What do you care about?
Are you an avid reader?
Do you garden?
Are you the person picking up litter and taking it home to make sure it's recycled?
Maybe you help at a food pantry or give $5 to someone who needs it?
We know you have a cause to fight for. Literacy. Ending homelessness. Environmental Conservation. Social justice.
Amplify Austin Day is when you can direct that passion to an organization that’s fighting for that cause every single day. It all starts 6 p.m. Thursday, March 20 through 6 p.m. Friday, March 21.
There are almost 500 nonprofits participating in Amplify Austin this year. All are local. All have major impact on Central Texas. All need your support.
All you need to do is find them, donate online to them, and rally with the community to raise $4 million.
And it really is an exciting event. During Amplify Austin Day you’ll get to see
- Live updates of the total dollars raised on the homepage
- Which nonprofits are leading in donations and winning prizes on the Leaderboard page
- How fundraisers are doing to raise money for nonprofits
- Live updates of who donated and to what nonprofit
Amplify Austin is a communal, meaningful, sustainable and proactive way to help bridge the needs and services of Central Texas.
Does that sound silly? To think that $25 could change Central Texas? We don’t think so. Every dollar counts. Every small, medium, large, extra large, and Big Mac donation counts.
What we’re really saying is: You Count.
Make it count.
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Austin, we made it to March. We’re only 18 days from raising $4 million for more than 400 nonprofits.
We’ll soon be in a giving frenzy. So before we get lost in the final planning of Amplify Austin 2014, we need to step back and thank the people who have already jumped on board to get Amplify Austin started on a strong and positive note: Our Sponsors.
Thank you to the brilliant individuals and businesses that made the decision to lift up Central Texas nonprofits and social causes through Amplify Austin.
We heard somewhere that, “Strong People Don’t Put Others Down, They Lift Them Up.” That’s what you have done.
On behalf of all the people and nonprofits that will benefit from what you helped create, thank you. And from all of us who are part of Amplify Austin, thank you.
You can also check out our wonderful sponsors on our Amplify PRIZES page!
2014 Lead Vocalist Incentive dollar sponsorship at $100,000.00+
University Federal Credit Union (Investing in our community through Amplify Austin 2 years in a row!)
2014 Guitar Soloists Sponsor grand prizes to nonprofits at $5,000 each prize
BB&T
Carl C. Anderson, Sr. and Marie Jo Anderson Charitable Foundation
Cirrus Logic
Seton Foundations
Silicon Labs
Whole Foods
2014 Stage Managers In-kind sponsors who offer professional services needed for Amplify Austin
Hill & Knowlton Strategies
Door Number 3
Mass Relevance
2014 Drummers Incentive dollar sponsorship at $100,000.00+
Abell Photography
Austin Community Foundation
Austin Ventures
Dwight Thompson
Roger Kintzell
Nextiva
UT Division of Diversity and Community Engagement
2014 Bass Boosters Sponsor hourly prizes to nonprofits at $1,000 each prize
Alamo Drafthouse
Amelia Bullock
Austin AzTex
Austin Board of Realtors
Austin Fashion Week
Austin involved
Austin Ventures
Breed & Co.
Build A Sign
Door Number 3
Ebay
EZ Corps
Home Away
Kenjol Capital Management
Lone Star Overnight (Sponsoring 5 prizes!)
Maxwell, Locke & Ritter
Moreland Properties (Sponsoring 2 prizes!)
Prosperity Bank
Successful Giving
Texas Gas Service
Tito’s Handmade Vodka
The Garden Room
Urban Mattress
Wheatsville
Wet Salon
2014 Back Up Singers Media sponsors who help spread the word about Amplify Austin and encourage giving
KGSR
KLBJ
101X
102.3 The Beat
104.3
107.1
Latino 102.7
iHeart Austin
BOB FM
KISS FM
FOX 7
KLBJ
KVET Austin
Talk Radio
The Zone
AW Media (Austin Woman & Austin Man)
Edible Austin
Tribeza
Austin Family
Austin Chronicle
Austin Business Journal
Community Impact
Austin American-Statesman
Culture Map
Giving City
L Style G Style
Emmis Radio
Entercom Radio
ClearChannel Radio
KUT-FM/KUTX-FM
Univision Radio
Grande Communications
Time Warner
YNN
KTBC-TV
KXAN-TV
KBVO-TV
CW AUSTIN
KEYE-TV
Telemundo
Univision TV
Media Choice
Interested in joining this impressive group of Amplify Austin sponsors? Wonderful! Contact Executive Director, Tom Spencer, at 512-432-1900 or Tom@ILiveHereIGiveHere.org.
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Austin, we are one month from Amplify Austin Day.
There are so many ways to explain how we feel right now – excited, determined, anxious, maybe a little sleep-deprived … but always elated to get to 6 p.m. March 20.
And being in good company only helps keep our excitement up! More than four hundred nonprofits are participating this year, and we’ve seen the outreach they’ve been making to their circles and the greater community. We are amazed by your energy and drive to make this a successful giving day.
Plus, our media partners have gotten the buzz out about Amplify Austin too – you’ve probably heard it on the radio, broadcast news, and stories in publications. Yes, Amplify Austin is infiltrating … and we love it!
Now, we’re getting the word out, nonprofits are getting the word out, and media is getting the word out – so how about you?
Believe it. You are so important to raising awareness about Amplify Austin.
Yes, we want you to donate come March 20-21 – you can even schedule your gift now! But we also hope you will help us amplify our outreach.
Help us reach your co-workers, friends, and family who haven't heard about Amplify Austin. Chances are they have a spirit for giving and have a cause they care about.
And what kind of people would we be if we didn’t give you something awesome to share when you’re spreading the #AmplifyATX good news …
So go people! Lead the way for your buds to give back and get involved and support the hundreds of causes that make life better for everyone.
Because Amplify Austin isn't just about nonprfoits. It's about us, the community, being a philanthropist and supporting the community we live in.
Philanthropy is Love for Humanity. Help get others to Love Humanity too.
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2014 has brought us a wonderful partnership with the Austin American-Statesman. Starting this past January, the Statesman is publishing monthly articles by Tom Spencer, our Executive Director, that focus on community needs, local nonprofits, and more.
Thanks to the Statesman for supporting our cause for philanthropy!
By Tom Spencer / Published January 26, 2014 in the Austin American-Statesman
Those of us who love Austin puff up a bit when our region lands on yet another top ten list. You’ll find us listed among the most “business friendly”, “fast growing”, “green”, “creative”, and of course, “rocking” cities in the nation.
However, we recently ranked number one in a category that is genuinely shocking: According to the authors of Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, Austin’s suburban poverty grew at a faster rate than any of the nation’s large metros, increasing by 142% from 2000 - 2012.
This is one top ten list that we don’t want to be on!
I raise this bad news not to burst bubbles, but to point out a widening gap that most of us simply don’t see. Poverty in Central Texas is largely a hidden phenomenon. The poor are being pushed out from central Austin into the suburbs and rural areas where they remain largely invisible.
There is one group that is acutely aware of this problem: our nonprofit service providers. Nonprofits are the ones who are stepping up to help those who might otherwise fall through the cracks.
No other advanced nation depends on the nonprofit sector as much as the United States. As a result, our nonprofits face enormous challenges. However, the good news is that there is incredible passion and creativity in our nonprofit community. I suspect that Austin may soon be on top ten lists for social entrepreneurship and nonprofit sector impact.
At I Live Here, I Give Here we try to foster both pride in our hometown and awareness of its needs. We believe in the tremendous power that is unleashed when individual donors and volunteers connect their personal passions with the great work being performed by local nonprofits.
You have a critical role to play! When we give together, we all grow stronger!
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In just a week's time we reveal the new Amplify Austin website. 350 plus local nonprofits have established a home on the Amplify Austin website, and counting. We really wanted to make this the go-to site for people looking to donate and connect with local causes and organizations. I guess you could think of the website as the "nonprofitpedia" of Central Texas. Only with an Austin twist.
And our team really wanted to make Amplify Austin easy, accessible and fun. So when you head to www.AmplifyATX.org February 1, here are some of the cool and useful features you’ll see:
- Live countdown to Amplify Austin 2014
- Convenient nonprofit and category search bars
- A pre-schedule your gift button
- Videos giving you the rundown of Amplify Austin
- An expanded social media platform you can participate in (#AmplifyATX)
- Options to create a donor account
- Sponsor recognition and news feeds
What’s really exciting is that the giving site will be 365. That' right, Amplify Austin is a resource for you all year long.
But Amplify Austin Day is coming up March 20-21. It's Central Texas' one day to rally the community to give online for 24 hours to their causes of choice. It offers amazing incentive prizes for nonprofits and sponsor dollar matches – so yes, we are really amplifying every dollar donated. Last year the community wave of giving raised $2.8 million. This year, our goal is $4 million.
A special thank you goes out to the INCREDIBLE teams that helped us create the new website: Door Number 3, CiviCore, Shompton, and Mass Relevance. You’re Aces!
Check us out February 1!
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Two months from today we’re going to be in the middle of Amplify Austin.
You know what our dream is? That two months from today we’ll already have raised $4 million for local nonprofits and social causes – and counting.
Now, we’re under no delusion that raising $4 million is easy. Come on – nonprofit is our name. Nor do we think that I Live Here, I Give Here can do it alone, since it was you who pushed us past the $1 million goal to raise $2.8 million in 2013.
So when 6 p.m. Thursday, March 20, rolls around, we know you'll be donating your hearts out to nonprofits and causes you love and support. Here’s an advance THANK YOU! for cranking up the giving and a legit air hug from all of us!
But right now, our love ballad is going to those who have already joined the Amplify Austin cause: Our sponsors.
Without them, we wouldn’t be able to increase the value of every dollar given during Amplify Austin. We wouldn’t have prizes to award to nonprofits every hour of Amplify Austin. And we wouldn’t be able to say that Austin has really, truly socially responsible businesses making our home better for everyone.
Thank you to our current 2014 Amplify Austin sponsors! We're already that much closer to raising $4 million.
2014 Bass Boosters
Sponsor hourly prizes to nonprofits at $1,000 each prize
Lone Star Overnight (Sponsoring 5 prizes!)
Prosperity Bank
Wet Salon
Successful Giving
The Garden Room
Kenjol Capital Management
Moreland Properties (Sponsoring 2 prizes!)
Breed & Co.
EZ Corps
2014 Guitar Soloists
Sponsor grand prizes to nonprofits at $5,000 each prize
Cirrus Logic
Keller Williams
2014 Lead Vocalist
Incentive dollar sponsorship at $100,000.00+
University Federal Credit Union (Investing in our community through Amplify Austin 2 years in a row!)
2014 Stage Managers
In-kind sponsors who offer professional services needed for Amplify Austin
Hill & Knowlton Strategies
Door Number 3
Mass Relevance
2014 Back Up Singers
Media sponsors who help spread the word about Amplify Austin and encourage giving
AW Media (Austin Woman & Austin Man)
Edible Austin
Tribeza
Austin Family
Austin Chronicle
Austin Business Journal
Community Impact
Austin American-Statesman
Culture Map
Giving City
L Style G Style
Emmis Radio
Entercom Radio
ClearChannel Radio
KUT-FM/KUTX-FM
Univision Radio
Grande Communications
Time Warner
YNN
KTBC-TV
KXAN-TV
KBVO-TV
CW AUSTIN
KEYE-TV
Telemundo
Univision TV
Media Choice
Interested in joining this impressive group of Amplify Austin sponsors? Wonderful! Contact Executive Director, Tom Spencer, at 512-432-1900 or Tom@ILiveHereIGiveHere.org. (Air hug for you too!)
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The 2013 Austin Involved Board Internship Program graduated a talented group of young professionals armed with the tools and knowledge of what it takes to be an effective board member.
Meet one of our program graduates! Jennifer Baum. An Austinite via Ohio who jumped into the local nonprofit and leadership scene the moment she settled in.
She’s a member of Austin’s Toastmasters, the Austin Professional Women’s Alliance, Austin Involved, and a graduate of our 2013 program.
Why was this Board Internship Program important to you?
I don’t want to get over my head. I want to make sure I know the ins and outs of what’s expected of me [on a board]. I love Austin; it’s the best city I’ve lived in. The program helped me figure out if this is what I really want to do, or should I stay in a volunteer role and serve and help there. I see it happening. When that time comes I want to be ready.
What best practices or skills did you take from the Program?
One of the big things I took away was learning the capacity of where I could help serving on a board. A lot of people say they want to volunteer with kids or cancer. But there are different levels of nonprofit boards -- some are 50 plus members, small startups and others in the middle. So you might want to work with kids or fight cancer, but is your goal to start with a larger, middle or start up board? I never thought about that part – the capacity – and how it varies for each nonprofit. Plus you need to know your responsibilities and the capacity you have to perform your role.
Share a little about your mentorship with the Boys & Girls Club
What I took away is when you look at serving on a board like the Boys & Girls Club, they expect a lot from their board members because it takes so much talent to run a nonprofit at that size. It was interesting to see how a large board functions and what they are looking for in a board members.
What does your future look like when serving on a board?
I’m now a committee chair for Austin Involved. For me, I like to work from the ground up. [Being the Committee Chair] it’s a great way for me to get involved, and what’s next would be being a board member for a nonprofit. Right now, this is the next stepping-stone of understanding what it’s like to be on board. It’s an opportunity to learn even more.
Meet the rest of the 2013 Board Internship Class! http://www.ilivehereigivehere.org/blog/welcoming-the-board-internship-class-of-2013
For more information about the program: Celeste Flores @ 512-432-1936 or celeste@ilivehereigivehere.org.
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We bet when you made your resolution for 2014, it wasn’t a negative resolution. At least we hope not. Most likely, you’re playing the odds of being a better you.
So why not start with philanthropy? Hear us out, because we don’t want you to be fooled by the thoughts of philanthropy that might pop up: a billionaire who gives millions of dollars to causes and wins a lifetime achievement award, which is then named person of the year in a national magazine, and awarded with a foundation named after them.
Scrap that thought. Philanthropy at its root is simply love for humanity. It’s generosity, compassion, charity. These are acts you’re doing every day without realizing what a fine philanthropist you are.
Now, we also have New Year’s resolutions, and one of them is Amplify Austin. We hope you know Amplify Austin – our 24-hour online giving event where you can donate to hundreds of local causes and nonprofits. Ring a bell? It should, because in 2013 you did a most excellent job getting us past the $1 million goal to raise $2.8 million.
This year we want to raise $4 million for nonprofits. Not something we can do alone, of course. But if your resolution is to be a better you and ours is to be a better advocate of philanthropy and raise $4 million for local social causes – why we may be able to share a resolution! We’d love to share a resolution with you, Austin.
All year long we advocate for social causes and local nonprofits. Amplify Austin embodies that and financially lifts up the organizations that are trying to make Central Texas a better place for everyone. You included.
So we say, let’s make a resolution together. Let’s amplify the philanthropy in Austin and show the results on March 20-21. Now, this is a resolution that’ll be fun and we can stick to.
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I Live Here, I Give Here … the name of our organization reflects a deep personal commitment: yours and mine. It is a commitment we share with thousands of our neighbors who demonstrate their love for our city in countless acts of generosity every single day.
When I Live Here, I Give Here was first created, there was a sense in some quarters that our community was not as generous as it should be, that we didn’t rank as highly in philanthropy as we did in “weirdness.” However, I believe that Austin’s naysayers have been proved wrong. Austin never suffered from a lack of generosity, our generosity suffered from a lack of vehicles that unleashed its amazing power.
I Live Here, I Give Here’s Amplify Austin online giving day in March 2013 was proof that Austin is indeed a generous place. $2.8 million dollars was raised for over 320 participating nonprofits in just 24 hours!
Now, you can help I Live Here, I Give Here have an even greater impact in 2014. Please make a tax deductible year-end gift to support the continued success of Amplify Austin!
Help us to our goal: A friend of I Live Here, I Give Here will match the first $5,000 in donations made by December 31, 2013. Your gift can put us over the top!
Of course, Amplify Austin is not the only evidence of our community’s generosity, but it is an astonishingly successful way to mobilize people who are eager to make a difference in their own hometown.
Support the organization that brought our entire region together for a genuine celebration of giving. Make a year-end gift to I Live Here, I Give Here today!
And remember to Save the Date for Amplify Austin 2014, 6pm March 20 to 6pm March 21!
Thank you for your generosity,
Tom Spencer
Executive Director, I Live Here, I Give Here
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Tis’ the season to be jolly, and we believe that the highlight of the season is the generosity in holiday giving. I Live Here, I Give Here is active all year round in helping Central Texans impact their community by making giving easy, fun, and more than just seasonal.
It’s why we started Amplify Austin. In 2013, Amplify Austin raised $2.8 million for local causes in 24 hours. Those generous dollars went to more than 300 local causes. Causes that ranged from improving literacy for school children, to providing end-of-life healthcare, to saving local wildlife, and to providing shelter and food to the homeless.
Central Texans stepped up and made Amplify Austin a huge success. Thank you, Central Texas. Thank you for taking a stand to change Austin, love Austin, and truly Amplify Austin. Your dollars touched many humans in this community. We’re simply thankful we can be the vessel for Central Texas’ outstanding generosity.
And on March 20 - 21, 2014, from 6pm to 6pm, Central Texas’ giving day is back. We’ve set a goal of $4 million raised for more than 400 nonprofits. It can happen. We know it can.
But we need your support. We ask that as you consider your end-of-year giving, please think about donating to I Live Here, I Give Here. We have a lot of good to give through Amplify Austin and our other programs but we cannot continue their success without your support.
The first $5,000 in donations made by December 31, 2013, to the “Amp-Up Fund” will be matched on a one-to-one basis by a friend of I Live Here, I Give Here! This supporter is an example of how we can change our community on a large scale, all at once, with the most impact. It’s not about one but the greater good of everyone. Please consider joining them.
Thank you for considering us in your holiday generosity and for helping us to keep Central Texas giving. If you choose to make a donation, please click here.
Crank up the giving and #AmplifyATX March 20-21!
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