ORGANIZATION FAQ

OVERVIEW

Give Miami Day is one of the largest annual online giving events in the Southeast United States. It is a day where anyone can be a philanthropist and show up for Miami by collectively supporting organizations serving the local community. Give Miami Day will be celebrating its 13th year this year and has raised more than $100 million for more than 1,000 community organizations.

Just as important as the funds raised during Give Miami Day are the collaborative, capacity-building training opportunities offered to organizations in the months leading up to Give Miami Day. These trainings fortify organizations’ collaborations with their nonprofit colleagues, deepen their engagements with donors, and strengthen their impact in the community.

Give Miami Day 2024 will take place on Thursday, November 21. The 24-hour giving day begins at 12 a.m. EST on November 21, and ends at 11:59 p.m. EST. The GiveMiamiDay.org portal will open up for an Early Giving donation period from Sunday, November 17 through Wednesday, November 20.

  • Unrestricted funds: All dollars raised by organizations on Give Miami Day are unrestricted and can be used for specific programs or general operating support. 
  • Bonus Pool: All participating organizations qualify for the Bonus Pool percentage match. The bonus gift will be calculated by dividing the total Bonus Pool dollars by the total eligible gifts (between $25 and $10,000) on Give Miami Day. The Miami Foundation determines the Bonus Pool percentage at the conclusion of Give Miami Day. We won’t know the exact amount or percentage until after the big day because, like you, we will be fundraising from now until 11:59 p.m. on Give Miami Day. 
  • Prizes: Prizes are additional opportunities for participating organizations to win extra dollars during the Give Miami Day campaign. The Miami Foundation will announce the list of prizes via email blast and on the website a few weeks before Give Miami Day. Stay tuned for more details. 
  • Capacity- & Community-Building Opportunities: In partnership with Radical Partners, we will offer a strategic blend of capacity-building opportunities, in-person community-building engagements, and accessible supporting videos and documents. Organization leaders and their teams will feel supported and gain access to skills and strategies to keep participating and benefiting from Give Miami Day. Check out the organization resource hub to learn more. 
  • Increased visibility: Organizations participating in Give Miami Day increase online visibility while engaging new donors and prospects. Once approved, your organization’s profile will be searchable on the Give Miami Day website. As a reminder, donors cannot donate until the early giving period starts on Sunday, November 17. 
  • Mission Control Center: Mission Control Center is an all-day interactive gathering offered to participating organizations that takes place on Give Miami Day (November 21). Radical Partners and The Miami Foundation team up to provide professional and recreational support as organizations fundraise on Give Miami Day. Teams can feel comforted knowing they will be surrounded by a community that knows exactly what it’s like to fundraise and have a good time doing it. 

Registration Opens

The sooner you are registered, the sooner you can fully focus on your fundraising strategy to support your incredible work! Our kickoff webinar will take you through all the things you need to know to register and get your fundraising strategy underway successfully! 

  August 1 

Early Bird Registration 

Each week during early bird registration, we will randomly select one organization that has completed their registration to win a prize of $500 on Give Miami Day and a feature on our social media.  

  August 1 – September 1  

Registration Closes

Make sure your organization fully completes the registration process by October 6 in order to participate in Give Miami Day 2024. This means you have fully completed the requirements on your “To-Do List” in the system. It is at the top left if the screen in the system.  

  October 18  

Early Giving Period 

The Early Giving period is to give increased flexibility to many participating organizations and donors who may be unable to get all their donations in during the 24 hours of Give Miami Day. 

Note: Eligible Early Giving donations (gifts between $25-$10K) will still qualify for Bonus Pool dollars. 

 November 17– November 20  

Give Miami Day 2024

  November 21  

ELIGIBILITY

To be eligible to participate in Give Miami Day, there are three basic criteria:

1. You must be actively qualified as one of the following:

  • Tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity
  • A private operating foundation
  • Educational institution
  • Religious organization
  • Government social benefit agency (public works, parks, animal services, etc.)
  • Project with an established IRS  501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor

2. You must offer programming in Miami-Dade County.

  • Pre-approved philanthropic funds housed at The Miami Foundation offering programming in Miami-Dade County are also eligible to participate.

3. Be actively registered with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

  • Although we are not collecting your organization’s certificate of solicitation, it is a requirement of the state and your organization should make sure you are in compliance. You can read about the Solicitation of Contributions Act and go here for more information. Questions about the Certificate of Solicitation should be directed to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 

Unfortunately, the following organizations are not eligible to participate (but we still love you for the great work you do!):

  • Private non-operating foundations (filing an IRS 990PF)
  • Type 3 supporting organizations (IRS charity status of 509(a)(3))
  • Type 4 advocacy groups (IRS charity status of 501(c)(4))
  • Type 6 chamber of commerce and membership groups (IRS charity status of 501(c)(6))
  • Public safety organizations (IRS charity status of 509(a)(4))


In Florida, by law, all charitable organizations must be registered with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to legally solicit donations from donors within the state of Florida. For more information about this State of Florida requirement for charitable organizations, please visit FDACS.gov or contact the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services directly. 

Absolutely! Volunteer-led organizations are welcome to participate in Give Miami Day. As long as you meet the eligibility requirements and offer programming in Miami-Dade County, you can register and take part in this impactful event.

Yes, new nonprofit organizations are eligible to participate in Give Miami Day. Please ensure you meet the eligibility requirements and follow the registration process to join the event.

REGISTRATION

In order to participate in Give Miami Day, all organizations, regardless of past participation, must register each year through the Give Miami Day website. Registration will take place in two parts. You can access registration instructions here and go to the registration page to get started. 

Yes! You can edit your profile at any time, including on Give Miami Day! 

Here are a few additional features you and your team may consider utilizing:

  • Add users to your organization’s profile (Settings > Admins)
    • Organizations can have multiple users associated with their page, meaning you can set up anyone who needs access to your organization’s Give Miami Day page with their own personal account. Please note that anyone with a user account can access your donor information.
  • Highlight your volunteer opportunities available to the public. (Fundraising Tools > Opportunities)
  • At the bottom of your profile page, you can add descriptions and a picture for each of the programs your organization offers. 
  • If your organization participated in the past, you can use the reports feature to begin looking at past donations, donors you have retained, and donors you have not retained to inform your fundraising strategy.
  • Monitor all Peer-to-Peer fundraising pages created on your profile and edit or remove them as needed.

If you have questions about navigating the system, completing registration, or editing your profile, you can reach out to the support team at givemiamiday@miamifoundation.org.

FUNDRAISE & CAPACITY BUILDING

Peer-to-Peer fundraising pages are a fantastic way for you and your supporters to expand your network and online donations. They can be used in different ways to support your campaign:

  • Individuals: You can encourage individuals to create fundraising pages and invite their networks to give in support of your organization. Gifts will be tallied on their fundraising page and in your nonprofit’s tally. 
  • Teams: For groups whose members would like to create personal fundraising pages and inspire friendly competition with a leaderboard that tallies progress toward collective and individual goals.
  • Corporate Giving: Corporate Giving pages are suited to groups that would like to encourage their audiences to donate during Give Miami Day and track progress toward a collective goal.

Check out this video for more information on Peer to Peer pages and campaigns.

Our Organization Resource Hub is a cultivation of resources for you to take your fundraising skills to the next level and build community. You will find capacity and community-building events to sign up for, toolkits, workshop videos, and much more.

EARLY GIVING

The Early Giving period is the few days leading up to Give Miami Day during which we will open the GiveMiamiDay.org portal for donations to be made early. From Sunday, November 17, at 12:00 a.m. through Wednesday, November 20, at 11:59 p.m., anyone can go to GiveMiamiDay.org, find an organization's profile, and make a gift before the start of Give Miami Day (November 21, at 12:00 a.m.)

The main purpose of the Early Giving period is to give increased flexibility to donors who may need additional time to process their gifts for Give Miami Day. Many organizations have had successful "pledge" campaigns, where they document a donor’s intent to make a gift on Give Miami Day, by collecting gift information (name, address, and contact information) from donors in the weeks ahead of Give Miami Day. Early Giving allows staff time to contact donors to remind them of their intention and to prompt them to visit GiveMiamiDay.org to complete their gifts. Early giving begins Sunday, November 17. Note: Eligible Early Giving donations (gifts between $25-$10K) will still qualify for bonus pool dollars.

No, there is no limit to how much your organization can raise during the Early Giving period.

Yes, organizations may receive pledged commitments at any time before the Early Giving period and Give Miami Day. Please note that donors must enter their pledged donations into GiveMiamiDay.org either during the Early Giving period (November 17 - 20) or on Give Miami Day (Nov 21). The Early Giving period will hopefully allow more flexibility for your donors to input all pledges before the Give Miami Day event.  

MATCHING FUNDS

Matching funds are dollars contributed from a donor or company directly to your organization as a way to help encourage other donors to give to you on Give Miami Day. If you have secured match funding, you can highlight this publicly on your profile so that during the event other donors can see that their donation will receive a match. With this, they'll know that they are increasing the impact of their gift!

Matching fund donors should send the dollars directly to your organization via check, grant, etc. outside of the GiveMiamiDay.org platform, as these dollars should remain independent of funds received during the event and do not qualify for the additional Bonus Pool percentage gift.

You take the lead in securing your organization’s matching funds. Your organization will earmark the funds as matching dollars on your end and enter the total dollar amount of the matching funds into your Give Miami Day profile. To enter new matching funds, click “Fundraising Tools” in the left-hand menu and click “Matching Grants”. There you will see any previous and current matches that you have and you can also add a new match by clicking the “+ Create” button in the top right corner.  

When you enter a match, you will now see many options compared to in the past. If you would like to do a simple 1:1 match pool and not identify the match provider, set the percentage to 100% and click that it is anonymous. 

Other options that are now available are:

  • Partially match gifts
  • Set matches to start at a certain date/time
  • Have multiple matches at once
  • The ability to choose whether or not you want your match to appear in your page total
  • Matches up to a certain dollar amount
  • Choose what applies to your match (offline gifts, donations made through fundraisers, etc)
  • Queuing matches to begin after another match is met

 

You can see step-by-step instructions on how to set up your match here

PRIZES

Prizes are additional opportunities for nonprofits to win extra dollars during the Give Miami Day campaign. The Foundation will announce the list of prizes via email blast as well as on GiveMiamiDay.org a few weeks before Give Miami Day.  Please stay tuned!

The Miami Foundation will announce the list of prizes via email blast as well as on the website a few weeks before Give Miami Day. Stay tuned for more details.

Registering early could pay off! We will be randomly selecting one nonprofit a week that has fully registered to participate in Give Miami Day during the early bird registration period (August 1- September 1). This organization will win a prize of $1,000 on Give Miami Day, a feature on our social media, and a spot on the Prize Leaderboard. Winners will be announced in our Give Miami Day registration emails. The prize money will be added to your Give Miami Day disbursement.

BONUS POOLS

The Miami Foundation fundraises for two types of bonus pools:

  1. General Bonus Pool: All participating organizations qualify for the general bonus pool percentage match. The bonus gift will be calculated by dividing the total general bonus pool dollars by the total eligible gifts (between $25 and $10,000) made to organizations. The Miami Foundation determines the Bonus Pool percentage at the conclusion of Give Miami Day because, like you, we are fundraising all the way through Give Miami Day. 
  2. Primary Category Bonus Pool: During the registration process, organizations select the primary category that aligns most deeply with your organization’s work. The Miami Foundation fundraises for each of the primary category bonus pools:
    • Animals
    • Arts & Culture
    • Community Care
    • Human Rights, Advocacy, & Civic Engagement
    • Economic & Community Development
    • Education & Youth 
    • Environment
    • Faith-Based
    • Health & Wellness
    • Inclusion and Accessibility 

The bonus gift will be calculated by dividing the total dollars in your primary category bonus pool by the total eligible gifts (between $25 and $10,000) made to organizations in your primary category bonus pool. The Miami Foundation determines the Bonus Pool percentage at the conclusion of Give Miami Day because, like you, we are fundraising all the way through Give Miami Day.

No, during the registration process, organizations select the primary category that aligns most deeply with your organization’s work.

The Miami Foundation fundraises for all bonus pools all the way through Give Miami Day, so we don't know exactly how much will be in the pools yet. Please know that we're actively fundraising and working hard to make meaningful progress in our fundraising.

Gifts from $25 up to $10,000 will qualify for a percentage bonus gift. Bonus pool dollars are not a 1:1 match. Offline donations do not qualify for bonus pool dollars.

DONATIONS

Your donors can begin contributing to your organization during the early giving period (November 17-20) all the way through Give Miami Day (November 21). Organizations may receive pledged commitments at any time before the Early Giving period and Give Miami Day. Please note that donors must enter their pledged donations into GiveMiamiDay.org either during the Early Giving period (November 17 - 20) or on Give Miami Day (Nov 21). The Early Giving period will hopefully allow more flexibility for your donors to input all pledges before the Give Miami Day event.  

The minimum gift amount on Give Miami Day is $25. 

The Miami Foundation hosts Give Miami Day as part of its mission to promote philanthropy throughout Miami-Dade County and does not collect any fees or revenue for Give Miami Day. However, gifts made via credit card and electronic bank transfer are subject to additional fees paid directly to credit card and bank merchants and Mightycause, The Miami Foundations online portal partner. Donors may choose to cover the transaction fee upon checkout. 

FUND DISTRIBUTION AND REPORTS

All dollars raised will be disbursed by Mightycause Charitable Foundation (MCF), our platform provider, by December 31, 2024. 

On the GiveMiamiDay.org portal (powered by Mightycause) you already have access to your Donation Report. You can use this report to keep track of all donations received, and to thank your donors for their generous contributions. Keep in mind that this donation report does not include prizes or bonuses, and it does not account for transaction fees. You’ll see those details (and your full expected payout amount) in your final disbursement report which will be available on the portal soon. 

This report will become available prior to the payout of your funds and will reflect your organization’s total disbursement amount inclusive of applicable prizes, bonus dollars and donation fees.  You will receive an email confirmation from Mightycause prior to the disbursement of the funds. 

 All Online Donation dollars raised will be disbursed by our platform provider, Mightycause Charitable Foundation (MCF) by December 31 to your organization’s bank account via an electronic fund transfer. Please see an example below of what your Disbursement Report should look like once available and how it may be accessed.  

 



  • Your initial disbursement report will reflect all transactions made during the period of Early Giving (November 17, 18, 19 and 20) and on Give Miami Day (Nov 21, 2024). If a donor initiated recurring donations during this period, you will see the first applicable donation for December 2024.
  • If your organization was already using the Mightycause platform prior to Give Miami Day, you could have potentially received donations outside of the Give Miami Day campaign. For those already enrolled, you will be able to identify these transactions on your report as well under a different giving campaign. 
  • Please keep in mind that all reports are time-sensitive and can be adjusted according to the date accessed. Be sure to confirm the selected time ranges when reviewing reports.

Gifts up to $10,000 will qualify for a percentage bonus based on number of individual gifts raised during early giving (November  17, 18, 19, and 20) and on Give Miami Day (Nov 21, 2024). Bonus pool dollars are not a 1:1 match. Offline donations entered by nonprofits do not qualify for bonus pool dollars.

If you had donors commit to recurring donations, you will see the first recurring donation (if the donor is opted for monthly donations) for the December period on your disbursement report as those were processed one month after Give Miami Day.

Your portal dashboard reflects all donations, both online and offline, received through the Mightycause portal, including Early Giving and Give Miami Day. The dashboard does not include prizes and bonuses, and it does not account for transaction fees.  The Disbursement Report reflects your organization’s expected actual payout (including bonuses, prizes, matches added, minus transaction fees deducted) which will be received by Mightycause Charitable Foundation (MCF). The Disbursement Report does not include offline donations.

If you have additional questions about your disbursement report, you can use the support tool in the bottom righthand corner of this screen, or email givemiamiday@miamifoundation.org 

How can we help?