A look at the origins of GivingTuesday

The countdown to the world’s most significant day of generosity is upon us as GivingTuesday falls on Tuesday, November 30th this year. If you’re not familiar with the origins of GivingTuesday, here’s a breakdown. It is, at its core, a global generosity movement unleashing the power of radical generosity. Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Since then, it has grown into a year-round global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity. 1

On GivingTuesday, nonprofits receive a tremendous amount of attention which translates into record fundraising events. When we review 2018 – 2020, the day resulted in tremendous results and increases. In 2018, $400 million was raised in total for Giving Tuesday, a new record. Then, in 2019, 511 million was raised which when compared to the previous year, was a 28% increase. In the year 2020, an astonishing $2.47 billion was donated to U.S nonprofit organizations by a reported 34.8 million people on Giving Tuesday.2 The National Today data science team surveyed 1,000 people about their Giving Tuesday habits and found that 25% of Americans plan on participating in Giving Tuesday.

Your donations can make all the difference for nonprofits, especially smaller ones. For instance, when you donate to Pebble Tossers, it is used to support our mission of empowering and equipping youth to serve through leadership. The first step in that initiative is to create meaningful, safe, service projects for members of all ages. In doing so, Pebble Tossers provides all the materials and supplies needed for projects, including snacks and refreshments for our volunteers and those we serve. Additionally, Pebble Tossers provides trained staff resources, and timely and relevant information and logistics for each project so volunteers know what to expect before they arrive (preparing for the service project, parking instructions, clothing attire, and more).

Beyond the day-of-volunteer experience, Pebble Tossers offers members a personalized dashboard to track volunteer hours and favorite service projects and provides printed transcripts of volunteer service. Pebble Tossers also offers youth leadership and character development workshops, as well as “Toolbox Resources” for youth and families, including “Table Talk” and “How-To” sheets for families to discuss and process together issues such as serving those experiencing homelessness or working with the elderly.

Pebble Tossers empowers our youth through service thus leaving them with a sense of community awareness and learned responsibility that they can make the world a better place. We also provide hands-on opportunities for learning that build confidence, teach collaborative efforts, and develop the initiative. Giving youth opportunities to lead at an early age provides safe opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them.

To donate on this GivingTuesday, please click here.

1 Giving Tuesday https://www.givingtuesday.org/
2 National Today https://nationaltoday.com/giving-tuesday/