The South Beach Chamber Ensemble.

The Miami Foundation’s Give Miami Day hopes to top last year’s $3.2 million total of giving in this year’s 24-hour donate-a-thon that begins Thursday.

A lot of worth nonprofits are competing for dollars in this event, and that includes arts groups: Seraphic Fire, the Miami Symphony, the SoBe Arts Institute, the South Beach Chamber Ensemble, the Chopin Foundation and Florida Grand Opera, to name just a few (you can see all the groups under the “Leaderboard” tab on the organizers’ website).

Earlier this month, two commentators on my blog entry about FGO’s hiring of a consultant, followed by several “town hall” meetings, touched on this topic of inadequate funding. And FGO’s executive director, Susan Danis, came on stage Sunday afternoon before the second act of Madama Butterfly to announce that the company was mounting a major fundraising effort and calling on audience members to support it.

If I had my way, there would be a 24-hour giving day just for arts groups; I don’t think they can get the attention they need if there isn’t a more dedicated focus than just simply blanket charity giving, laudable as that idea is. By some reckonings, there are too many arts groups competing for a relatively small pool of dollars, and the market is doing its brutally efficient business by weeding out the ones that can’t generate enough capital.

Maybe, but if we take a closer look at some of the needy arts groups asking for dollars, we find diversity, artistic ambition and community dedication:

• The Chopin Foundation, besides sponsoring a unique series of recitals focused on emerging pianists, also runs the Chopin National Piano Competition, which is held every five years in Miami and fosters the careers of young American pianists. This year’s festival runs from Feb. 22 to March 1 at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium.

• The South Beach Chamber Ensemble has made a point of playing in unusual places (the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens, for one) and focusing on rare repertoire, such as its upcoming Feb. 26 concert at the Coral Gables Museum, in which it will offer songs for soprano and string quartet by the recently departed American composer Lee Hoiby, and the Barber String Quartet. Last month, the group performed the String Quartet of the largely unknown Cuban composer Julian Orbon.

• The Dranoff Foundation has been presenting two-piano performances for 25 years in Miami, and commissioned new works from the most eminent composers of earlier and current generations. On Dec. 21, the Taiwanese-American duo of Susan and Sarah Wang will give a fascinating program of holiday-oriented music, including transcriptions of Bach vocal works, a four-hand Christmas suite by Liszt, and movements from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center. An all 21st-century program is planned in February at the New World Center that will include music by Gabriela Lena Frank, Lowell Liebermann, John Corigliano and Giovanni Solima, all played by the Trivelia Piano Duo.

All of these are worthy programs, as are the others I have mentioned. Speaking only for classical music in South Florida, it’s an art form that adds immeasurably to the economic development of an area. Young people starting careers and families want to move to places that offer a good lifestyle, and that includes a vibrant cultural life. These arts groups often operate on very small, quickly depleted budgets, but they keep at it because they believe in it, and they believe in its importance.

An investment in Give Miami Day’s arts groups is an investment in South Florida’s cultural present and future, and here’s hoping plenty of other people see it that way, too.