Landing between Election Day and Thanksgiving every year since 2009, Minnesota’s annual giving holiday, Give to the Max Day, will be Thursday, Nov. 19.
David Christman, Andria Theatre’s artistic director, said that the theatre has been participating in Give to the Max Day for nearly 10 years.
They started out small, asking people they ran into individually to consider donating.
After director Ann Hermes started, the two brainstormed ways they could do more and decided to try running a Facebook livestream and their own telethon. The test trial went really well, so Christman said it was time to ramp it up.
“What if we were to give something back?” he asked. “Rather than just asking people for money, it would be little performances. It would be interviews. It would be the theatre reaching out to the community.”
Christman described how a small fundraiser developed into the 24-hour livestream event the theatre puts on now, each hour of Give to the Max Day devoted to a different theme.
The themed segments last around 45 minutes, which gives the staff a 15-minute break to set up for the next act.
The theatre also collaborates with local businesses and asks how they support each other. This year, cooks from Pike and Pint will come and make an afternoon meal. Runs will be made to Elden’s Fresh Foods to assist in donut making. Stage make-up tutorials and combat classes will be presented. Stories will be shared about ghost hunting, fort building in the basement and goats running loose in the theatre.
“There’s a lot of different things that will give people the behind-the-scenes look at the theatre,” Christman said. “It’s not just a place that does shows. We really do care about our community.”
Andria Theatre director Ann Hermes called Give to the Max Day the “most important day in Minnesota for nonprofits and their good works.”
The first year they tried it for a full day with Christman and one other man running it for all 24 hours, which he said made it a lot more difficult. Now, they have three rotating hosts and two staff members to give each other nap breaks.
“There’s always something going on,” he said. “There’s always something changing, and it’s a lot of fun. We certainly wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun.”
A representative from GiveMN visited Christman and Hermes and interviewed them about the unique way they approach this statewide fundraising day.
“We’re just really impressed with their Give to the Max Day campaign,” GiveMN Director Jake Blumberg said about the Andria Theatre’s 24-hour livestream.
People can tune in to the livestream at any time on the Andria Theatre Facebook page, and Christman said they’re working on finding a way to upload it to YouTube as soon as they go off the air.
“We know this year is going to be a great year,” he said. “We know COVID is cutting into a lot of things, but we’re committed as ever to bring entertainment to our community and try to enrich it the best way we can.”
Golden ticket awards, valued between $500 and $1,000, are randomly chosen and distributed by GiveMN throughout the day, but Christman said he believes the most are given out between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. The theatre has received two golden tickets the past two years.
“That’s why we do a lot of crazy things and tell people even if you just roll over, push send and go right back to sleep, that would be a good thing,” he said.
Legacy of the Lakes Museum won one of the $500 early giving golden tickets last week.
Communications and programs director Kaci Johnson said that the museum has partnered with the Douglas County Historical Society and Runestone Museum Foundation on some fundraising efforts this year by shooting videos to help promote each other.
“Alexandria has three museums, which is something that’s very incredible,” Johnson said. “For a community this size, it’s a really awesome feature.”
One set of videos they recorded included an “ask me anything” series, where they answer frequently asked questions about anything from book recommendations to common misconceptions about museums.
The Legacy of the Lakes Museum also has fundraising goals set where they will post additional challenge videos, such as staff reactions of trying various kinds of hot sauce or participation in a Polar Plunge in Lake Agnes.
“We’re just working on videos that will incentivize people since we’re not able to do our normal incentives,” Johnson said. “Because of COVID and social distancing, we thought this would be a fun way to get the community involved. We’re laughing at ourselves, and we hope that people will laugh along with us.”
Since it was founded in 2009, GiveMN has helped generate more than $250 million for more than 12,000 nonprofits.
The goal behind the event and organization as a whole is to “grow giving and ignite generosity for nonprofits and schools throughout Minnesota,” GiveMN Director Blumberg said.
The initial idea was to create a “centralized marketplace” for schools and nonprofits around the state to raise money. Give to the Max was a coming out party for this initiative and a way of announcing this option, but has since become known as Minnesota’s annual giving holiday.
“We are a little bit like the North Pole,” Blumberg said. “Even though one day a year is a holiday, we are working year round to make Give to the Max Day a success.”
Blumberg said that amid all the tragedies on a statewide, national and global level this year, he’s heard one common theme emerge from donor and organization feedback: People need to continue supporting where they live, “whether that’s literally where their home is or it’s more figuratively where their heart is, where their head is.”
This year’s theme of “Give Where You Live” encourages donors to give locally.
GiveMN takes in donations from people living in 15 different countries, all 50 states and every Minnesota county annually.
“When all is said and done, their heart is with a cause in Minnesota,” Blumberg said.
To participate in Give to the Max, donors may visit GiveMN.org and search for the causes they care about most by name, keyword or ZIP code. Blumberg described it as a Google specifically for Minnesota-based organizations.
Early giving started Nov. 1, and the fundraiser concludes on Give to the Max Day Nov. 19. Random golden ticket drawings are pulled throughout this time period for more than $100,000 in prize grants for Minnesota organizations.
Each donation through GiveMN.org qualifies a Minnesota nonprofit or school for additional grants from the Give to the Max Day prize pool due to contributions from the Bush Foundation. For more information, visit givemn.org/about.
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November 17, 2020 at 10:00PM
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Give to the Max: 'Most important day in Minnesota for nonprofits and their good works' - Echo Press
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