After bringing in more than $1 million Tuesday, Pittsburgh’s annual Day of Giving was halted early.
The Pittsburgh Foundation said a server at the Texas-based fundraising company that handles its transactions crashed mid-way through the donation drive, which stood to benefit more than 800 organizations. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the company, Kimbia, was being used by about 50 other organizations across the country, which were also affected.
“Donors were having trouble getting the page to load up on their computers and were not able to make transactions,” said Doug Root, vice president of communications at the Pittsburgh Foundation.
He said the reason for the glitch is still not clear.
Root said the foundation eventually had to pull the plug on the event, but that donors were sympathetic.
“I believe that any individual that’s ever had a bad technical experience can relate and understand," Root said. “And most of the callers that we dealt with yesterday were incredibly gracious and pretty understanding that once one of these things goes bad, it can go really bad.”
Root said he hopes that understanding will translate into even more donations when the Day of Giving is rescheduled. The last Day of Giving, in 2014, brought in $5.7 million. Following Tuesday’s glitch, the Pittsburgh Foundation will also increase its pool of prize money for nonprofits who meet certain fundraising goals from $100,000 to $200,000.
The foundation is currently working with participating nonprofits to determine a new date.
90.5 WESA and its sister station 91.3 WYEP were among the nonprofits seeking donations during Pittsburgh's Day of Giving.
