ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Christmas time is nearly here, and while shoppers are looking for the best presents for friends and family, the Western Kansas Community Foundation is reminding area residents to consider a gift to their favorite non-profit agencies as well.
Through Dec. 2, WKCF is hosting its annual Match Day fundraising campaign for area agencies, and this year, Program and Marketing Director Stacie Hahn said 55 agencies are partnering with the event to raise money for their programs and operations through the foundation.
“We have solicited a match pool of funds from some private sponsors and individuals of $150,000,” she said. “For the donations that come in to the non-profits that are participating, we provide that match pool and match those gifts proportionately per each organization to the total amount of donations that come in through the whole event.”
Match Day, Dec. 2, falls on what globally is known as Giving Tuesday. This is WKCF’s ninth edition of the event, and Hahn said the foundation has not had fundraising goals in previous years.
However, the foundation raised more than $900,000 between the match pool and agency donations, and this year, Hahn said WKCF hopes to hit the $1 million mark, and she said since Match Day’s inception in 2017, the number of participating agencies and funding raised has increased.
Now, Hahn said the foundation is simply hoping to expand upon that, adding five of the agencies participating in this year’s campaign are new to Match Day.
The match pool has also increased, going from $100,000 in 2024 to $150,000 for this year.
This year’s Match Day campaign officially kicked off Monday, Nov. 17, and as for what it is like to raise such a large amount of money in a short amount of time, Hahn had one word – hectic.
“There are really only a couple of us, one person primarily who handles the financial administration system we use in our office, but because of how this mechanism works where we’re trying to calculate a match portion also, I am responsible for running what we call a magic spreadsheet,” she said.
Hahn said the spreadsheet contains many pages and formulas to help WKCF officials calculate percentages throughout the event, but she did say the foundation’s online giving platform at www.matchday.wkcf.org is a big help for those wanting to donate.
“We do see a good number of gifts come through that platform, but by in large, we are still receiving mostly check or cash contributions physically that we have to administer,” she said.
Hahn said WKCF officials see contributions gradually coming in over the two weeks of the Match Day campaign, but she said the bulk of donations typically come on Match Day itself.
Following the campaign, Hahn said WKCF officials spend a few weeks making final calculations, donations are attributed to the correct non-profits and doing checks and balances to make sure everything is reconciled appropriately.
“We have a pretty good process in place,” she said. “We’ve made some changes along the way, but we have a pretty well oiled machine. It is very hectic. It is an incredibly busy time for us at the foundation.”
Hahn said Match Day is the finale of five holiday-themed days that start with Thanksgiving and include Black Friday, Shop Small Saturday and Cyber Monday.
“It was placed in that segment of time with that in mind,” she said. “We’re going to give thanks for everything we have. We’re going to go shop till we drop, and now, we want to give back to the community we care about.”
WKCF is based in Garden City, and traditionally, the majority of Match Day donations have come from Finney County. Hahn said, though, with this year’s campaign, there are many agencies from other Southwest Kansas communities participating.
Hahn contributed to this to the foundation’s online giving platform, and she said donations have also come in from other parts of the U.S.
“There have been a couple years where we’ve had 20 different states represented excluding Kansas, so 21 total where donations have come into various organizations we assume from people who had a connection to that organization locally and moved away or now have family members who have a connection with that organization they still wanted to support from the far reaches of the states,” she said.
In addition to donations from Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, Hahn said donations have come from states as far away as Alaska, New York, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Some of the agencies participating in Match Day include food pantries, and Hahn said new for this year is the Project Hope of Hugoton pantry in that Stevens County community. Back for this year is the Emmaus House in Garden City which provides homelessness and food pantry services.
Hahn said there are many different sectors the money raised through Match Day touches.
“We have arts organizations,” she said. “We have human and social services organizations. We have animal welfare organizations, education organizations, health organizations. It runs the gambit of what the organizations are providing.”
Hahn said Match Day fits perfectly into the giving spirit of the holiday season.
“We know they’re at the end of the year, and they’re looking to provide things like food for Thanksgiving for families who utilize their service or food for Christmas,” she said. “Several of the social service organizations want to be able to provide toys or Christmas gifts for youth they are serving who may not have that opportunity otherwise to receive gifts. The funds that are coming in right now may be benefitting those organizations in order to provide those services.”
The season’s spirit also looks for people to give more than they receive, and Hahn said Match Day likewise fits with that theme.
“When you’re a kid, you have a list a mile long of what is you want for Christmas gifts, and as you get older, that list gets shorter and shorter,” she said. “By having this giving event at this time of year, what we see some people do is make contributions in honor of someone or as a gift on behalf of someone.”
Hahn too said a donation is a perfect present for a friend or family member.
“Once those wish lists get really small, what does become larger is experiences and opportunities and having those things that are done in honor of you,” she said. “It means so much more than having another thing to clutter your house, another thing you have to go through and potentially purge at some point. The good feeling you get from doing something good for someone else is so much more at this time of year.”
WKCF will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2026, and the year also marks the 10th edition of Match Day. Hahn said no plans for either celebration are in place yet.
“We are going to be looking to host some special event in recognition of that milestone, having a few extra things, probably a come and go, meet and greet at our office,” she said. “You can keep your eyes on the foundation’s social media pages to find out more about those events as they start to come around.”
Hahn said anyone can make a donation from anywhere in the world if they go to matchday.wkcf.org.
“From there, you can select whichever non-profits you want to support,” she said. “They all have a profile page that gives some information about their organization and their services. It’s a shopping cart, so you can add as many of them as you want to the shopping cart and check out all at once.”
Checks can also be mailed to WKCF, and mailing information forms can be found at wkcf.org.
“You could designate which organizations you wanted to receive a specific dollar amount from your contribution, and we’ll get those applied,” Hahn said. “You can also stop in person on Dec. 2 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church in Garden City, where we’re going to be hosting an in-person event for that final day of the giving period.”
Hahn said the Match Day finale event at Garden City’s FUMC will feature many non-profit agencies on hand.
“They’ll have booths set up,” she said. “They’ll have representatives there, literature, information about the services they provide. Each organization has its own little custom decorated designed donation box.”
At the Match Day finale, Hahn said donors can drop contributions in the boxes of their favorite non-profits, and WKCF will make sure donations are allocated to the correct agencies.
“It’s an opportunity to come down, see the non-profits, talk to them, find out other ways you can support them,” she said. “It’s a really great event for the non-profits to be able to see people coming through the door who support and maybe being able to put a face to a name in that space. It’s valuable for donors to be able to come in and see just what services are represented in our communities and provided by the non-profits.”
For more information about Match Day, visit wkcf.org, matchday.wkcf.org, call 620-271-9484, or e-mail
“It’s a hectic time,” she said. “Before I started working at the foundation, I never would’ve thought of working in this field, and now that I’m here, I really can’t think of working anywhere else. As hectic as it is, it’s well worth the reward and the benefit that come from doing the work I get to do every day.”
