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helps-austin helps austin - you can too!
(The promoted nonprofit or artist will be listed here.)
Welcome to HELPS-AUSTIN, a unique search engine that brings together nonprofits, businesses, and the arts to promote caring and kindness in our community. Here's how it works:
We want you to feel confident your donations are going where you expect. To verify nonprofits, we recommend using GUIDESTAR, a nonprofit resource that helps verify a nonprofit's status, budget, revenue, and other details. You'll need to create a free account to access GUIDESTAR's services.
Find what you need in the nonprofit and business community while enjoying art by Austin artists. Join our community of like-minded souls who care about others. Explore HELPS-AUSTIN today!
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Supporting Nonprofits: Can we do better?
Local businesses and nonprofits play important roles in our communities. While businesses provide jobs and services, nonprofits offer health, safety, arts, education, and environmental protection. Both sectors complement each other by serving different needs that the other cannot offer.
Nonprofit startups often struggle to obtain the resources they need to carry out their work. Funding organizations like foundations have limited resources and need to prioritize which nonprofits to support. Established nonprofits often have an advantage, leaving newer organizations struggling to gain recognition. This raises the question of how we can prioritize community needs more effectively.
To address this issue, HELPS-AUSTIN works to increase the visibility of nonprofits in Austin and demonstrate where the community's greatest needs lie. When businesses and individuals donate to nonprofits, the number of donations provides insight into public priorities regarding the environment, public safety, health, child care, elder care, education, and the arts. By analyzing donations and social media engagement, we can gain insight into public priorities and identify areas that require more support.
We believe that counting the number of donations in different sectors of the nonprofit space is a better way to demonstrate community priorities. Supporting both local nonprofits and businesses, we can strengthen our communities and address community needs more effectively.
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better Support for Nonprofits
I'm David Richardson, founder of HELPS-AUSTIN, a directory connecting people to over 9,700 nonprofits in Austin. Nonprofits serve the health and social services, the arts, education, sports, the environment and so much more. You also have a search function allowing users to find local businesses. These resources are all available in an accordion-style directory. Each listing displays artwork by local artists. The sales of the artwork benefit both the artist and the nonprofit equally.
Businesses will be included in our directory for a $20/month donation directed towards a nonprofit of their choice. Our goal is to make donating easy, secure, and rewarding while also measuring the impact of donations in real time. By showcasing these metrics, we hope to help establish community priorities and support nonprofits that make a difference and encourage innovation.
Please note that our directory's search function provides powerful options. If you enter a query into the search field, such as "seniors", "music", or "sports", we will offer a list of 30 nonprofits ranked by relevance to your search term. If you append an asterisk to your query, like "senior*", we will offer a random list that may help you refine your search results.
HELPS-AUSTIN aims to create a partnership between nonprofits, the small business community, artists, and Austin residents. For this partnership to be successful, everyone must see the value and benefit directly. Businesses can advertise and generate goodwill, while artists can display their work year-round and make more sales. Nonprofits can gain exposure for their programs and generate donations. At the same time, visitors have easy access to business and nonprofit resources and receive art in exchange for their donations.
Become a founding member of our community. Business owners, register for the directory. Artists, upload your art. Nonprofit directors, update your mission statement. Thank you for your interest.