Today Giving Tuesday launches its sixth annual global push to raise cash and attention for charities of all missions.
As hundreds of appeals go out today, the big question is whether charities will raise more than they did last year, when they attracted an estimated $177 million online.
The international aid group Food for the Poor is among the nonprofits raring to go today.
“We did very well the last couple of years, and I think every year it gains enthusiasm. The staff and the fundraisers get very excited about it,” says Angel Aloma, executive director.
This year, the charity plans to focus on housing in its Giving Tuesday campaign. “There are fewer gifts than with a lower ask, but it usually collects more money, because housing appeals to so many people as a right,” he says. “We get larger gifts from it.”
Bypassing the Frenzy
While Food for the Poor is a booster of Giving Tuesday, not all nonprofits are. Rather than join the cacophony of appeals, they are instead starting their own giving days at other times of the year or simply choosing to preserve their fundraising push during the rest of the year-end fundraising season.
Throughout the day, The Chronicle will monitor social media and highlight how charities are getting their message out — and how donors are urging others to give. Check us out on Twitter at @philanthropy and you just might see your charity’s Giving Tuesday campaign featured.
In the meantime, we’ll be keeping our eyes on this year’s trends:
The giving climate. While conditions are right for a big giving year, continued uncertainty over federal tax policy may make a difference. Both the sums people are giving over all and the share of donors who give again and again have been sliding for charities nationwide, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, a research collaboration between the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute.
In 2017’s third quarter, the project’s data says, year-to-date giving was down 4 percent from the same period in 2016, while the number of donors who supported a charity two years in a row stood at 45 percent, the lowest point in four years. Giving Tuesday’s results will offer a glimpse of what charities might expect from year-end fundraising over all.
Matches. Businesses, foundations, and individual donors continue to help boost totals by matching individuals’ gifts. Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have announced that they will match up to $2 million in contributions made through Facebook for U.S. charities. Beginning at 8 a.m. Eastern time, the match will pay a maximum of $1,000 per fundraising page individuals set up to raise money for their favorite causes and $50,000 per charity. Facebook processed nearly $6.8 million in gifts last year on Giving Tuesday.
Videos. With social-media algorithms favoring video, look for more charities to rely on moving images to sell their causes. Skidmore College, for example, is running a daylong live-stream production to whip up support.
The “Trump bump.” Last year, liberal-leaning organizations saw huge spikes in donations on Giving Tuesday, which landed three weeks after Donald Trump’s unexpected victory for the White House. Will progressive groups see similar support this year? Or has that energy started to fade?
