The seventh annual #GivingTuesday kicked off last night in Asia but got under way in earnest this morning as East Coast charities inundate email inboxes everywhere.
The global day of giving falls on the Tuesday after Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Initial estimates pegged about $274 million donated to charities last year, another record for #GivingTuesday. Ultimately, more than $300 million was attributed to #GivingTuesday, based on 37 data platform partners of 92nd Street Y’s Giving Tuesday Data Project.
The 2017 total was the fifth consecutive year that #GivingTuesday set a new giving mark:
- $168 million, 2016
- $116 million, 2015
- $47.5 million, 2014
- $27 million, 2013
- $12 million, 2012
#GivingTuesday 2018 is expected to continue the trend.
“Online giving has grown more than 500 percent since #GivingTuesday began in 2012, and we expect that trend to continue this year,” said Steve MacLaughlin, vice president, Data & Analytics, at Blackbaud. The Charleston, S.C.-based fundraising technology firm processed almost $61 million in online donations last year.
Whole Whale, a social impact-focused digital agency in New York City, put a specific number on its prediction. “Based on our analysis that incorporates an adjusted linear regression, trends in Google Search terms around #GivingTuesday and national giving trends, we predict that $363 million will be raised on #GivingTuesday, a 21-percent increase or $63 million over 2017’s record estimate of about $300 million,” according to a recent blog post by Founder and CEO George Weiner.
Matching gifts continue to be a popular marketing ploy on #GivingTuesday. Tech giants Facebook and PayPal announced they would match $7 million for fundraisers on Facebook. The match started at 8 a.m. Eastern, limited to $250,000 per nonprofit and $20,000 per donor. Last year, Facebook matched $2 million in gifts with the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The match limit was reached by 9 a.m. last year.
A year ago, Facebook moved to waive all processing fees for its Facebook Fundraisers. It also announced last month that its fundraising tools eclipsed $1 billion since 2015, including $300 million through Birthday Fundraisers.
Charity Navigator yesterday announced that it will publish new impact information for 14,552 charities, in partnership with GuideStar, Classy, GlobalGiving and ImpactMatters.
