The first of the four crowd-funding campaigns coordinated by the Eau Claire Community Foundation (ECCF) will end at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night.
Seventeen local nonprofit organizations are participating in the innovative fund-raising effort, which is part of ECCF’s 25th anniversary celebration. Three more crowd-funding campaigns are scheduled to follow.
Organizations in the current “Create Culture” category have listed projects in such areas as visual and performing arts, literature and museums. Subsequent funding “Catalogs” are open to nonprofit groups with projects that deal with education and training, some aspect of “Green” activities and meeting people’s basic needs.
The ECCF will award bonus grants totaling $25,000 to the top fund-raising organizations in each cycle. The top three in each cycle will receive grants of $10,000, $7,000 and $5,000 and all others that clear a $1,000 threshold will be entered in a drawing for three $1,000 grants.
As of July 16, when the ECCF released results for the first half of the current fund-raising cycle, 15 of the 17 participating organizations had received contributions and eight of them had exceeded the $1,000 mark. Final results will be announced on Aug. 10.
[FULL DISCLOSURE NOTE: the CVPost is one of the 17 nonprofit organizations participating in this crowd-funding campaign.]
ECCF’s “Grant Catalog” for the current funding effort can be accessed here. Donors can also contribute by mailing checks made out to the ECCF to the foundation’s office at 306 S. Barstow St Suite 104, Eau Claire 54701, with the name of the organization being supported in the memo line. Envelopes containing these checks must be postmarked by July 28.
More information about the year-long effort, including a “toolkit” to guide nonprofit organizations in planning their participation, is available through the 25th anniversary page on the ECCF website. An earlier CVPost story, with additional information on ECCF’s crowd-funding plans, can be accessed here.