Orange County Community Foundation. Carol and her team are responsible for coordinating philanthropic initiatives such as OC Nonprofit Central and their Social Innovation Fund.

Additionally, OCCF hosts a series of Collaborative Giving Days throughout the year that celebrates nonprofits serving different cause areas such as youth services through Igniting Potential and homelessness services through Help Them Home. With these Collaborative Giving Days, participating organizations play an integral role in their creation and planning through dedicated committees.

Protect and Preserve, an upcoming Collaborative Giving Day, is dedicated to raising awareness around seven organizations working to sustain the ecosystems of Orange County, and will take place on October 7. During this event, participating organizations will be working in a joint effort to raise $100,000 in just 24-hours.

In previous years, the Community Foundation held a traditional Giving Day, iHeartOC, encompassing all nonprofits in Orange County. They have recently made the pivot to Collaborative Giving Days in hopes to better engage and support the nonprofit community. Throughout this interview, Carol discusses the strategies behind coordinating these collaborative days and the impact they have made in their community.

In this episode of Giving & Gabbing, our guest Carol Ferguson discusses:

Collaborative Giving Days
  • The OCCF’s pivot from iHeartOC, a traditional community Giving Day, to caused-based Collaborative Giving Days
  • How coordinating these segmented Giving Days encourages more engagement from donors and participating organizations
  • Their marketing and communication strategies around each Collaborative Giving Day
  • Advice for Giving Day hosts thinking of segmenting their event based on cause area
  • Their continuous efforts to create sustainable and self-sufficient Collaborative Giving Days

Check out the full interview with Carol Ferguson on Segmenting your Giving Day Efforts for Greater Impact and Engagement by listening to our Giving & Gabbing episode below or wherever you get your podcasts!

Giving & Gabbing is now available on popular podcast streaming sites such as:

Podcast episodes include nonprofit communication and marketing strategies and interviews with fundraising professionals from across the nonprofit and education sectors.

Listen Here