How the Pittsburgh community came together to raise over $1.5 million on GoFundMe for Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
Mission
To leverage the power of community to achieve lasting solutions to hunger and its root causes
Challenge
Persistently high demand for food assistance, and the need to reach new donors and volunteers beyond traditional fundraising methods.
Solution
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank partnered with the Richard King Mellon Foundation and rallied the Pittsburgh Penguins, Pirates, and Steelers to launch a peer-to-peer challenge on GoFundMe, turning fans and neighbors into fundraisers.
“While the campaign’s financial results are remarkable, what excites us most is the opportunity we created to come together in a unique way and catalyze our community to ensure our neighbors have enough to eat.”
– Charla Irwin-Buncher, Chief External Affairs Officer at Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
Results from the month-long challenge*:
Over $1.5 million
in total impact
More than 3,500
individual fundraisers started
Over 80%
of contributions were from individuals who had never supported the Food Bank before
*Based on 2026 GoFundMe and Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank-provided data
Looking beyond traditional fundraising to meet a growing need
Demand for food assistance in the Pittsburgh region has stayed persistently high. More families are turning to Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to help put food on the table.
Community-led food and fund drives have long been core to the Food Bank’s model, but the organization had never run a large-scale online peer-to-peer campaign. This presented an opportunity to reach donors and volunteers beyond its traditional base, and a moment big enough to draw them in.
From a Thanksgiving tradition to a citywide challenge
In 2025, the Richard King Mellon Foundation and Pittsburgh’s three professional sports teams, the Penguins, Pirates, and Steelers, asked how they could use their influence in the city to help more neighbors facing hunger. The Food Bank and the teams already shared a history through #BurghProud, a longtime Thanksgiving collaboration. Adding the Foundation’s backing and GoFundMe Pro’s peer-to-peer technology gave that partnership new scale.
The opportunity was clear: combine philanthropic funding, grassroots fundraising, and community influence into a single campaign built for online mobilization.
The Foundation is always seeking to utilize technology and contemporary tactics to enhance the positive impact of our philanthropy. GoFundMe’s expertise, along with the remarkable and longstanding community commitment of the Penguins, Pirates and Steelers, enabled the Foundation to leverage its $1 million grant to the Food Bank by more than 50 percent, while introducing the Food Bank to thousands of new individual donors from 43 states.
Turning Pittsburgh pride into fundraising power
The result was the #BurghProud Challenge, a month-long peer-to-peer fundraising campaign that asked Pittsburghers to walk or run 30 miles in June and launch individual fundraising pages benefiting Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
#BurghProud Challenge announcement during Pirates broadcast
The Food Bank and the teams built a tiered incentive structure, from an official t-shirt to single-team and all-three-team fan experiences. The Richard King Mellon Foundation backed it with a $1 million match, giving supporters a reason to act now rather than later.
The activation brought together three major-league sports teams, a respected foundation, and GoFundMe around a single beneficiary, a combination Pittsburgh had not seen before.
Community-led food and fund drives have long been an important part of our work, but #BurghProud gave us the opportunity to engage supporters in a meaningful online peer-to-peer fundraising effort in a way we have never done before. All on a platform that people know and trust in GoFundMe.
Turning one month into $1.5 million of impact
In one month, the #BurghProud Challenge mobilized more than 3,500 individual fundraisers and 4,600 donations (both online and offline), raising over half a million dollars for Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. The Richard King Mellon Foundation matched every dollar and fulfilled the full $1 million matching commitment, turning one month of community fundraising into $1.5 million of impact.
One participant’s effort captured how personal fundraising turned into community impact. Bo, a student volunteer, set a $5,000 goal for the #BurghProud Challenge. He walked 60 miles in June, double the challenge distance, and passed his goal outright. The Richard King Mellon Foundation’s match then doubled his total, turning his efforts into an estimated 30,000 meals for the Food Bank.
The #BurghProud Challenge results extend well past the final dollar total, and the pattern was clear: over 80% of contributions were from individuals who had never supported the Food Bank before.
Through this campaign, we not only raised critical funds but also introduced new people to our mission, deepened relationships with existing supporters, and empowered community members to mobilize their own networks on behalf of our neighbors facing hunger.
The main drivers behind the incredible results included:
- A one-month window and a substantial match, which gave supporters a reason to act now.
- A central campaign page built on GoFundMe Pro’s technology, which was easy to spin up and co-brand to showcase the challenge’s uniqueness.
- A launch press conference, citywide billboards, and an owned, earned, and paid media push across Meta, with the support of Paper Napkin Agency, built momentum from day one.
- A GoFundMe Community where participants could get real-time updates about the challenge from other individual fundraisers, the sports teams, the Foundation, and the Food Bank.
Results reflect Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s campaign strategy and may vary for other organizations.
