Gulf Coast Good

They say all good things must come to an end. And so it is with Gulf Coast Good, our five-year-old online portal for citizen philanthropy. 

Effective September 30, Gulf Coast Community Foundation will retire the platform’s two websites: charitable marketplace GulfCoastGives.org and volunteer-matching service YoudBePerfectforThis.org. But don’t worry, we have good reason for winding down these successful websites and some great resources that we will continue to offer our nonprofit partners (and our donors).

When we developed GulfCoastGives.org in 2010, charitable crowdfunding was relatively new and the technology to do it well weren’t readily accessible to many local organizations. The same goes for volunteer recruitment when we launched YoudBePerfectforThis.org a year later. Since then, these sites have helped local nonprofits fund nearly 900 charity projects and connect with hundreds of potential volunteers.

However, technology has advanced rapidly in that time too, and a proliferation of crowdfunding platforms has taken these digital tools mainstream—which is great for our nonprofit community! With so many choices now available, we are encouraging our partners to utilize the platform(s) that will best meets their needs. Meanwhile, Gulf Coast will shift its efforts in this area to assisting nonprofits in evaluating these services and leveraging their outreach through regular training on social media and marketing—a service identified as highly beneficial through our Gulf Coast Good Academy workshops.

As for valued partners like you, Gulf Coast will continue to share giving opportunities that meet your interests whenever we learn about them. Thank you for helping to make Gulf Coast Good and, especially, the nonprofits that utilized it so successful over the past several years. If you have any questions or concerns about this transition, or if you would like to learn about some of the other websites where local organizations are currently posting charity projects and volunteer opportunities, please let us know.