GivingTuesday: Mount Vernon Nonprofits That Could Use Your Help

MOUNT VERNON, VA — If you’re like many Virginians, you’ll spend many of the last few days of November immersed in consumerism, buying this and that for your friends and family, and even indulging yourself. GivingTuesday on Nov. 29 is a chance to turn your attention to local nonprofit groups seeing an alarming decline in small gifts.

Since 2012, nonprofits, community and grassroots groups, and mutual aid networks worldwide have used GivingTuesday to galvanize fundraising, rally volunteers and add momentum to their causes.

Local nonprofits are having a particularly tough time this year. The number of donors shrunk by 7 percent in the first half of 2022, largely due to a “collapse” in the number of small-gift supporters, according to the most recent GivingTuesday quarterly fundraising report.

Donors giving $100 or less were down 17 percent in the first six months of the year, and 8 percent fewer donors made gifts of $101 to $500, according to the report.

GivingTuesday is locally led in more than 240 U.S. communities, networks and coalitions, including Giving Local Together in the DC region. You likely have your own favorite causes among the nonprofits, community and grassroots groups and mutual aid organizations that address local needs here in Mount Vernon.

Some worthy causes to support directly in the Mount Vernon area include:

• United Community: A nonprofit providing a variety of programs, including food distributions, community centers, and food and utility assistance in the Route 1 corridor
• New Hope Housing: A nonprofit providing services to homeless families and adults, including running the Eleanor U. Kennedy Shelter and Mondloch House in the Route 1 corridor
• Mount Vernon at Home: An organization supporting adults 55 and older in their homes as they age
• Good Shepherd Housing: This organization addresses homelessness to help families become self sufficient
• Neighborhood Health: An organization providing health care services to uninsured or underinsured patients
• Mount Vernon Ladies Association: This historic preservation organization restored and now maintains George Washington's Mount Vernon.
• Americans Helping Americans: This nonprofit works on various community concern such as meals for children and housing repairs.

See other nonprofits to support from Great Nonprofits and the Mount Vernon District Supervisor's office.

There are some bright spots in the GivingTuesday fundraising report, released by the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, a research effort of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday.

Importantly, although the pool of donors shrunk in the first half of 2022, the dollars contributed increased 6.2 percent as major donors stepped up. At the same time, the increase in large donor contributions was outpaced by second-quarter inflation rate of about 8.5 percent.

“Recaptured donors” — people who at one point had given to an organization, but not in the most recent reporting period — grew by 6.3 percent.

That group likely includes people who supported a charity in a surge of pandemic giving in 2020, as well as those who paused their charitable donations during the first two years of the pandemic and gave again this year, according to Lori Gusdorf, executive vice president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals group, said in a news release.