First Giving: The Boomer Esiason Foundation

First Giving is a Boston-based online fundraising website aimed at helping non-profit organizations “plan, execute, and measure successful online fundraising campaigns.” There are currently over 8,000 non-profits using the site and over 13 million online donors.

First Giving profiles three featured causes each week. For the purpose of this post, I will be examining how The Boomer Esiason Foundation uses First Giving to maximize their donations.

After finding out his son Gunnar had been diagnosed with the often-fatal genetic disorder Cystic Fibrosis (CF), former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason created The Boomer Esiason Foundation. The purpose of the foundation is to increase awareness, education and quality of life for those affected by cystic fibrosis, and provide financial support to research aimed at finding a cure.

The Foundation allows fundraisers to sign up for events and become a part of Team Boomer; they then set a fundraising goal and use First Giving to meet it. The fundraisers can then send their profile to family, friends, and coworkers, via First Giving’s social media plug-ins, to help increase their contribution to the cause.


The following video is a recruitment piece for Team Boomer.

There are currently 122 fundraisers for the Team Boomer and each fundraiser has many supporters. Six top fundraisers are profiled on the cause’s main page, identifying how much money they’ve raised and how many supporters they have. This is a great way to celebrate the success of the foundation’s fundraisers and foster friendly competition by highlighting top fundraisers and teams.

Each fundraiser’s profile displays why they’ve chosen to raise money for the cause and their personal connection to it. Their profile also breaks down each donation they’ve received, including how much they’ve raised online and offline. The top fundraiser has raised a total of $9,587 all online, and has 28 supporters since he joined five weeks ago. Of the six top fundraisers, they all have a personal connection to CF.

This website allows for donor convenience as First Giving has set-up many ways to make donating easy and efficient. The following video outlines First Giving’s payment methods and policies.

First Giving empowers enthusiastic and motivated non-profit supporters and organizations to raise more money than they ever thought possible for causes they are invested in. With the aid of First Giving, The Boomer Esiason Foundation has been able to effectively leverage their cause, and bring attention to the fight against CF, and raise a total of $1,522,642. 

-CP