Monterey County Gives! raises more than $750,000 for local nonprofits.

Ninety-six local nonprofits planted the seeds of their charitable projects, and Monterey County residents dug deep to help them grow.


The 2012 Monterey County Gives! campaign raised $750,669, according to the latest available count. (More details are at www.montereycountygives.com.)


“Fantastic, extraordinary, unbelievable,” Weekly Founder and CEO Bradley Zeve says. “It shows how generous this community and our readers can be.”


The total includes a $100,000 match from the Monterey County Weekly Community Fund – made possible by key support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Neumeier Poma Investment Counsel, partnering with the Community Foundation for Monterey County and the Weekly.


The top three recipients, not including the pro-rata matches: International School, with $53,721; Media Center for Art, Education and Technology Foundation, with $50,931; and Henry Miller Memorial Library, with $44,615. The library will receive a $1,000 bonus for having the most donors under 35 years old.


Each year’s total has marked a new record since the 2009 start of the Gives! campaign, which evolved from the Weekly Community Fund established in 2000. 


“The Gives! campaign has become an important vehicle for people to be exposed to the work nonprofits do,” says Dan Baldwin, president and CEO of the Community Foundation, “and then inspired to support them.”