Riggs Partners 19th Annual CreateAthon raises capital for national Createathon movement

Riggs Partners, founder of CreateAthon, has launched an online fundraising campaign as part of its 19^th annual, 24-hour pro bono marketing marathon on Thursday, Oct 20. Volunteers at the Riggs Partners event are asking community members to pledge $1 for each of the 24 hours of the marketing marathon. Donations will benefit the national CreateAthon movement and can be made at the Power of 24 fundraising campaign site.

“Many people know that CreateAthon began at Riggs Partners,” said Cathy Monetti, co-founder of CreateAthon and founding partner at Riggs Partners. “What people don’t know is that CreateAthon is now a national 501(c) 3 organization that is working to bring more CreateAthon events to nonprofits throughout North America, and even on an international scale. This now puts us in the position of raising the human and financial capital needed to build a sustainable nonprofit organization. It’s the same challenge faced many of the nonprofits we’ve served through CreateAthon.”

Riggs Partners has led CreateAthon from a local, single-market effort in 1998 to an organization that has recruited more than 100 marketing and advertising agencies, universities, corporattions and professional clubs as CreateAthon partners. All of these groups have hosted CreateAthon events in the respective markets to benefit nonprofits that otherwise would not be able to afford professional marketing services. To date, the program has delivered over $24 million of pro bono marketing service to the nonprofit marketplace.

“In evolving CreateAthon from a side-of-desk program to a national nonprofit, we’ve evolved our vision as well,” said Teresa Coles, who founded CreateAthon along with Cathy Monetti. She now chairs the national board of directors for CreateAthon. “Moving forward, our goal is to deliver $100 million of pro bono service to nonprofits by 2020. That’s a big calling, and it needs human and capital resources to make it happen. That’s why we’re asking for everyone’s support through the Power of 24 fundraising campaign.”

Coles notes that other CreateAthon partners will be participating in the national fundraising effort. Two partner agencies will hold CreateAthon events next week in Charleston and Raleigh, and both will create their own fundraising teams within the Power of 24 program.

“The power of CreateAthon has always been in the hands of all those CreateAthon volunteers who have chosen to share their creative talent for social good,” said Coles. “So it seemed only logical that this collective force be the agent for raising capital and building the capacity CreateAthon needs to move its work forward in the world. We look forward to putting these resources to work in bringing more CreateAthon events to more nonprofits everywhere.”