Donors gave $116.7 million to charity on Giving Tuesday, signaling a significant boost from last year’s donation total.
The preliminary results released Wednesday afternoon by the 92nd Street Y, the event’s organizer, are based on tallies from 24 online-donation processors, including PayPal, Blackbaud, DonorPerfect, GlobalGiving, Network for Good, Razoo, and more. The Case Foundation supported the data collection and hopes this year to provide a more complete picture of Giving Tuesday philanthropy than in the previous three years.
Last year’s event brought in close to $46 million, organizers said, although that figure reflects data from only five online-gift processors. This year, those five (Blackbaud, DonorPerfect, Global Giving, Network for Good, and Razoo) reported $64.3 million in contributions, a nearly 40 percent increase.
During 2015’s giving sprint, 698,961 online donors gave more than 1.08 million gifts averaging $107.
Blackbaud reported processing $39.6 million in online donations Tuesday, up 52 percent from 2014. GlobalGiving reported a 290 percent increase over last year in new recurring donations that started on Giving Tuesday.
“It’s great to see such positive results from online donations: This is truly a cause for celebration,” Henry Timms, executive director of 92Y, said in a statement. “In addition, beyond these numbers, there are offline donations not measured here — as well as the impact of volunteer efforts; campaigns that encourage acts of kindness or donations of goods (like food and coats); classroom programs that are growing the next generation of philanthropists; and regional campaigns in towns, cities, and states that generate civic pride and bring communities together around giving. All of those outcomes are equally important measures of success.”
More than 1.3 million tweets mentioning the #GivingTuesday hashtag were shared during the day — an increase of 86 percent from 2014. Education, the environment, animals, health care, and international affairs were the leading causes shared on social media.
