Donors give more than $300,000 to charities on Kentucky Gives Day | Lexington Herald Leader

Donors gave $330,200 to Kentucky charities Wednesday during Kentucky Gives Day, an online giving benefit.

The money was raised from more than 3,300 donors through the website Kygives.org, said Whitney Wilgus, communications director for Lexington-based Kentucky Nonprofit Network.

The Nonprofit Network organized the 24-hour online giving effort, which is similar to a digital-age telethon.

From midnight Tuesday until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Kentuckians were encouraged to log onto the website and donate to any of about 380 charities. The site allows users to search for charities by name, category or ZIP code.

At 9:30 p.m., the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence had received the most money in the large nonprofit category: $14,743 from 109 individual donors, according to the site, which tracks donations as they are received.

Thumbs Up For Lane Goodwin Childhood Cancer Foundation Inc. received $12,701, the largest amount in the small nonprofit category. The Primate Rescue Center in Nicholasville was second with $12,025, the largest amount in the small nonprofit category.

The Kentucky Nonprofit Network envisioned Kentucky Gives Day as an opportunity to encourage nonprofits to leverage social media and other online resources as a means of generating donations.