GivingTuesday 2025 – Phillips Wharf Environmental Center

Phillips Wharf Environmental Center

Year End Fundraiser

Goal: $5,000

$5,000 100%

“GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of radical generosity. GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Since then, it has grown into a year-round global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.” (GivingTuesday.org)

Here at Phillips Wharf, we use GivingTuesday as the kick-off of our year end fundraising. This year, we have set a goal of raising $5,000 before January 1st, 2026. These donations help us continue to provide high quality care for our animal ambassadors, write grants, and plan for the year ahead during our off-season.

To celebrate our year end donors and supporters, we are holding a gift card raffle. We will be giving away several $10 gift cards, including to some of our favorite local businesses.

Our hope is that these gift cards will serve as a way to virtually buy our supporters a coffee or other treat to say thank you or to be passed on to others in need. We know this year has been tough on many and so we want our thank you to serve as a way to support your self-care or for you to pay it forward and continue to take care of others.

Here is a list of the gift cards up for grabs:

- 1 x $10 Eat Sprout gift card
- 1 x $10 Agave Juicing Co. gift card
- 1 x $10 Panera gift card
- 2 x $10 Starbucks gift card
- 2 x $10 Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards
- 2 x $10 Rise Up Coffee gift cards

The details:

Anyone who donates to Phillips Wharf throughout the month of December will earn a single raffle entry. This is a one time entry and multiple donations will not earn additional entries. Those who choose to give through the MidShore Gives platform will earn a bonus entry, for a total of 2 raffle entries. This is because this platform has the potential to earn additional donation prizes for Phillips Wharf.

We will also give a single raffle entry to everyone who volunteered with Phillips Wharf in 2025, including anyone who joined our Tidy Up Talbot trash clean up. If you volunteered with us, please keep an eye on your email as we will be in touch to confirm your entry.

Eligible donations can be made through Facebook, Midshore Gives, PayPal, or by cash or check (which must be received by December 31st). In addition, if you would like to be entered into the raffle, you will need to provide us with a mailing address through this Google Form. As always, we value your privacy and will not use your information for anything other than sending a thank you card and any prizes you win in this raffle.

You can use the buttons below to check out the different donation platforms. If you’d like more information on why you might choose one platform over another, check our our primer below the buttons.

As always, donations to the Phillips Wharf Environmental Center are tax deductible and support our staff, animals, and programming.

Thanks to each and every one of you for supporting our work to encourage, educate, and engage people to become stewards of a healthy Chesapeake Bay!

You might wonder why there are so many different ways to donate today, so here’s a quick primer on the different platforms.

1) Our regular donation platform is PayPal. We use this platform for online donations year round. This platform is always available and gives you the option of whether you want to cover the fee associated with your donation. This platform might be your preferred way to donate if you’re already using PayPal and you prefer to make your donation online.

2) The Mid-Shore Community Foundation is hosting MidShoreGives. This is a community-wide donation platform for GivingTuesday where you can donate to multiple local groups all at once. This platform basically works like an online store, so you can add different nonprofits to your cart, select donation amounts, and then checkout in one payment. There is a fee associated with donating on this platform and you can choose to cover it or not. Because this platform has sponsors, each donation made here has the opportunity to win Phillips Wharf additional money. For example, the first three donations of $500 or more between 8:00 am and 9:00 am (EST) will earn those nonprofits an additional $250 prize donation. There will also be prizes for the nonprofit with the most unique donors. This is a great platform to use if you want to help us win additional donations, which is why using this platform to donate is the only way to earn a bonus entry into the raffle.

3) Our year end fundraiser through Facebook. Because this is a social media platform, people will be able to see your donation and you can even share our fundraiser to help us raise more money. This would be a good choice if you have a Facebook account, want to share and promote our fundraiser, and/or have given through Facebook to other fundraising campaigns.

4) The old school (and original) way to make a donation – mail or hand us a check! There are no processing fees and we get your check and deposit into our account immediately; there’s no waiting for a payout from a 3rd party. If you’d like to mail a donation and want to be included in raffle, we must receive your donation by the end of the day on Wednesday, December 31st. If you prefer to hand us a donation in person, send an email to info@phillipswharf.org to schedule a time to come by and visit our Center.