HCHP adding an online donation feature

The Holmes County Heritage Partnership is adding an online donation feature to the 2023 campaign.

Mark Boley, executive director of the historical society, said the Heritage Partnership is looking to reach more potential donors.

“The online addition this year is to expand the donor base and reach out to a younger demographic,” Boley said. “The younger donor is in tune with all things online and smartphone fundraising campaigns. Also, the membership hard mailing lists are more or less static and losing older members off the top, making it more important than ever to tap a new market.”

Boley said the primary reason for the yearly campaign and setting up the partnership is to bring together various organizations.

“Setting up the partnership was to collectively bring together the various participating organizations to help those smaller organizations raise funds utilizing all of the combined mailing lists,” he said, “also, to make a one-stop shop for people to write one check to the partnership instead of seven individual checks from separate organization mailings.”

The campaign launched Nov. 1 and will end in January with the bulk of the donations coming before the end of the year, according to Boley.

On the historical society webpage, interested donors may click the Heritage Partnership link to see the participating organizations. They include Clark Community Center, County Line Historical Society of Wayne/Holmes, Holmes Center for the Arts, Holmes County Friends of the Library, Holmes County Genealogical Society, Holmes County Historical Society and the Killbuck Valley Historical Society. There also is a tab for special donations.

“As you can see from the partners donor form online, each organization has their own requests with the use of funds,” Boley said. “And there are some broader projects that are stand-alone giving areas on the form such as the Historic Marker program for various communities throughout the county.”

Holmes County Public Library Director Paula Cicconetti talked about the importance of the partnership.

“Working with the Heritage Partnership, The Friends of the Library have been able to significantly increase fundraising efforts, and that money is put back into things here at the library,” she said. “And those are things we would not otherwise be able to have in our budget — things such as extra programming for the children, extra copies of books that we have long wait times for. The Friends have also supported and donated toward the new bookmobile in the past. There are a lot of projects that really help our bottom line.”

Boley said there were a few things he would like potential donors to understand.

“We want them to know that each organization must qualify as a registered 501(c)(3) organization with the IRS to participate,” he said. “The Holmes County Heritage Partnership is a DBA of the Holmes County Historical Society, and all donations run through us, and the dollars collected are distributed to the various organizations based on their individual donations.

“There is an undesignated space on the form where you can donate one amount, and it is equally distributed to all the partners.”