It’s almost time for Alaskans to file for their permanent fund dividends. And that means they also have the option to give a portion of their PFD to charitable and non-profit organizations through the state’s charitable giving program, Pick. Click. Give. In 2013 there are more organizations than ever to give to.
After four years, Alaska’s charitable giving program, Pick. Click. Give. is still growing. Heather Beaty is the program manager. She says this year they’ve added 56 new organizations.
A graph of Pick. Click. Give. donations. Graph from pickclickgive.org.
The program was created by the Alaska State Legislature in 2008 and allows Alaskans filing for their PFD on-line to donate all or part of it to the campuses of the University of Alaska, community foundations, and eligible charitable and educational organizations. After a three-year pilot project, Pick.Click.Give. became a permanent part of the PFD program. The 50 plus new organizations added for 2013 run the gamut, Beaty says. And, they’ve reorganized the web site, breaking down all the organizations into seven cause types.
“The categories have been broken into Youth & Education, Emergency, Humanitarian, Animals, Arts & Culture, Health and Community. And then within each of those cause types there’s subcategories that get more specific. So, for example, under the Humanitarian category you can break it down and just look at organizations that are providing food assistance or services to the elderly,” Beaty said.
Beaty says the search options on the Pick.Click.Give. website also allows you to search for organizations in a specific geographic location. 100 percent of Alaskan’s Pick.Click.Give. donations goes to the charity of their choice. Last year, more than 23,000 Alaskans pledged more than $2.2 million. Currently about 4 percent of the people who receive a PFD choose to give. The permanent fund dividend filing period opens Jan. 1 and runs through March 31.
