In just its third year, yesterday’s national day of giving — known as #GivingTuesday — inspired gifts to more than 15,000 nonprofits with nearly $40 million raised online in the US.
According to initial estimates tallied by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, donations via five major donation processing platforms surged. Including offline donations, the tally reached $45.7 million as of noon Wednesday, December 3.
Estimates from the 24-hour period that began at 12:00 a.m. on Tuesday December 2nd were tracked by the major donation processing platforms for nonprofits: Blackbaud, DonorPerfect, GlobalGiving, Network for Good and Razoo.
“Just as Cyber Monday and Black Friday are key indicators of consumer sentiment and economic health, this data can serve as an indicator of the health of our giving economy,” said Jean Case, co-founder and CEO of the Case Foundation, which supports the Indiana School. “We’re excited about what we saw yesterday, as millions of people came together to demonstrate the true spirit of the holidays and proving that, collectively, small gifts can have big results.”
The 2014 initial results indicate that the amount raised during this year’s #GivingTuesday increased by at least 63 percent over the same period in 2013, with the average donation increasing by 6 percent.
“In just three short years, the number of people making contributions and the number and types of nonprofits of all sizes receiving those gifts has increased dramatically.” said Una Osili, director of research for the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “As tremendous as that amount is, though, #GivingTuesday is not just about the money that is raised, it is also about people and nonprofits engaging with each other to improve the world.”
#GivingTuesday is largely driven by social media and online giving campaigns, as demonstratied by the more than 698,000 tweets mentioning the hashtag, an increase of 159% percent over 2013.
It is estimated that 63 countries participated globally in the charitable giving this week.
Graphic courtesy of the Case Foundation