Monterey County Gives! makes donating to local nonprofits a simple pleasure.

An interesting pattern emerges when it’s 45 minutes to page-check time, and the paper you’re sending to the printer has to be sent a day early because it has a beautiful glossy cover and double the usual number of pages.

The proofreaders get loopy.

And when the proofreaders get loopy, they start to ascribe human characteristics to the nonprofits and their Big Ideas participating in Monterey County Gives!, the focus of this Nov. 13 issue. Words like “badass,” “crucial” and “clever” get attached to the nonprofits. We try not to talk favorites, because talking favorite Big Ideas is a little like talking favorite children. They’re all great in their own right, and they’re all worthy of attention.

But still – a pair of wirelessly enabled paletero-style carts so a library system can bring books to East Salinas streets. How can you not love a badass idea like that one from the Friends of the Salinas Public Library? Or the drive to make sure every at-risk child on a list has an adult buddy to shepherd them through the complexities of the legal and foster-care systems. How can you not admire that crucial plan from Voices for Children? Figuring out how much carbon you, as an individual, are responsible for putting into the atmosphere and making a donation to offset it – and fund more electric vehicle charging stations in the process: What a clever way from the Offset Project to help my family and me reduce our impact on the planet. (We appreciate the free plug-in at the Monterey garage when we’re catching a flick at the Osio.)

Here’s a quick list of additional things to know as you dive into this issue, packed with the Big Ideas of 101 local nonprofits, all chosen to participate in the 2014 giving campaign.

4. Monterey County Gives! is starting bigger this year. Bigger in the number of partners whose generosity has enabled the campaign to start out with $150,000. Bigger in the number of challenge, aka matching, grants: 22, totaling nearly $70,000, bring the launch to about $225,000. The grants range from $100, anonymously donated to help Arms of Angels assist children and families after the loss of a loved one, to $14,000 from the Boand Family Foundation to help Peace of Mind Dog Rescue. The challenge grants allow individual donors to earmark specific funds to specific organizations. If an organization raises $500, for example, a $500 challenge grant made to that organization kicks in, doubling the donation impact.

3. Gives! makes donating extremely easy – as easy as buying groceries and running the cart through the checkout. Hit the Gives! website, read about the nonprofits, and decide how – and how much – you want to give. You can contribute $5 each to a handful of nonprofits, or you can donate a single sum to just one. There’s no wrong way to give: Click the boxes, hit the checkout.

2. There are themes running through Gives!, of course, as evidenced by the categories: animals, arts community, health, education and environment. But underlying each category are people. If you’re donating to help the YWCA build an emergency kennel for the pets of women fleeing domestic violence, you’re helping those women. If you’re donating to help the Ventana Wilderness Alliance clear trash from the backcountry and maintain trails, you’re helping people enjoy pristine nature.

1. Just as it takes a village to keep all these nonprofits up and running, it takes a village to put out the annual issue of Monterey County Gives!, beyond the usual work of producing the paper.

Special mentions to Weekly administrator Linda Maceira, who kept the submissions organized and dealt with the questions of 101-plus nonprofits; freelance writer Stephanie Bacheller, who compiled the listings into the cohesive copy that fills the following pages; and executive assistant Keely Richter, who proofed every page and made sure the t’s were crossed and the i’s dotted.

Richter also kept pointing out how adorable some of the dogs are in the “Animals” section, but since I need another dog like I need a hole in the head, I’ll donate to help someone else’s dog instead.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com.