Today marks the start of Idaho Gives, Idaho’s largest online fundraising event for nonprofit organizations.

The event will raise funds for over 650 nonprofits across Idaho focusing on different areas, ranging from animal rescue, education, housing, arts and more. Idaho Gives will last from April 29 to May 2. 

Last year, the event raised $3.8 million from nearly 13,000 donors, Kevin Bailey, CEO of the Idaho Nonprofit Center that organizes Idaho Gives, told the Idaho Capital Sun in an interview. The event, in its 12th year, has raised nearly $24 million in previous years. 

Bailey hopes Idaho Gives can reach $4 million donations this year. 

“Nonprofits are at the heart of every major thing that our cities and towns and rural areas are involved with,” Bailey said.

Many nonprofits say they need more funds to meet a higher demand on a range of services, Bailey said, like addressing wait lists for child care and housing, or even filling up seats in arts facilities, as demand grows amid Idaho’s population growth.

When you walk down the main street of nearly any Idaho city, Bailey says you’ll walk by a theater hosting art performances, a housing nonprofit, a homeless shelter or see trails maintained by nonprofits.

“It’s really on the backs of nonprofits to solve our state’s toughest challenges,” Bailey said. “Not that it should be necessarily. But there’s a lot of pressure and burden and opportunity, frankly, on the backs of nonprofits to kind of create communities where everyone can thrive where people have access to food, to housing, to culture and arts opportunities,” Bailey said.

Information about all of the nonprofits participating in Idaho Gives this year are available on the Idaho Gives website, idahogives.org. Nonprofit organizations are searchable based on their location and based on the cause they are involved with. 

A variety of nonprofit organizations from around Idaho participate in Idaho Gives to support causes such as poverty and homelessness, health and wellness, the environment, arts and culture, education, disaster relief, substance abuse prevention, immigrant services and more. 

Some organizations can leverage Idaho Gives donations for other fund sources. 

That includes a housing nonprofit NeighborWorks Pocatello, which Bailey said can leverage funds to match federal grants or foundation funds. A donor to the Boise Bicycle Project has also promised a $50,000 matching donation.

The average Idaho Gives donation last year was $168, said Kim Ellsworth, marketing and communications director for the Idaho Nonprofit Center. 

Donations to Basque Museum in Boise to fund Ellis Island immigration exhibit

One organization that is participating in Idaho Gives this year is the Boise’s Basque Museum & Cultural Center, located on Basque Block on Grove Street in downtown Boise. Boise’s history of Basque immigration history ties back to the late 1800s, when Basque immigrants came to the area to work as sheepherders. 

Idaho Gives donations for the museum would go toward developing a Basque immigration exhibit in the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, said Annie Gavica, executive director of the Basque Museum & Cultural Center. That New York immigration station is how many Basque immigrants came to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s, she said.

The exhibit would likely have a feature on the Basque Block in Boise, and Boise’s basque community and museum, Gavica said. 

“​​But the hope is that it tells kind of the overarching Basque immigration story because there’s Basques beyond just Idaho,” she said. “There’s Basques in Washington and California and Nevada and Oregon. … It’ll tell kind of a larger story through oral histories of Basque immigrants and their families. But then tell very specific stories about things like the Basque museum or the Boise Baskin community.”

The Boise Basque Museum previously organized an exhibit on Ellis Island in 2010, Gavica said.

But for the Basque Museum in Boise, Idaho Gives is more about raising awareness of Basque culture than raising funds, Gavica said. The nonprofit just wrapped up a major fundraising event, she said. 

Few Idaho Gives donors to the Basque Museum were already among the almost 1,000 museum members, Gavica said.

Sometimes, when the nonprofit thanks the new Idaho Gives donors, some have become members, she said. 

“It’s an opportunity for us to reach an audience that we don’t typically reach, and receive donations that we don’t typically get from them,” she said.