Since its launch in 2012, charitable giving event Giving Tuesday has become a staple in the marketing calendar year, with brands from Microsoft, to PayPal, to Bank of America launching campaigns to support it. Even Tinder has gotten in on the action.
Give Back This Giving Tuesday
But this year’s Giving Tuesday, scheduled for , is more important than ever thanks to the pandemic and the growing awareness of social injustices and racial inequalities worldwide. It’s a chance for ecommerce merchants to champion causes they believe in and for shoppers to support their local and global communities
Here’s why you should get involved this Giving Tuesday-and how you can build brand awareness and customer loyalty in the process.
- What is Giving Tuesday?
- What makes Giving Tuesday 2020 different from previous years?
- Why should brands participate in Giving Tuesday?
- Giving Tuesday ideas for ecommerce businesses
What is Giving Tuesday?
If Black Friday is the official kick-off party for holiday shopping, then think of #GivingTuesday as the ribbon cutting for the charitable giving season. (As one writer put it, it offers the “emotional equivalent of a salve for a holiday-party hangover” for shoppers who have engaged in heavy spending.) It was created by New York’s 92nd Street Y with support from the United Nations Foundation to rectify the disconnect between the holiday season’s two most predominant themes: consumerism and community.
Hosted on the first Tuesday following American Thanksgiving, this year the “global day of generosity” takes place on . Although it directly follows Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s a very different beast; on Giving Tuesday, people aren’t just encouraged to donate money-they’re encouraged to give their time, talent, voice, and goods to those in need.
In the eight years since its inception, Giving Tuesday has fully harnessed the power of social media to bring people, brands, and charities together in altruistic activities and philanthropic giving. Last year, Giving Tuesday raised $511 million online in the U.S. alone.
While Giving Tuesday has been around for less than a decade, the final month of the year has long been a critical time for non-profit organizations and charities, as it’s when donors are more liable to give. Not only is it the last chance to get a charitable tax receipt, it’s when many people are making a last-ditch effort to weasel their way onto Santa’s “nice” list.
All joking aside though, people are more likely to think of those in need at this time of year, bgclive whether that means volunteering a soup kitchen, shoveling a neighbor’s driveway, or reaching into their wallets. In fact, according to research conducted by World Vision, 63% of Americans-or about three in five-make a charitable donation in the last two weeks of the year.It’s also estimated that organizations receive one-third of their donations for their year in the month of December.
“[Giving Tuesday] is a one-day fundraiser with year-long implications for non-profits,” Lindsay J.K. Nichols, vice-president of erica’s Charities told Forbes.
But this year’s Giving Tuesday is unlike its predecessors because quite frankly, it’s been a year. We’ve already been asked for money-a lot. We started out with disaster relief efforts for catastrophic Australia’s bushfires. Midyear, we made donations to social justice and advocacy organizations when the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum. Then, there were all the political fundraising campaigns for the US presidential election. Feeling tired already? If it’s not COVID-19 making you feel weary, then perhaps you’ve come down with a case of donor fatigue.
As if that wasn’t enough, Giving Tuesday also arrives at a time when corporate and individual budgets for charitable giving may be lower than usual.