Every community has its gathering places: the park, the community center, the theater, the ball field, the museum, the senior center, the house of worship. These are the places where we truly *see* one another.

What many people don't realize is how many of them exist because of a nonprofit—and that behind each nonprofit are people who decided their community was worth showing up for.

Nonprofits do more than deliver services. They create connection. They bring together the volunteer and the family she's helping, the mentor and the student, the donor and the neighbor across town. And they offer something that is increasingly hard to find: a place where caring for one another isn't a side effect, but the entire point. 

That is what so many of us are looking for right now. When the headlines feel overwhelming and the problems seem too big to grasp, nonprofits offer a different answer: Start here, with your neighbors. Every day, organizations across Georgia turn generosity into something you can see and feel.

But nonprofits everywhere are feeling the same pressures as the families they serve—higher prices and tighter budgets—at the very moment more neighbors are turning to them for help. Many are being asked to serve more people and solve more complex problems with dwindling resources.

Yet they keep showing up. They show when disasters strike, when families need food or housing, when seniors need company and care, when communities need advocates, and when neighbors need hope.

And they never show up alone. Nonprofits succeed because people like you choose to get involved. Every volunteer hour, every donation, every act of advocacy, and every shared story is a thread. Woven together, the difference is unmistakable.

Georgia sees that proven every year through GAgives on GivingTuesday, the annual day of giving that brings our state together. Since 2012, the GAgives movement has helped raise more than $241 million for nonprofits across Georgia. In 2025 alone, Georgians gave more than $41 million. That total wasn't built by a handful of big checks. It was built by neighbors giving what they could, $10 here and $25 there, proving that small gifts, added together, make a big impact.

Those numbers represent far more than dollars. They are meals served, trees planted, animals rescued, performances staged, and patients cared for. Each gift is one Georgian telling another: *You matter here*.

This year's GAgives campaign opens with Early Giving on November 1 and culminates on GivingTuesday, December 1. It is a statewide invitation to support the causes you care about most and to discover the organizations making a difference right where you live.

And giving takes many forms. A contribution helps—a lot—but so does volunteering, attending an event, bringing a friend, serving on a board, or simply telling others about an organization that has made your community better.

So here is our ask. Put December 1 on your calendar today. Think about the nonprofits that have touched your life, and make a plan to support them. Decide what you can give, whether that's $10 or $1,000, then share your plan with your friends and family, and ask them to give alongside you. Early Giving opens November 1 at GAgives.org, so you don't have to wait to get started.

The challenges facing Georgia are too large for any one person or organization to solve alone. But nonprofits remind us that we were never meant to solve them alone. That is the promise of community. And that is what GAgives on GivingTuesday is all about.

About Karen Beavor