Yet again, Monterey County Gives! sets new records in local philanthropy.

It was a pretty festive Zoom meeting on Monday, Feb. 27. And why wouldn’t it be; on the call there were 198 people representing a huge cross section of the local nonprofit community there to receive $11.2 million from the 2022 Monterey County Gives! campaign. The mood was celebratory as Dan Baldwin, president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Monterey County, Nancy Enterline, vice president of philanthropy at the Monterey Peninsula Foundation and Bradley Zeve, founder and CEO of the Weekly, congratulated nonprofit volunteers and executives on the success of the annual year-end fundraising initiative.

Last year, 2022, was the biggest year ever in the history of Monterey County Gives! The $11.2 million raised was 15-percent more than the previous year, which was itself a high water mark. In total, MCGives! has raised and distributed over $56 million to local nonprofits since 2009.

In 2022, 201 local nonprofits participated, and the median amount raised was a little over $33,000. Each group received matching funds of 11.2 percent, turning $33,000 into $36,700 – that’s a pretty impressive return.

This grand scale of fundraising through Monterey County Gives! shows just how generous this community is, and how you, and your friends and neighbors, rally behind causes you support. The money is stunningly big, and the impact that flows throughout our community is far greater, with funds supporting organizations whose missions cover a wide spectrum, from providing music education to volunteer gardening efforts to low-cost medical care and much more.

The Community Alliance for Safety and Peace is a coalition of public agencies and nonprofits that work to reduce youth and gang-related violence in order to build a better future. Eleven of its member organizations took part in Monterey County Gives! in 2022. Those groups include Community Parternship for Youth, Rancho Cielo, Sun Street Centers, Monterey County Rape Crisis Center, Harmony at Home and United Way, among others. By my calculation, the CASP groups raised over $1 million in MCGives! That amount of money in the hands of these dedicated people will create real and lasting positive impacts.

MY Museum is the county’s children’s museum in downtown Monterey and it is a lively, colorful space where hands-on activities provide opportunities for children to play to learn, and grown-ups to learn to play. Their Big Idea for MCGives! was to raise money to bring a traveling pop-up STEAM exhibit (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) to the Del Monte Center mall to increase access for the broader community. They raised $44,673 and the exhibit, Potter the Otter, opens Friday, March 3.

Meals on Wheels of the Monterey Peninsula serves a different clientele. Reducing food insecurity for people who are homebound is their mission. Unfortunately, their services are in great demand and growing. Last year, volunteers drove over 160,000 miles to deliver 276,000 meals to 1,100 seniors, veterans and people with disabilities. The need for Meals on Wheels is matched by the tenacity of the organization. MOWMP raised $311,516 in Monterey County Gives! and is going to put that money to use, building a second commercial kitchen in Seaside so they can increase their output to 10,000 meals per day.

This is but a snapshot of a few of the groups that are vital parts of the local nonprofit mission-driven economic force that provides services throughout our county. There were 36 arts organizations in MCGives! that raised over $1.5 million, and 23 environmental groups that raised almost $1.3 million. (All of these funds were partially matched.)

The match is thanks in large part to support from the Gunde & Ernie Posey Family Foundation, Neumeier Poma Investment Counsel, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Cannery Row Company and the Colburn and Alana Jones Foundation of the CFMC.

While we’re celebrating the good work of philanthropists and local nonprofits, it would be appropriate to take a moment and thank another group vital to the success of Monterey County Gives! – that’s you. There were 12,067 individual contributions made by donors during the campaign. Whether you gave $5 or $5,000, thank you for your local philanthropy.

ERIK CUSHMAN is the Weekly’s publisher. Reach him at erik@mcweekly.com