Give to the Max Day sets new record

Updated: Nov. 18, 6:30 a.m. | Posted: Nov. 16, 5:07 p.m.

Despite technical problems that had hobbled its main website for seven hours, Give to the Max Day logged more than $20.1 million in donations Thursday, breaking the event's previous record of $18.3 million.

Some of the top winners: Second Harvest Heartland, Planned Parenthood and Augsburg College took the top three spots. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota Foundation also performed strongly, landing in the top 10.

After limping through much of the day in backup mode, the website for GiveMN, the organization that runs the daylong event, returned to full function by the middle of the afternoon.

GiveMN announced that it would waive transaction fees on all donations that came in during the hours when its website wasn't running properly. It added that the Minnesota Community Foundation had donated $50,000 in additional gift incentives, or "golden tickets," for the remainder of the day.

The two largest cash prizes of the day — $10,000 each — went to the Dakota Foundation for Jazz Education and Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley Elementary School.

When the website problems arose, organizers said Minnesota's "generous spirit has overloaded the GiveMN servers for our website." They switched to a backup donation form and continued to process contributions. The backup form lacked some of the features for which Give to the Max Day is known — "organization pages, leaderboards/prizes, and reporting," according to a statement from the organization.

Comments on the organization's Facebook page reflected anxiety among recipient organizations, which were unable to track their progress on the crippled site. Some called for GiveMN to waive transaction fees before organizers announced the partial waiver.

The annual Give to the Max Day, in which the stakes are raised by matching funds and bonus prizes for contributions to Minnesota schools and nonprofits, has grown in importance since it launched in 2009. Last year it helped raise more than $18 million for thousands of organizations, including Minnesota Public Radio.

Even before the technical problems arose, the day came with two major changes:

• The fees for each donation were increased from 4.9 percent to 6.9 percent.

GiveMN Executive Director Jake Blumberg, who took over last year, said that up until now, 90 percent of the organization's budget has been paid for by donations from foundations and corporations. It's not a sustainable business model, he said, and the additional 2 percent fee is meant to fix that.

• This year, donors were supposed to have the option of covering the fee themselves, so that the nonprofit or school they're giving to doesn't have to. The backup donation form, however, did not offer the option.