The Global Good Network Responds to Hurricane Harvey

On Friday evening, August 25th, the first round of storms barreled into Texas’ Gulf Coast. Eight days later, the winds had passed, but the floodwaters only continued to rise in Houston and its surrounding areas. A storm barely any were prepared for, Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain on America’s fourth largest city and left Houstonians underwater. While there was little time to brace for impact, corporations were hard at work launching Disaster Relief campaigns with YourCause to provide relief for our neighboring city.

There was very little turnaround time between learning of the seriousness and direction of the hurricane and Harvey making landfall in Texas. Our clients were in need of implementing a disaster campaign quickly that would support their employees’ eagerness to give once the impact began to be reported.

The goal for the Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief campaigns was to raise as much money as possible for the people of Houston. We measured this effort by collecting the total amount of individual donations made through the disaster campaigns and the matching gifts given by their employers.

When the hurricane’s strength and direction was confirmed late on Friday, we immediately began constructing Disaster Relief programs with as many clients as we could get in contact with. We were amazed to see that even with such short notice, our clients desired to set up donation pages before the hurricane even hit.

As word came in about the devastation hitting South Texas over the weekend, the outpour of support from our clients only increased. By Monday afternoon, we had over 52% of clients set up for relief campaigns. Since statistics show relief funding is most productive in the first seven days after the natural disaster has occurred (YourCause Industry Report 2017), we knew we needed to engage our clients as soon as possible.

The construction of the Hurricane Harvey Relief program pages were unique to each company, much like every YourCause client platform. We gave each company the opportunity to choose which charities to support and if they wanted to incorporate matching incentives to increase engagement. Incentives like matching are known to help further increase employee giving participation during disaster relief campaigns.

Altogether we launched more than 52% of our clients on the Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief Campaign within 5 days of the disaster. This was monumental in the success of the donations raised by our clients and their employees. Including the matching donations from corporations – and all donations made by The Global Good Network – we’ve totaled more than $8,422,244 through the YourCause platform and continue to see donations grow daily. Recovery from a natural disaster like Harvey will take years, but we are thankful for the generous help of more than 30,000 individual donors who gave in such times of need.