Thursday is Give to the Max Day 2023, a day when Minnesotans are encouraged to help support local nonprofits, charitable organizations and schools across the state.

This year is the 15th year of the annual event, which is generally the biggest donation day for many groups. Since 2009, GiveMN says Give to the Max Day has helped raise nearly $300 million, and over $34 million was raised during last year’s event alone.

More than 36,000 organizations are participating in the event this year.

At the end of the day Thursday, more than $34.2 million was donated, which will go to more than 6,600 charitable causes. That total is the second-highest amount and is just short of the record of $34.4 million set in 2021.

So, how does it work?

Find your cause

GiveMN makes it easy for donors to find an organization they’d like to support. If you know who you want to donate to, you can simply search for it.

If you don’t have a specific organization in mind, the group breaks it into various categories for those who have more of a broad idea of who they might want to support. Those categories range from animal groups to humanitarian groups to sports organizations and more. Additionally, the website highlights different organizations that support LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, and there’s a separate group of organizations that are working to meet matching gift challenges.

Once you have a category, you can peruse all of the organizations and determine which one you’d like to support.

Making a donation

After finding your organization, you can make a donation by simply clicking on the organization’s name, and then clicking the “Donate” button. You can then choose either a preset donation amount or set your preferred total. You can also set up a monthly donation if you’d like.

GiveMN also accepts donations via credit cards, Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo and ACH.

Afterward, you’ll get a receipt emailed to whichever email you put down on your donation form. You’ll want to save for next year, as all donations are tax-deductible.

If you’d prefer, you can also create a free donor account beforehand so that all of your donations are tracked on your account, which could be handy for tax season, although no account is necessary.

What else?

The great news about Give to the Max Day is each donation to an organization through GiveMN also gives that organization another chance to win an extra prize.

All day long, GiveMN is doing drawings where one donation every 15 minutes and hour will be randomly chosen. Each donation that is selected will have $500 or $1,000 added to that donation. Additionally, one grand prize drawing will add $10,000 to one donation that was made sometime between Nov. 1 and the end of Give to the Max Day.

There isn’t any limit on how many of the prize drawings an organization can receive, and GiveMN is giving away $89,500 in its random drawings on Thursday.

Donations can also help organizations win part of a $100,000 prize pool.

For more information or to track how your favorite organizations are doing, click here.