Give Ozarks Day 2021
Frequently Asked Questions for CFO Nonprofit Agency Partners
What is Give Ozarks Day?
Give Ozarks Day is the CFO’s online “giving day” event for its nonprofit agency partners. Previously held each May in 2015, 2016 and 2017, the three events raised more than $3.5 million for agency partners. The event is returning in 2021 with the theme “Rally for Recovery” to give agency partners the opportunity to raise operating funds that were lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event will run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on March 24, 2021, and will be powered by CauseMomentum.org, the CFO’s crowdfunding platform.
Sponsors for the 2021 event include: Bass Pro Shops; Burrell Behavioral Health; Central Bank and Central Trust Co.; the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation managed by Commerce Trust; the Darr Family Foundation; Great Southern Bank; Guaranty Bank; the Hatch Foundation; Legacy Bank; Ollis/Akers/Arney; and SFC Bank. KY3/KSPR and Springfield Business Journal are the media sponsors for the event.
What are the important dates for the event?
- November 5 — General information webinar (Click here to view)
- January 8 — Intent to Participate Form Due
- January 21, 11 a.m. — Training for participating agencies, morning webinar (Click here to register)
- January 21, 2 p.m. — Training for participating agencies, afternoon webinar (Click here to register)
- February 26 — Projects Due to the CFO for review
- March 24 — Give Ozarks Day event (7am–7pm)
Do you have promotional resources for agencies?
Absolutely! Click here for a growing list of resources, including the recording from our training webinar.
How can I participate?
You only need to be an agency partner or school partner of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks or one of the CFO’s 50 regional affiliate foundations. That is, an IRS-recognized 501(c)3 (or equivalent) that holds at least one fund with the CFO. You must have completed the Intent to Participate form by the Jan. 8 deadline in order to participate.
How can I tell if my organization is an agency partner with the CFO?
The CFO lists its agency partners online. Go to the Nonprofit Partners page, scroll down to “Meet our nonprofit partners” and search for your agency. If you cannot find your agency on that page, your agency in not an agency partner with the CFO.
What if I am not currently an agency partner or school partner of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks?
We welcome new agency partners. The best, first step would be to discuss establishing a fund at the CFO. Please contact Zach Clapper, manager of the Agency Partner Program, at zclapper@cfozarks.org or (417) 864-6199 to begin that process.
Will there be prizes available to all Give Ozarks Day participants?
Yes! Thanks to our generous sponsors, we plan to offer 12 $5,000 “luck of the draw” prizes throughout the day. You can increase your chances of winning by encouraging donors to support your project. Each unique donor that gives to your project during each hour will grant your agency one entry to the random hourly drawing. After each hour, we will look at multiple identifying factors of donors and remove duplicates to ensure each agency has a fair chance of winning.
Agencies that receive a “luck of the draw” prize will not be eligible for additional “luck of the draw” prizes later in the day.
When will I receive my prize money?
Prizes are considered grants to the winning agency and will be determined by luck of the draw each hour of the event. Prize schedule and details will be released at a later date.
The CFO and its sponsors reserve the right to make final determinations on all prize money awarded.
Does my agency have to reach a specific goal or donation total during Give Ozarks Day?
No. You will keep (net of fees) whatever amount is donated to you during Give Ozarks.
What fees are associated with participating in Give Ozarks Day?
Unlike national third-party day-of-giving websites, we are running Give Ozarks Day through the CFO’s own CauseMomentum.org platform, so there is no upfront fee or software purchase required to participate.
The fees that will apply to funds raised on Give Ozarks Day are twofold:
- The CauseMomentum.org platform uses the credit card transaction provider Stripe. All Stripe transactions are feed at approximately $.30 plus 2.2% of the total transaction, which is below the norm for credit card transaction services. Please note: CauseMomentum.org will give each donor the option (via a pre-checked checkbox during the donation process) to cover their own transaction fee, estimated at 3.5%. This means, for example, that a donor giving $100 will have the option of adding approximately $3.50 onto the donation to help cover the transaction fee. We have found that about 50% of donors choose this option, which means, in effect, you will pay only the transaction fee of the donations NOT covered by donors.
- Additionally, a 1% platform fee will be levied by CFO at the time the funds are transferred into your chosen CFO fund.
Note: All donation totals that will show on the website during Give Ozarks Day are gross totals, meaning neither of the fees described above will be levied until the time of transfer to your chosen fund. If you decide to set a goal to raise money for a specific project or need, we would encourage you to add enough to the goal to cover the credit-card and platform fees (no more than 4.5 percent), so that you will still have the amount you need if your goal is successful.
What payment methods will the Give Ozarks website accept?
Our 100% secure online card processor (Stripe) accepts all major credit cards: MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express. For this event, we will not consider offline money for the fundraising total or individual projects. If you have a check donation, you can add that to your agency’s CFO fund, if desired, but will not be applied to project total.
What kind of promotion am I responsible for?
The CFO will provide promotional coverage of Give Ozarks Day as a whole across the region. This will include media partners and promotion. The CFO will also provide basic assets for the event, like logos and other graphics. Beyond that, promoting your agency’s project is up to you.
Your success on Give Ozarks Day is predicated on how well you promote your participation via social media and your other resources to drive traffic to your individual project. Your project will be searchable by name, location and category from the CauseMomentum.org homepage, but CFO will not be promoting for individual agencies.
Additionally, as an agency, you are responsible for securing any sponsors or matching donations that would specifically support your agency.
What if my agency isn’t active on social media?
This is a great opportunity to start! Find a platform that works best for you and begin connecting with your constituents. Regardless of the platform, having an active social media presence in place by the time in the event will be to your project’s advantage.
What do I have to do on the day of the event?
Everything you can! Have a promotional strategy in place for social media, text messages, emails, traditional media and word of mouth. Have your biggest supporters — board, staff, donors and friends — ready and willing to make donations to start the day off right, and then encourage them to tell other people about your agency’s good work. You may also need to keep an eye on your project and donations as they come in, and communicate with the CFO about any problems or questions you (or your donors) may have.
Can donors make matching gifts on the day of the event?
Yes, but the website will not show incentives and matches as gifts are made but matching gifts can be managed and promoted by your agency.
When can I create our Give Ozarks fundraising project?
You can create your agency’s project after we hold training sessions in January as we will have specific instructions for project creation to ensure Give Ozarks Day goes as smoothly as possible.
When will our money raised on Give Ozarks Day be available?
The CFO will begin reconciling the day’s transactions immediately following Give Ozarks Day. A final total will be announced by Monday, March 29. After that, we will begin the process of transferring the net total for your agency’s project (less fees) to your selected agency partner fund. The net total will be available for your agency within four weeks of Give Ozarks Day.
When will I know my final total, and get my list of donors?
You will see donations with preliminary fee totals, along with donor information, on the project dashboard on CauseMomentum.org. To view the dashboard, log into your CauseMomentum account, which will take you to your agency profile. From there, click on the “Projects” tab, then choose the project dashboard. Click on the “Donor History” tab to view the donation information. At the bottom of the page, clicking on “Export Donor List” will create a spreadsheet with that information.
Does my organization need to send tax-acknowledgement letters to donors?
No, not for online gifts. The donor will immediately receive an email confirming the gift receipt from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks during the event. Note that all donations must be 100% tax-deductible (no additional benefits). But we would encourage you to acknowledge donations by following up with donors to thank them and let them know what you will do with their donation. This applies to all online gifts.
Does my organization need to send thank-you letters?
It would certainly be ideal to thank your Give Ozarks Day donors for their support. The system will send an automatic tax acknowledgement, but it does not send thank you notes automatically.
Will my organization receive donor information for acknowledgments?
You will have access to donor names and information during and after the event on the project dashboard on CauseMomentum.org. To view the dashboard, log into your CauseMomentum account, which will take you to your agency profile. From there, click on the “Projects” tab, then choose the project dashboard. Click on the “Donor History” tab to view the donation information. At the bottom of the page, clicking on “Export Donor List” will create a spreadsheet with that information. Please note: We ask that communications with all donors who publicly marked their gifts as “anonymous” remain minimal.
Can we encourage donations by giving away prizes or free gifts?
We encourage agencies to be creative in the promotion for their fundraising projects. However, we do not advise agencies offer incentives or gifts for donations for a few reasons:
- CauseMomentum.org is not set up for incentive fulfillment, and the CFO is not responsible for the fulfillment of any items offered as part of a CauseMomentum/Give Ozarks fundraising project.
- Incentives with more than incidental value will affect the tax-deductible amount of a donor’s gift. The CFO nor the CauseMomentum.org system have no way of tracking or alerting donors of the fair-market value of an incentive and its effect
