The year-end giving season got off to a big start this week as nonprofits increased the total donation haul on Giving Tuesday by more than 50 percent over last year’s event. The estimated $274 million raised online Tuesday far exceeded the $177 million total in 2016.
Charities attributed the gains in part to savvy use of matching gifts, their growing efforts to make it easy for donors to use their smartphones and tablets to give, and their increasingly sophisticated social-media appeals.
The donations — more than $2 million of them made online Tuesday — come as nonprofits are forecasting a boom year in giving, even though many charities fear the tax bills making their way through Congress could put a crimp in fundraising in years to come.
Improved Fundraising
This year’s donation total was compiled by 92nd Street Y, with 37 groups that process online donations contributing data. The 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation launched the first Giving Tuesday six years ago as a response to the consumer-focused Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
It’s tricky to compare the figures from year to year; only 28 gift processors reported data for the final tally last year.
That said, Asha Curran, director of the Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact at the 92nd Street Y, noted that the total isn’t increasing only because new donation processors are sharing figures; nonprofits are performing better, too.
“It’d be equally stunning just to follow one platform in its trajectory on Giving Tuesday as it is to follow the sum of them,” she said.
Indeed, Blackbaud, a company that provides fundraising software to charities, processed $60.9 million in donations Tuesday, up 28 percent from Giving Tuesday in 2016. And Classy, a fundraising-technology company, reported that contributions grew 58 percent over last year, to $10.2 million.
Organizations See Jumps
Individual groups also reported major spikes in year-over-year giving Tuesday.
The Humane Society of the United States, for instance, exceeded its goal of raising $500,000, with total donation revenue up 28 percent from the 2016 drive. The organization’s campaign aimed to raise funds for its rescue team, which saves animals after natural disasters and from abusive conditions like dogfighting rings.
“Giving Tuesday continues to gather momentum, and donors are now looking forward and expecting it,” said Geoff Handy, senior vice president for marketing and communications for the Humane Society.
Giving on the Go
Mobile donations on Giving Tuesday continued to grow.
About 26 percent of the day’s online contributions processed through Blackbaud came through smartphones or tablets. That’s up from 22 percent last year, 17 percent in 2015, and 13 percent in 2014.
“We continue to see how important mobile is,” said Steve MacLaughlin, vice president for data and analytics at Blackbaud. Ms. Curran said Blackbaud’s mobile numbers were not isolated: “From every platform, we’ve been hearing that.”
Matching Gifts
Many organizations’ Giving Tuesday campaigns used matching gifts from individuals, foundations, or corporations as a centerpiece to encourage small donations.
The Humane Society, for instance, received a $200,000 dollar matching gift from Halo pet food — which the organization promoted Tuesday morning. In the afternoon, it touted another $100,000 matching gift from an anonymous donor.
“It was really nice to have back-to-back matches,” said Mr. Handy.
He added: “Matches work well in just about any channel. And they work really well when there’s a timeline attached to it like Giving Tuesday.”
Tuesday morning, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation matched $2 million in donations made on Facebook to various nonprofits.
Facebook reported that it processed $45 million in total donations on Tuesday, several times more than it did for the event in 2016, when $6.8 million was contributed through the site.
Contests Build Urgency
The Georgia Center for Nonprofits sparked giving to 3,000 nonprofits featured online for its “GAgives” campaign.
During “Work for Good Power Hours,” nonprofits that attracted the most donors won $1,000. Work for Good, a website that posts nonprofit job openings, sponsored the competition; other corporate donors, like Arby’s, sponsored similar contests throughout the day.
The contests give nonprofits “social-media fodder to activate their donors,” said Karen Beavor, president of the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, which helped raise nearly $4 million online on Giving Tuesday.
Social-Media Savvy
Many organizations used new social-media tools to push their Giving Tuesday drives.
The University of Cincinnati, for instance, posted Facebook Live interviews with people connected to campus causes, including first-generation scholarships and its food pantry for students.
A student volunteer also commandeered the university’s Snapchat account to encourage people to give, said Kim Burdett, director of integrated marketing for the university’s alumni association.
“I think that’s really cool, because it’s an authentic student who is gearing toward that specific [student] audience and doing it in her voice,” Ms. Burdett said.
The university reported that it raised $116,000 from roughly 2,000 donors through its drive as of Thursday morning after extending the deadline for giving to its campaign.
Volunteer Efforts
Not all campaigns centered on fundraising.
The United Way of Central Maryland, for instance, teamed up with 12 local young-adult groups, like the Comcast Young Professionals Network, to ask people to pledge time or money to a cause they care passionately about.
About 160 people made pledges Tuesday, said Danielle Hogan, associate vice president for marketing and communications.
The Maryland United Way called its campaign "#WhatisyourpasHON” — a reference to Baltimore residents’ habit of calling each other “hon.”
“This really is an effort to rally and show that United Way isn’t just about fundraising,” Ms. Hogan said. “It’s about getting in the community and raising our hands to make a difference.” The organization did, however, send some emails to donors on Tuesday and raised about $11,000, slightly more than last year, even without a big social-media push.
Celebrity Support
Celebrities got involved, too. In a video posted to Twitter, actress Melissa McCarthy encouraged people to give to the Malala Fund, an organization co-founded by prominent Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai that supports the expansion of education for girls in areas where the most women miss out on secondary education. “Think of a problem, and I guarantee you that an educated girl can help solve it,” Ms. McCarthy said.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote and composed the hit play Hamilton, tweeted promotions Tuesday for the Natural Resources Defense Council and organizations assisting people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. In another tweet, he said: “Happy #GivingTuesday. If you don’t have a pound to give, you STILL have your energy, your service, your heart. Be generous.”
Correction: A previous version had an incorrect figure for the amount the University of Cincinnati raised.
