The Colorado Gives Foundation, which started as a small hospital fundraising group and has grown into a statewide nonprofit, is celebrating its 50th anniversary shortly after Giving Tuesday.

Colorado Gives Day, which was created by the foundation in 2010, predates the nationally recognized Giving Tuesday. It encourages people to give to nonprofit organizations.

Giving Tuesday, which started in 2012 and has become a national movement, coincidentally comes one week before Colorado Gives Day, which shares a similar purpose, according to Colorado Gives Foundation CEO Kelly Dunkin.

While the creation of Giving Tuesday is not directly tied to Colorado Gives Day, Dunkin said she likes to think Colorado’s generosity helped inspire the national movement.

Whether or not it did, Dunkin loves to work with the founders of Giving Tuesday to promote what she called the “giving season” in Colorado and beyond.

The Colorado Gives Foundation started with small, local roots in Jefferson County, acting as the fundraising organization for a hospital.

Its focus remains Jefferson County, Dunkin said, but the organization has grown to support nonprofits across the state. Over the last four years, it invested $30 million into Jefferson County nonprofits.

Its statewide reach began in 2007 with the creation of ColoradoGives.org. At the time, when the first iPhone was coming out, foundation members recognized that technological growth could cost nonprofits extra money to build the online infrastructure to accept donations, Dunkin said.

Its team built the website as a way to offer that online infrastructure to nonprofits free of charge, allowing them to accept donations through one online platform.

Since 2010, people have donated $524.6 million through the ColoradoGives.org platform, Dunkin said.

In 2024 alone, 134,000 donors gave $77 million to 4,500 nonprofits across the state.

Nonprofits can join for free and those looking to donate can search the website for nonprofits they want to give to. All of the nonprofits on the website are vetted through the foundation to ensure donors are not being scammed, Dunkin added.

People can donate year-round, but the foundation encourages it during the “giving season,” which runs from Nov. 1 to Dec. 9. ColoradoGives.org gets a majority of donations during this time, Dunkin said.

This year particularly, the need has been high among nonprofits, Dunkin added, saying the government shutdown caused a “huge spike” in need from organizations that focus on food insecurity, she said.

The increased need also came with a spike in people wanting to help.

“I wish we didn’t have to have charitable giving and nonprofits to fill gaps,” she said. “But the need is there and we see donors stepping up to help, and we will continue to support them.”