‘Give for the Gorge’ makes contributing easy, convenient

How the program works is simple, Scheinberg said. As customers are engaging with businesses in the program, they’re able to contribute to Give the Gorge. What this contribution looks like is largely up to the businesses, Scheinberg said.

“For each business, they get to customize it according to their needs,” she said. “Some businesses have made it an opt out scenario where they automatically will add $1 to, let’s say, a room night at a hotel, and then you can choose to take that off your bill. Other businesses are making it an opt in, where you can kind of tip the Gorge and add in a certain amount. So really, we try to be as flexible as possible so that it works for any kind of business.”

All money donated then goes to the fiscal sponsor of the program, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, who then divides the money evenly eight ways and distributes it on a quarterly basis.

“As the fiscal sponsor, the money comes into our organization, we take a small administrative fee to manage that money, do the appropriate accounting and record-keeping, send the information to the state and then we disperse that money out to the nonprofits,” Friends of the Columbia Gorge Executive Director Kevin Gorman said.

According to Scheinberg, Give to the Gorge is based on a program in the Lake Tahoe area, called $1 for Tahoe. The program, using a similar point-of-sale format, raised several hundreds of thousands of dollars last year, but has raised well over a million since the project’s launch, Scheinberg said.

“I thought, since the Lake Tahoe region, in some ways, shares similarities with our tourist destination in the Columbia Gorge, that we could try it here and see if it worked,” Scheinberg said. “And the local community, including the nonprofits, businesses and visitors, would all benefit from having a way to give back to a place that they love and care about.”

One of the primary differences between the $1 for Tahoe program and the Give for the Gorge program is that funds raised through $1 for Tahoe all go to environmental and conservation efforts. Scheinberg said that as they were speaking to businesses about the program, several owners voiced that they wanted some of the funds to go to social services to fund things such as food scarcity or affordable housing.

This feedback was vital, Scheinberg said, as it helped them figure out what kind of nonprofits they wanted to include and it helped business owners feel invested in the project, knowing their participation could impact the Gorge in a variety of ways.

“I think so many of the small businesses in the Gorge really care about their communities and they want to be identified as caring about their communities, and this is a really easy way to do that,” Gorman said.

There are no fees to participate in the program as a business, Scheinberg said, and any business wishing to participate is welcome to do so. The program will work with them on a way to make it fit their model. Businesses wishing to participate in the program are encouraged to visit giveforthegorge.org to learn more and sign up.

For more information about Give for the Gorge, to donate directly or view a list of participating businesses, visit giveforthegorge.org.