Awareness of Giving Tuesday, the day of charitable giving that jump-starts the end-of-year giving season, is on the rise, according to a new survey. That could spell good news for charities trying to bring new supporters into the fold.
The online fundraising company Classy surveyed roughly 1,000 U.S. residents ages 18 and older about their expected giving behavior. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they had heard of Giving Tuesday — a 10 percent increase from the 27 percent who said they’d heard of Giving Tuesday in 2018. Fifty-three percent of respondents who had heard of Giving Tuesday also said they had donated to a charity on that day.
Gen Z respondents were more aware of Giving Tuesday than other generations, with 50 percent saying they’d heard of it. Even so, the study found that this age group was the least likely to participate in Giving Tuesday: Just 18 percent said they would donate on December 3.
By comparison, 39 percent of millennials, 38 percent of Gen Xers, and 33 percent of baby boomers were aware of Giving Tuesday. At 25 percent, Gen X respondents were the most likely to say they would make a donation on that day.
“Giving Tuesday’s a great opener to become more philanthropic for a lot of people,” says Scot Chisholm, CEO of Classy. Gen Xers may be more likely to have an established relationship with a charity than younger donors, who may be tapped into social media but not philanthropy, he says. But increased awareness of Giving Tuesday could inspire donors who are new to philanthropy to become annual supporters.
Taxes and Altruism
Much has been made about how donors would change their giving in light of the tax legislation that doubled the standard deduction. Just 32 percent of survey respondents said they understood how the tax code had changed, and 43 percent said their giving behavior would not be affected by the size of their 2019 tax return. Just how tax-code changes will affect long-term giving remains to be seen.
Even as a plurality of respondents said their giving would be unchanged, they reported a dimmer outlook on nationwide giving year to year. While 49 percent of respondents in 2018 said they believed Americans were more generous that year, in 2019 that share fell to 36 percent.
Chisholm said respondents’ unfavorable view of the charitable climate could be a reaction to media coverage that warned about a dearth in donations under the new tax code. “That’s why this area is so muddled — because it comes down [to] what motivates one’s generosity, a tax break or altruism,” he wrote in an email.
Chisholm says he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the upcoming day of giving.
The survey responses, he says, are “really good signals” amid worries about a possible recession and concerns that the donations to candidates in the upcoming presidential election will detract from gifts that otherwise would go to charity. “Their philanthropic intent is still very, very strong.”
Among the other findings:
- 44 percent of millennials and 42 percent of Gen Z respondents said they have less trust in charities that don’t make online and mobile giving easy, but just 15 percent of baby boomers said the same.
- Disaster relief, the environment and animals, and health remained the most popular causes year to year. What’s more, 90 percent of respondents said they would repeat their donations to the causes they supported on Giving Tuesday last year.
- A greater share of male respondents (63 percent) said they gave on Giving Tuesday last year than women (41 percent). These answers conflict with the trends in giving that Classy has measured among donors who contribute using its technology. In 2018, for example, Classy found that 64 percent of Giving Tuesday donations were made by women. Another study, from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, found that women contributed 63 percent of Giving Tuesday contributions in 2017.
- 44 percent of respondents who said they will make a gift on Giving Tuesday this year will donate $100 or more, an increase from the 36 percent of respondents who planned to give that much last year.
Emily Haynes has covered fundraising on social media, Giving USA’s annual report on giving trends, and how the ALS Association found success with the ice-bucket challenge. Email Emily or follow her on Twitter.