Staff Update and NH Gives
NH Gives – June 8, 5pm – June 9, 5pm – Donate or optional Membership Support at https://www.nhgives.org/organizations/nh-granite-state-ambassadors
So far, as of 5:20pm, we had $915 of your generous donations matched!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR DEDICATION AND SUPPORT – YOU ARE INCREDIBLE!!
Hi everyone! We wanted to take a few minutes to share with you some exciting news and updates! We just want to say again how wonderful it was to see many of you in person at our Founder’s Day last week. It was so incredibly important to us to celebrate both our founders and volunteers this year, especially for our 25th anniversary! What a fun day it was to watch you all play mini golf at Chuckster’s in your creative outfits. Thank you again to Mason Financial Group and Diz’s Cafe for the food and CJ the DJ for the music, Chucksters for the putt, putt and our fabulous board members! We did hand out neck wallets for each GSA who attended, so if you were not able to attend and would like to have a neck wallet, please email me. We can have it delivered to your favorite center.
We want to again say thank you to our amazing GSAs for your tremendous support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to your generosity, we were able to increase our staff’s work hours to offer all these new programs and opportunities. Your feedback about these new programs has been so very positive. To sustain this high level of training and opportunities for you, our volunteers, we have acquired several new partnerships, and we would like to tell you about each of them.
First, we are so excited to announce that we have been contracted to be the Farm, Forest & Garden Exposition Managers for the 2022 expo. We are thrilled to have this opportunity, which will help increase and maintain our staff capacity so that we can financially sustain our new educational volunteer opportunities and programs. Granite State Ambassadors as an organization will receive commissions on ticket sales, vendor booth sales, and sponsorships, which is where we will be asking for your help. We will also be expanding our volunteer opportunities at the expo, including before, during, and after. We are just starting in on the preparations, so we’ll be sure to keep you updated as we move forward.
Second, we recently formed a partnership with an organization called NH Rocks. NH Rocks is a resource for where to go and what to do in New Hampshire as well as offering their wildly popular Local’s Discount Card. During NH Gives, we will be giving away this Locals Card with every donation of $100 or more. Stay tuned until the end of our video for more information! We are hoping to expand upon this partnership, so there may be a possibility for NHGSA to receive commissions for sending locals to the NH Rocks site to purchase the card, as well as event volunteer opportunities.
We also have recently formed a partnership with Stay Work Play. Their Communications & Outreach Manager has recently joined our board of directors. We hope to partner with them on some young professionals programs. And lastly, we have a recent partnership with the NH Rail Trails Coalition as well. We have been featuring content from their organization once a month in our newsletter. We are excited to share so many of the rail trail options there are in our state. And the best part, all of these new partners plan to join us at The Big E!
It has been so fun to feature a new region each month for our 25th anniversary. Our Seacoast region in May included two in person tours, plus 2 explore on your own experiences at Strawbery Banke and the Seacoast Science Center. We had a great day learning about Hampton Beach, sponsored by the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce. We also enjoyed traveling by the AMTRAK Downeaster from Exeter, NH to Freeport, ME. We are looking forward to our tours this month too. We have our Prescott Farm tour Monday June 14th, as well as our Wolfeboro Museum Tour on June 30th. We are working on getting some more perks for visiting places, and we will continue offering interviews and virtual programs as well. We have a presentation on June 17th about the history of railroads, focusing on NH. Whew! We are so excited to be so busy!
Our Dennis Snow Training has been quite successful so far, and we want to encourage even more GSA volunteers to attend and join the discussions aimed at making our centers and volunteers the very best they can be.
We are so thrilled to welcome our new class of GSAs this year. They are very enthusiastic to volunteer, and in fact, you may have already seen many of them at the airport, a variety of centers, tours, and Founder’s Day. Thank you to our mentors for welcoming them wholeheartedly! We will also be scheduling an orientation for some of our current participants who are taking the course on their own virtually.
We are happy to welcome a new intern, Christine, who will be helping us on some of our projects. Be sure to say hello if you see her around!
What else have we been up to in between all of these fabulous programs and activities? Well, we’ve been working on increasing our outreach in the industry. We created a meet our center managers page and directory, we’ve been updating our website, and we now have it connected to ExploreNewHampshire.org. We have been sending out monthly press releases, and we have also increased our communication with the tourism industry through our partner news and industry newsletters. Many of you saw the wonderful NH Magazine articles about Granite State Ambassadors and Best Places. These articles have offered us increased exposure in the industry, and we have been grateful and excited to hear from new organizations and partners. We have also been included in several rotary presentations in the past couple months. A big thank you to GSA Robbie G for taking her time to share information about our organization at two different rotary clubs this past month.
Wow! I guess that about sums up most of what we’ve been working on! It’s now time to talk about NH Gives! We want to ask you: What does being a Granite State Ambassador bring to your life? Please help support the organization that you and we all love. As a 501(c)3 charitable nonprofit, we are participating in the statewide fundraising initiative NH Gives starting Tuesday, June 8th at 5 pm through Wednesday, June 9th at 5 pm. The site is live through June 11th and we will be accepting donations until the end of the day on June 11th, but they will be counted as part of the campaign during the campaign hours.
If you’re not familiar with NH Gives, it’s a platform where hundreds of NH nonprofits run simultaneous fundraising drives. It lasts 24 hours, and donations during this 24 hour period can provide Granite State Ambassadors with matching funds and cash awards to make your donations go further. And in 2021, you will be able to deduct $600 in donations, even if you are only taking the standard deduction.
This year, we have created an additional incentive for your tax-deductible donations and an optional, annual GSA membership support. First, we have an optional membership donation of $50. Second, if you donate $100 or more to our organization during NH GIVES, you will receive a code to receive access to one digital NH Rocks Locals Card (a $25 value) from our new partner, NH Rocks. This membership card will give you discounts at many organizations around the state.
There are also certain time frames where there will be a donation match by the NH Center for Nonprofits sponsors. From the beginning of that time frame until the funds are exhausted, each online donation will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $250. From past experience, the funds are exhausted quickly, so please plan to give at the starting times.
As always, thank you so much for your endless support of our organization. We would not be where we are without you all. We both enjoy every minute of our time with this organization and with our volunteers! We look forward to seeing you more in person in the future, and we look forward to continuing our 25th anniversary celebrations with you all!
See you at NHGives.org!
NH Gives Prize Matches:
June 8th: 5 PM – $100,000, 6 PM – $20,000, 7 PM – $20,000, 8 PM – $20,000, 9 PM – $20,000
June 9th: 8 AM – $20,000, 9 AM – $20,000, 12 PM – $20,000, 3 PM – $20,000, 4 PM – $40,000
Other Prizes: First Donor – June 8th; Membership Matters Golden Ticket – June 8th, 5-6 pm; Quick Start Golden Ticket – June 8th, 5-8 pm; Prime Time Golden Ticket – June 8th, 8-10 pm; Night Owl Golden Ticket – June 8th, 10 pm-midnight; Early Bird Golden Ticket – June 9th, 12 am-6 am; Rise & Shine Golden Ticket – June 9th, 6-8 am, Coffee Break Golden Ticket – June 9th, 8-10 am; P2P Fundraisers Prize – June 8th, 5 pm through June 9th, 10 am; Luncheon Golden Ticket – June 9th, 10 am-12 pm; Show Your Spirit Prize – June 8th, 5 pm through June 9th, 11 am; Tea for Two Golden Ticket – June 9th, 12-2 pm; Time is Ticking Golden Ticket – June 9th, 2-4 pm; 10,000th Donor Prize; Power of Many – Most online dollars raised in 24 hours; Power of Many – Most unique donors in 24 hours
More information on incentives: https://www.nhgives.org/prizes
