Every November and December, Literary Arts takes part in a community-wide fundraising campaign called Give!Guide. Run by Willamette Week for the last 18 years, it’s a great way to showcase the diverse array of Portland nonprofits. We are fortunate to have been a part of this campaign since 2007.
Last year’s Give!Guide campaign, with the help of nearly 300 individuals making 487 donations, was a huge success! We set a goal of raising $25,000, and we not only met that goal…we surpassed it by more than $10k, bringing us to a total of $36,018! We reached 144% of our goal—nearly a 50% increase in donations from Give!Guide last year. This was the highest earning Give!Guide campaign we’ve ever had. We couldn’t have gotten there without so many of you, and we are extremely grateful.
What we love about Give!Guide is the way it focuses on celebrating donations of all sizes, making room for more members of the community to join local organizations as stakeholders and supporters. Give!Guide welcomes all donations throughout the two months, but the imapact is seen mostly through its Big Give Day promotions. On Big Give Days, large prizes such as a new e-bike or a shopping spree at Powell’s are raffled off to a lucky few, and any donation $10 or above counts as an entry into the giveaway.
In the first week of December, there was a Big Give Day with a grand prize of a gift card to New Seasons Market. Out of thousands of donations on that day alone, the person who won actually entered with a donation to Literary Arts! Erica of Portland won $500 to spend at New Seasons, all because of her gift to us.
“I regularly donate to via the Give!Guide because I feel like it’s an easy, affordable and fun way to engage with the community I love and call home—and the prize tie-ins are always a great incentive!” she said to us via email.
“Literary Arts is a cornerstone of our community and I’ve enjoyed events in-person and via The Archive Project podcast. In this age of waning attention spans and digital media overload, the value of literature, print media, and live literary events is something I cherish more than ever.”
—Erica of Portland
Literary Arts ran our own giveaway as part of the Give!Guide campaign. We raffled off a set of 25 books from local press Tin House’s 2022 collection, and tickets to enter started at just $50. Susan of Aloha, quoted below, won our prize.
“Every year instead of exchanging holiday gifts, my siblings and I donate to our favorite charities. Like most years, I picked the Oregon Food Bank. Then, when I saw a tweet about the raffle, I realized that one can also be hungry for books and the community of writers and readers. Food and books; both are vital for life.”
—Susan of Aloha
In speaking with Susan, we also found out that was her first donation to Literary Arts! We are thrilled that Susan got such a warm welcome to our organization, and we are excited for all her literary adventures ahead.
We asked her which books from her new collection she was most looking forward to reading, and she said What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. A. Chancy and How to Turn Into a Bird by María José Ferrada were at the top of her list.
This holiday season brought us and some of our supporters some wonderful surprises. We are deeply grateful for the Literary Arts community, and we look forward to sharing more special moments with you throughout 2023.
