On Tuesday CrowdRise celebrated the 2016 #GivingTuesday with its annual Giving Tower Campaign. The crowdfunding platform announced $4 million was raised more than 1,100 participating charities competing for a $25,000 prize in the CrowdRise Giving Tower campaign.
This year, the CrowdRise Giving Tower reportedly reached over 6,500 feet, overtaking the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Charities fiercely competed by fundraising for a $25,000 donation from CrowdRise, the Craig Newmark Foundation, and the Charity Network.
CrowdRise CEO and co-founder, Robert Wolfe, stated:
“We launched CrowdRise because we thought if we could make giving back fun and interesting and notable, way more people would want to do it. Five years ago, when we talked about campaigns like the Giving Tower, people thought we were crazy. There was this idea that giving back had to be serious and even somber,” said . “Yesterday thousands of decent humans once again threw that notion out the window — the community built a virtual tower by donating to some of the most serious and amazing causes out there. So awesome.”
CrowdRise stated Encinitas, CA-based Cure JM Foundation secured the most funds on #GivingTuesday with nearly $170,000 and won the $25,000 bonus donation. Coming in second, Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee raised over $150,000, followed by Raleigh, NC-based Multiple System Atrophy Coalition with nearly $120,000.
The crowdfunding platform also confirmed that Medical, Disease & Disorders campaigns represented the top raising cause category with 25% of overall donations going to a charity in that field. Closely trailing was Education, generating 17% of donations, followed by Military & Veterans (15%), Disaster relief (12%), Environment (11%), Animals & Pets (9%), Civil Rights & Social Action (6%), and Arts & Culture (5%). The top ten states for giving, in order, were: New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and Texas.
The Giving Tower campaign notably kicks off the CrowdRise Holiday Charity Challenge, a year-end fundraising campaign for charitable organizations of any size to leverage their traditional holiday giving in an innovative and fun competition where the top-raising charities win grand prize donations for their causes. The challenge launched on Tuesday, November, 22nd and runs through Thursday, January 5th. Charities participating in the Holiday Charity Challenge will have the opportunity to win additional donations over the course of the campaign. The top five raising charities will win:
- 1st Place: $100,000
- 2nd Place: $50,000
- 3rd Place: $25,000
- 4th Place: $10,000
- 5th Place: $5,000
Also, participants will have the opportunity to win up to $60,000 in Weekly Bonus Challenge prizes.
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