Well over 400 donors and sponsors gave more than $107,000 to local nonprofit causes during the first-ever North Platte Giving Day that was extended from midnight Tuesday through Wednesday afternoon due to nationwide difficulties of the website service provider.
Problems with the North Platte Giving Day website made online giving difficult for much of Tuesday, but online giving was smoother during the extended hours Wednesday that ended at 6 pm. Many donors brought their donation checks to donation site around North Platte.
Because of the nationwide website provider problems, the total number of donations displayed on the website as well as the breakdown of gift numbers and donation dollars to nonprofit organizations were not up-to-date.
Mid-Nebraska Community Foundation coordinated North Platte Giving Day. More than 400 donors and sponsors made donations that will benefit more than 50 local nonprofit causes.
Cash prizes to nonprofits provided by sponsors were being rearranged to adjust for periods of downtime, and for the extended hours of giving. The full amount of the cash prize money provided by event sponsors will be awarded to nonprofits.
Everyone involved with North Platte Giving Day regretted the inconvenience caused by the nationwide difficulties of website service provider Kimbia. The website problems also affected about 50 other giving day campaigns across America on May 3.
We are pleased that charitable people in the North Platte area worked through these difficulties and helped more than 50 community causes.
Kimbia reported that the problems were caused by the confluence of 1) an extraordinarily amount of online transactions, 2) a hardware problem and 3) added system functions. The potential for the problems was not detected during weeks of high volume testing. Foundations using the website provider were advised that the website operation problems were not related to any data security issue and that all transaction were processed securely.