Austin Gives

As of April 2015 Austin Gives officially became a program of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce in order to meet the demand for expansion and growth of the business community’s commitment to giving back. The idea of creating a business recognition program came as a result of a Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce leadership best practices trip to Minneapolis-St. Paul in 2010.

The 100+ delegation from Central Texas learned about the Keystone Program, the Twin Cities’ business philanthropy recognition program, which had been in existence since 1987. This program found that the key element of increasing overall giving was to annually recognize businesses that contribute a minimum designated percentage of profits to community based charitable organizations.

Knowing that Austinites too, can be very philanthropic, we wanted to incent and encourage Austin businesses to be generous in their support of our community. Thanks to Eric Webber of McGarrah Jessee, we were able to survey local Austin businesses and, based on their responses, the Austin version of Keystone was born. Austin Gives was formed through the collaboration of three community minded organizations:

• Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
• United Way for Greater Austin
• Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas

Each of these organizations plays a unique role in building business philanthropy. Austin Gives’ focus, in particular, is recognition and honoring of that business philanthropy.

To learn much more about Austin Gives please visit our website.