GivingTuesday facts for kids

GivingTuesday is a special day that encourages people to be generous. It happens every year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the United States. After the big shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, GivingTuesday is a day to give back to the community.

The movement is often promoted with a hashtag, #GivingTuesday, on social media. It's a global movement that inspires people and organizations to help make the world a better place. There is also an independent nonprofit organization called GivingTuesday that helps support this worldwide effort.

The Story of GivingTuesday

GivingTuesday was started in 2012 by a man named Henry Timms. He worked at a community center in New York City called the 92nd Street Y. The United Nations Foundation was also a co-founder, helping to launch the idea.

The idea was simple: create a day that was all about giving. It could be donating money, volunteering time, or simply doing a kind act for someone else. The goal was to create a wave of generosity that would spread across the globe.

In 2019, GivingTuesday became its own independent nonprofit organization. This allowed it to grow even bigger and support more people around the world. Many well-known groups have supported GivingTuesday, including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Motor Company, and PayPal.

How It Works All Over the World

GivingTuesday believes that generosity is about people coming together to support each other. The organization runs several programs throughout the year to help spread this idea.

Global Movements

GivingTuesday is not just an American event. It has a global presence with movements in over 75 countries. Each country's movement is unique and fits its own culture and needs.

In each country, a team of leaders works with local groups. These include community centers, schools, businesses, and families. They all work together to encourage giving and bring people closer.

Getting Kids Involved: #GivingTuesdaySpark

The #GivingTuesdaySpark program is all about young people. It helps kids and teens between the ages of 8 and 22 share their ideas for making a difference. The program supports young leaders and shows them that they have the power to create positive change in their communities.

Helping New Ideas Grow: Starling Collective

The Starling Collective is a program that helps grassroots organizers. These are everyday people who have great ideas to help their communities but may not have a lot of support or money. The Starling Collective provides them with training and resources to help their projects succeed.

The History of Giving

Since it began in 2012, GivingTuesday has grown bigger every year. More people participate, and more money is raised for good causes.

A Timeline of Generosity

• 2012: The very first GivingTuesday was held on November 27. Many companies and charities joined in to help launch the new tradition of giving.
• 2013: The amount of money donated on GivingTuesday nearly doubled from the first year. Over 7,000 nonprofit organizations took part.
• 2014: The movement became truly global, with people from 68 countries participating. A fun project called the #GivingTower was launched, where each donation added a virtual "brick" to a tower.
• 2015: On GivingTuesday, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced they would donate 99% of their company shares to charity. This brought a lot of attention to the idea of giving.
• 2016: A record-breaking $168 million was donated worldwide. In the United Kingdom, about one in ten adults took part in the event.
• 2017: Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offered to match donations made on the platform. This means they added their own money to what people were already giving, making the donations even bigger.
• 2018: Donations continued to grow, with an estimated $400 million given in the United States alone. Facebook and PayPal worked together to match $7 million in donations.
• 2019: For the first time, organizers estimated both online and offline giving. They found that a massive $1.97 billion was given in total.
• 2020: This was a special year. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, an extra GivingTuesday was held in May, called #GivingTuesdayNow. It raised over $503 million in the U.S. The regular GivingTuesday in December raised a record $2.47 billion in the U.S.
• 2021: The generosity continued, with people in the U.S. giving an estimated $2.7 billion.

How Donations Are Matched

One of the exciting parts of GivingTuesday is "donation matching." This is when a company or foundation agrees to match the money people donate to a charity. For example, if you donate $10, a matching partner might also donate $10, so the charity receives $20.

On GivingTuesday, companies like Facebook and PayPal have offered to match millions of dollars in donations. This has become very popular. In recent years, the matching funds have been claimed very quickly, sometimes in just a few seconds after the offer begins! This shows how many people are eager to give and have their donations doubled.

See also

• Random Acts of Kindness Day
• World Giving Index