COLUMBUS, Ohio – We’ll know later today how generous central Ohioans were, but early-morning totals indicated the Big Give was bigger than last time.
The Columbus Foundation’s fundraiser wraps up at 11:00 a.m., after taking online donations from the community over 24 hours.
The campaign surpassed the totals from the last Big Give, in 2011, by 1:30 this morning, foundation vice president for communications and marketing Carol Harmon said.
Nearly 9.000 individuals had pledged almost $7.6 million by 6:00 a.m., Harmon said. When the $1.1 million matching bonus was added, the take totaled more than $8.7 million, about $200,000 more than taken in during the event two years ago.
Harmon says a half million dollars in donations came in during the campaign’s first 15 minutes.
The charity had processed over 14,000 donations to more than 550 nonprofit organizations by this morning, Harmon said.
Columbus Foundation is the seventh-largest community foundation in the U.S., Harmon said.