If You Love Tahoe, Step Right Up!

Wherever you live in California, you are likely to have strong feelings about Lake Tahoe. I want you to know that the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation’s annual Give Back Tahoe campaign is at the tail end of another record-breaking year. And there is still time to give.

The year-end philanthropic sprint got off to a great start on Giving Tuesday, Nov. 29, pulling in more than $300,000. That qualified as the best kick-off since TTCF launched the effort in 2014. By the close of the official Giving Season phase on Dec. 13, 2,254 donors (a record) had given $503,666 (another record). 

TCF‘s Caroline Craffey reports that as of Thursday, Dec. 29, the campaign had raised $555,812, a nice jump from last year‘s $529,863, itself a record–breaking haul. While the Giving Season challenge-grant portion of the campaign is over, Give Back Tahoe 2022 is officially open until the end of the year—(as of this writing—tomorrow). 

Craffey says she is grateful that the community showed up with so much generosity for GBT 2022.

“Every year, we don’t really know what to expect,“ Craffey said on a phone call last Thursday. “With the economy this year, we were nervous. We’re already pretty close to where we were last year, so we’re hoping in the next two weeks we can beat the overall number.” A few days later, it happened.

A total of 57 nonprofits used the tools found on the Give Back Tahoe campaign website. In addition to raising money from contributors, they competed for matching grants from TTCF itself. The small, medium and large organizations that attracted contributions from the most donors were together awarded $45,000 from TTCF; another nine organizations were chosen randomly to receive $550 each.

In a year-end note, TTCF shared a list of some powerful impacts the organization has delivered to its mountain community, which has been pummeled over the past several years by wildfires and a Covid-caused population explosion that has created monumental problems. Among othe rthings, TTCF delivered the following:

• $1.85M to support 23 projects critical to forest health and workforce development through Forest Futures 
• $1.35 million in scholarships awarded to 121 student recipients
• $498,000 (and still counting!) in Give Back Tahoe donations for our local community
• $487,500 distributed to local nonprofits through our community grants cycle 
• 45 social service organizations rolled out a Behavioral Health Roadmap addressing 10 major health challenges in our region through our Community Collaborative
• 29 partners collaborated to create a Housing Hub to unclog the pipeline for housing development and permitting challenges through our Mountain Housing Council

Follow this link to donate to the 2022 Give Back Tahoe campaign.

Follow this link to see TTCF’s most recent Quarterly Impact Report.