Each spring, Omaha Gives! celebrates the power of community engagement during an exciting 24-hour fundraising event that inspires philanthropy and connection across the entire metro area. Since 2013, this yearly event has raised over $49 million for over 1,000 dedicated nonprofit organizations in Douglas, Sarpy, and Pottawattamie Counties. Here, we explore how you can participate in this year’s Omaha Gives Day – both during the May 20th event and leading up to it. And we share about a few of the many incredible community partners we hope you’ll consider supporting this year.
How You Can Get Involved
Operated by the Omaha Community Foundation, Omaha Gives! is a year-round online giving platform, but on Omaha Gives Day, they celebrate a special one-day event to grow awareness and excitement about local nonprofits and the work they do. Participating groups also have the chance to win additional rewards for raising the most support at various points throughout the day, and many have secured large matching funds as part of the event too.
To join the effort, just visit Omaha Gives! to find your favorite local nonprofits, and schedule your donations anytime from May 1st until midnight on May 20th. Supporters can also create Cheer Pages to highlight their favorite nonprofit organizations and drum up additional support from their own social networks. And new this year is the chance to win a $1,000 prize for your favorite participating nonprofit when you use the hashtag #WhyIGiveOG to show your support. In the end, it’s all a big win for everyone involved. In 2019 alone, Omaha Gives Day raised $6.8 million for over 960 nonprofits from over 18,000 donors.
If you’re passionate about the natural world and the incredible value it brings to our community, especially during this challenging season, we’d love to share about a few of the many amazing organizations you can support through Omaha Gives! this year.
Keep Omaha Beautiful
With a dedicated staff of just four hardworking and passionate advocates, each year Keep Omaha Beautiful engages a combined total of over 20,000 students and volunteers to encourage environmental stewardship and community advocacy through education, service, and the enriching power of beautiful plants. Their many projects around town include litter clean-up days, revitalizing vacant lots into sustainable community spaces, educational events, and more.
For this year’s Omaha Gives Day, Keep Omaha Beautiful is directing all donations to their Trees for Omaha program. Trees for Omaha is a city-wide effort in collaboration with the City of Omaha to replace ash trees, lost to emerald ash borer, with a diverse urban forest made up of resilient native tree species that will add beauty, shade, and crucial natural habitat to our community for generations to come.
And as part of their Give Love, Give Hugs campaign, Keep Omaha Beautiful is encouraging the community to “give love” with a donation and “give hugs” to a favorite neighborhood tree – be sure to help spread the word by sharing a photo on social media.
Help support Keep Omaha Beautiful.
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium
We’re so fortunate to have such a world-class zoo, education center, and leader in conservation located right in our own town. Thanks to the dedicated team at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, visitors not only get to immerse themselves in high-quality, interactive exhibits but can also take part in engaging educational programs and citizen science opportunities for all ages and levels of learning. But what we might not see on a typical visit is the important work going on behind the scenes too. Our wonderful Zoo is also a world leader in conservation research – with several programs related to rare plant conservation, molecular genetics, conservation medicine, and more.
This year, the Zoo is putting all funds raised during Omaha Gives Day toward their emergency operating fund. This fund allows the Zoo to keep moving forward in their mission to help protect the world’s plants and animals – even while the Zoo is closed for a time.
Help support Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium.
The Big Garden
The folks at The Big Garden are continuing to work hard to fight local hunger by helping people gain the skills and resources needed to grow, cook, and preserve their own garden-grown produce. And this year, the need is greater than ever. With local food pantries seeing an eight-fold increase in demand, The Big Garden is partnering with other local organizations to secure unused land where additional fresh produce can be grown and donated to food pantries and homeless shelters.
It’s all part of their goal is to help create strong, sustainable, healthy food systems. Working each year with local schools, churches, childcare centers, and food pantries, The Big Garden strives to increase access to key gardening resources as well as educational programs to teach gardening and cooking skills. This includes their Growing Gardeners Workshop Series, which continues to be offered online.
City Sprouts
Through a wide array of educational and connection-building opportunities, City Sprouts moves closer every day to their vision of resilient communities coming together to grow and eat food that’s local, sustainable, and healthy too. The City Sprouts Education Center is one of their hubs, but their valuable work can be seen in other areas of town too – including community gardens, a small-scale urban farm, a traveling truck farm, and more. City Sprouts also partners with The Big Garden in the Growing Gardeners Workshop Series.
Like their friends at The Big Garden, the team at City Sprouts is also working to increase local food production. Funds from this year’s Omaha Gives Day will help support their initiative to produce 20,000 pounds of food in 2020. That’s ten times their production in 2019. It’s a lofty, courageous goal – but a necessary one – so your support is invaluable to making that happen.
No More Empty Pots
No More Empty Pots create connections between individuals and groups invested in improving the self-sufficiency, regional food security, and economic resilience of our community. Through workforce training such as their intensive, hands-on Culinary Workforce and Food Entrepreneur programs, No More Empty Pots prepares individuals to succeed as both employees and business owners in the food industry. They also encourage community engagement, connection, and good nutrition at their Cups Café locations as well as offer engaging educational programing for all ages in agriculture, science and math, culinary arts, and more.
Help support No More Empty Pots.
Let’s Support our Community Partners
There are so many dedicated advocates in our community, and now more than ever, they need our support. We hope you’ll consider participating in this year’s Omaha Gives! event on May 20th and lend a helping hand to some of the amazing groups working hard to make Omaha an even better and more beautiful place to call home.
