What Is the Give! Campaign? Meet Give Pikes Peak and Its 75 Nonprofits for 2026

Each fall, hundreds of donors across El Paso and Teller counties log on to one website and make donations to multiple nonprofit organizations. The nonprofits include 11 categories covering youth programs, animal shelters, veterans’ services and arts organizations that rarely make headlines but help many across the region. The platform, Give!, has channeled nearly $20 million into the community since it began in 2009.

“Give! was created to do two things,” explains Executive Director Victoria Norton. “It offers local nonprofits infrastructure and exposure they cannot build alone, and it introduces donors to the organizations already working on the issues they care about. The platform makes giving easy, especially if you are donating to more than one nonprofit.”

Norton took the organization’s reins in 2023 after a split from the Colorado Springs Independent, the city’s alternative newspaper, which had launched this hyperlocal giving campaign focused on El Paso and Teller county nonprofits. It predated both Colorado Gives Day and Giving Tuesday, and unlike those state and national platforms, it has stayed focused on a single region.

Participating organizations apply and a selection committee of community leaders evaluates them for finances and impact, similar in spirit to national screeners like Candid and Charity Navigator, but with local eyes on local books.

Give! runs a workshop series for participating nonprofits, drawing on faculty from area colleges and practitioners from the community. Sessions this year cover nonprofit finance, boards and governance, social media and state tax credits, along with an internships panel connecting nonprofits with local college students. The governance training is aimed at helping smaller organizations be more professional and outlast their founders.

Businesses also support the campaign in two ways. Some sponsor it directly, giving financial support in exchange for recognition. Others sign on as reward partners, offering discounts, tickets or experiences that donors unlock at set giving levels, starting at $25 and rising through seven tiers to gifts of $5,000-plus.

“The best thing we do is introduce local donors to local nonprofits,” Norton says. “What we are doing is connecting this community and investing in it.”

Visit givepikespeak.org for more information and this year’s spotlighted nonprofits.