Donors contributed $3.1 billion to U.S. nonprofits on GivingTuesday, roughly the same amount as last year, which marked a record high for the giving day. This year’s donations were up by less than a percent, just $20 million.
“Donation trends are very volatile right now, and there’s a lot that’s going on that’s very concerning, including a decrease in donor participation,” Asha Curran, CEO of GivingTuesday, told the Chronicle before the total had been tallied.
Lower participation could be one reason the day failed to bring in significantly more donations than it did in 2022. Just 34 million people made contributions on GivingTuesday, down 10 percent from last year.
“We are concerned to see a decline in participation in line with giving trends from the past year,” Curran said in the news release announcing the figures. “GivingTuesday’s mission is to inspire generosity among as many people as possible, not just raise as many dollars as possible.”
Many nonprofits look at GivingTuesday as the kickoff to their giving season, and this year was no different. Charities employed a variety of strategies to try to hit their goals. Many social-service groups focused on increased demand for services in their pitches, while other nonprofits tried to better engage small-dollar donors and make up for lagging support in areas like corporate giving.
Greater Demand for Services
Social-service groups in particular hoped the giving day would help them raise more money to meet increased demand for services.
The Salvation Army projects that by year’s end, requests for assistance will have increased at least 13 percent over 2022. Already this year, the charity has served 24 million people in need. The increase is largely because pandemic assistance dried up and evictions returned. The expected increase in clients is significant as their ranks swelled in 2022. Last year, the charity saw demand spike 10 percent to 40 percent across its 7,000 centers nationwide.
“The financial gifts generously donated on GivingTuesday are especially critical this year as millions have faced increased challenges,” Dale Bannon, national director of community relations and development for the Salvation Army, wrote in an email to the Chronicle.
On GivingTuesday, the charity raised $2.4 million online. It also made a special appeal for monthly donations of $25. While the vast majority of the 17,000 donors who gave on GivingTuesday chose to make one-time gifts, early data from the charity show that “more than 150 people” signed up to give monthly or made a contribution through an established recurring gift.
Appeals for recurring contributions were also popular among the schools and colleges that raise money on the GiveCampus platform. Six percent of all GivingTuesday donations on the platform were recurring, according to the company, which added that donors contributed a total of $25.1 million. The total represents 83,000 donations made by 78,000 individuals — which indicates that some donors gave more than one gift to the same school and/or contributed to multiple schools, Linder says.
Of those gifts, 43 percent were made using a digital wallet, such as Apple Pay or Venmo. More donors have been choosing to give through digital wallets in recent years, says Kestrel Linder, chief executive of GiveCampus, but this year saw “massive growth.”
Another trend on the platform: soliciting gifts to benefit a program of the donor’s choice, rather than the general fund. “That’s a reflection of schools coming around to the reality that this is what donors want,” Linder says. “If they don’t offer those opportunities for more directed or more targeted giving, many donors just aren’t going to give at all.”
Of the just over 1,200 schools and universities on the platform, 689 appealed for GivingTuesday gifts, while others used the day to kick off the end-of-year fundraising push. It’s a strategy that’s become more popular in recent years — and that Linder recommends — because it lends the giving day a longer tail.
“Don’t place all the emphasis on one 24-hour period, but do tap into the excitement, the energy, the spirit of GivingTuesday as the start of the giving season,” he says.
The buzz around GivingTuesday can accelerate year-end giving. WAMU, a public-radio station in Washington, D.C., promised listeners it would cancel the December on-air pledge drive if they contributed $1 million by the end of GivingTuesday.
This was the first time the nonprofit set a $1 million fundraising goal for GivingTuesday.
WAMU began accepting contributions toward the campaign in mid-November, but most of the dollars came in on GivingTuesday, says Leslie VanSant, the station’s chief advancement officer. “We had a number of listener testimonials that played during the day, which were clever and fun, and I think helped people connect with our brand in new ways,” she wrote in an email to the Chronicle.
As promised, the nonprofit will skip its December on-air pledge drive this year, but VanSant says it will continue to appeal for year-end gifts “in other ways.”
Engaging Small-Dollar Donors
GivingTuesday donors typically give small sums, but many low-dollar contributors have been giving less this year as inflation chews through their expendable income.
Rotary International, however, reports a slight reversal in that trend. The charity just concluded the first four months of its fiscal year and noticed “a nice, small uptick” in donations from donors who give small sums.
On GivingTuesday, Rotary made specific appeals to that group of donors, asking those who had contributed less than $100 this year to give again. It also hoped to re-engage past donors on GivingTuesday. The charity launched a campaign to win new gifts from people who had contributed less than $500 sometime in the last few years but had not since given.
“Heading into this year-end, we’re more positive than we were last year,” says Eric Schmelling, the nonprofit’s chief philanthropy officer. Rotary was unable to share the total raised on GivingTuesday in time for the publication of this article.
In recognition of the giving day’s increasing global reach, the charity launched its first GivingTuesday campaigns in the Eastern Caribbean, Japan, Poland, and Turkey.
Alzheimer’s Community Care participated in GivingTuesday for the first time this year as part of the group’s strategy to reach out to more individual donors, says Chris Harmon, vice president of development.
“A lot of our money is coming in from grants and foundations — those type of things,” he says. “It’s my job to change that around so that we start building a bigger donor base and start reaching out to the communities … around us.”
To that end, the group has been joining local chambers of commerce, going to their events, and speaking at local Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club events. “We’re showing our services, allowing our speakers, our experts, to come in and talk,” Harmon says. “We’re spreading the word, and it’s paying off.”
In the lead-up to GivingTuesday, they sent out “Testimonial Tuesday” messages, stories from people who have been helped by Alzheimer’s Community Cares. The group did not have GivingTuesday totals at press time. Even though the giving day is over, the organization doesn’t plan to stop the testimonials because it thinks they’re a great way to demonstrate impact and connect with donors.
Corporate Giving
GivingTuesday is a “key pillar” for the national office of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s year-end fundraising, according to Chad Hartman, national vice president of corporate partnerships and engagement at the clubs. The nonprofit was unable to share the total money it raised on GivingTuesday by the time of publication.
This year, the clubs partnered with companies including the clothing store Forever 21 and the sandwich-shop chain Jimmy Johns to raise money for its youth programs. When shoppers at Forever 21 — many of whom are teens and young adults — make in-store purchases, they’ll be given the option to donate to Boys & Girls Clubs. Another clothing brand, Starter, collaborated with Jimmy Johns to release a limited-edition jacket, sales of which will benefit the clubs.
These kinds of corporate partnerships help the charity reach younger donors, Hartman says. “Sometimes they don’t always give online, but they feel like, ‘Hey, I made a contribution through my purchase,’” he says. “We’re trying to look at how do we reach new audiences through different angles of getting to them.”
According to “Giving USA,” corporate giving fell by 4 percent, after inflation, in 2022 — and there were signs that corporate giving continued to fall this year. Boys & Girls Clubs of America didn’t meet its corporate fundraising goal in 2023, but the shortfall was less than Hartman feared.
“We were like many other nonprofits where corporate partnership revenue was down compared to 2020 and 2021,” Hartman wrote in an email to the Chronicle. Those first two years of the pandemic saw extraordinary levels of giving, including by corporations.
Like other nonprofits, the United Way Bay Area has seen inflation and the economy take a toll on giving. Two companies that were supporters in the past chose not to participate in a United Way Giving campaign this year. With the high cost of living in the area and an unsteady tech sector, individual giving is down, too.
“That’s hitting nonprofits pretty hard,” says Kevin Zwick, CEO of United Way Bay Area. “People are like, ‘I just can’t give. I just got laid off’ or ‘I was laid off a year ago, and I haven’t found another job,’ or ‘I’m afraid I’m going to be in the next round of layoffs.’”
While some companies are pulling back, others are stepping up, Zwick says. On GivingTuesday, his organization secured a $3 million grant from BMO Bank. Employees of BMO also volunteered that day.
The United Way Bay Area raised $20,000 in its GivingTuesday campaign, not counting mailed-in donations and matches. Zwick hopes the day reminds donors there is need and propels them to give in the future.
“The importance [of GivingTuesday] is probably greater than the one day of total funding we hope to raise,” Zwick says. “It’s more about bringing attention and re-engaging and getting to talk about the importance of nonprofit work.”
He’s already seen signs of that after doing a radio interview the morning of GivingTuesday. Two donors who heard the interview contacted Zwick, saying they wanted to meet with him.
It’s not uncommon for nonprofits to benefit from GivingTuesday in the days leading up to and after the event, says Curran, the GivingTuesday CEO.
“It’s not just about one day,” she says. “GivingTuesday has a very, very pronounced and measurable halo effect. You’re essentially talking about a giving day that is really a giving week. There’s a lot more than just 24 hours to be leveraged.”
