Nonprofits Raise Nearly $2 Billion Online and Off on GivingTuesday

World Vision

As nonprofits around the world marked GivingTuesday, Washington, D.C.’s historic Sixth & I synagogue faced an unexpected interruption to the fundraising plan it had mapped out to stretch over several weeks.

Ahead of Thanksgiving, it had launched a campaign called #GiveSix, encouraging donors to give $36, $60, $106 or $360.

Targeted email appeals urged supporters to finance the institution’s cultural and spiritual programs and emphasized a two-to-one donor match (thanks to the support of a group of a dozen individual donors). A team of #GiveSix ambassadors, including staff members, solicited gifts from friends and relatives. Fundraisers made calls to donors. Colorful videos and social posts promoted giving back on the synagogue’s social-media feeds.

The weekend before GivingTuesday, the synagogue was tagged with anti-Semitic graffiti. International media noted the rise in hate crimes against Jews and others.

“We can and will respond to this hateful act with open doors, in resilience and spirit, living Jewish lives of joy, optimism, and pride,” the rabbis wrote in emails to the synagogue community.

Supporters on social media called for others to rally around the organization in opposition to the hateful vandalism. And by Wednesday morning, donors had given nearly $48,000 — well above the organization’s $35,000 goal and the more than the $36,689 it raised last year. “Over the past few days, we have been moved by the outpouring of support, heartfelt messages, and expressions of pride for the work that we do,” communications manager Michelle Eider wrote in an email.

Now in its eighth year, GivingTuesday has become a global celebration of generosity and community building. With the unofficial kickoff to the year-end fundraising season on the first Tuesday following Thanksgiving falling later this year, many charities started sending appeals a week or two ahead of time to start engaging with their supporters.

Charities raised an estimated $511 million online on GivingTuesday, up from $380 million on that day last year. This year, the GivingTuesday Data Collaborative, a group of more than 60 partners, also estimated offline giving using a new statistical model, bringing this year’s total estimate to $1.97 billion.

Many groups raised more this year than they did on the same day last year.

And it’s clear that more and more people know about the giving day. “Every year, the story is: It’s bigger, it’s bigger, it’s bigger,” says Kestrel Linder, chief executive of GiveCampus, a fundraising platform for colleges, two-year institutions, and private elementary and secondary schools. Those that raised money using GiveCampus’s software on GivingTuesday both last year and this year raised 23.9 percent more from 10.3 percent more donors in 2019.

Like last year, GiveCampus saw more people visiting GivingTuesday fundraising pages on mobile phones and tablets than on desktops — 53.3 percent and 46.7 percent more, respectively.

University of Michigan’s Giving BlueDay campaign broke last year’s $3.5 million record. Donors gave more than $4.2 million to the university this year, with 26 percent more donors pitching in than the year before.

But Linder says other colleges are increasingly holding giving days on other days of the year. While they may not run major fundraising drives on GivingTuesday, these institutions may use the day to thank past donors, according to Linder. “We encourage them to at least send an email or at least do some social media around GivingTuesday just so that their constituents don’t forget that they’re also a nonprofit and they also rely on private philanthropy and private donations,” Linder says.

HSUS

‘Talking to Donors Where They Are’

At the Humane Society of the United States, fundraisers got in touch with donors in many ways, including using a texting application called Hustle. A group of 30 staff members volunteered to respond to those who texted back and provided them with a link to a donation page if they wanted to give.

“It’s actually talking to donors where they are, rather than us using the old models of trying to converse with people when they don’t really want to be bothered,” says John Vranas, chief development and marketing officer. “You can have a one-on-one back-and-forth conversation, and that makes it a little bit better for us because you’re engaging at a very personal level.”

The organization raised 48 percent more yesterday than it did on GivingTuesday last year. Vranas declined to share a dollar amount but said a group of major donors pledged to match up to $250,000 in other gifts. Like other organizations, the Humane Society typically raises about 30 percent of its annual donations in the last month of the year.

A Crowded Field

GivingTuesday is not just for fundraising. But as charities sent out a barrage of email, social-media, and text-message appeals yesterday, it was clear that for those looking to raise money, it’s getting harder to cut through the noise as the global-giving day continues to grow.

“GivingTuesday is becoming more crowded in the same way that the demand for people’s attention is becoming more and more cluttered,” says Lauren Fisher, director of public relations at World Vision. “You have the media cycle at the moment, you have this constant pull on their attention. I think GivingTuesday is just another example of that.”

World Vision held a two-day pop-up “Give-Back Gift Shop” in New York City’s Bryant Park to support the people it serves in the United States and abroad. Shoppers could buy handmade gifts or build care packages filled with products to help people facing poverty, disaster, homelessness, and abuse. Online retailer Thirty-One Gifts joined the World Vision effort, pledging to match up to $1 million in products to help communities around the world with items to support new moms, deliver medical supplies, and keep girls in school.

Freezing rain in the morning turned to snow as shoppers took photos with live goats, alpacas, and a pair of donkeys under twinkling lights.

Patrons were also able to enroll in Chosen, the charity’s new program that lets children pick their donor sponsors. That World Vision launched that effort in September was no accident. “You don’t want to be just introducing yourself to the public at this cluttered moment of GivingTuesday,” Fisher says. “You want to start earlier.”

Beyond Fundraising

Other charities say they’re putting minimal resources into GivingTuesday fundraising campaigns. They don’t want to add to the onslaught of appeals donors see that day so they are using the moment to thank their existing supporters.

This is the second year Achieva, a Pittsburgh-based disability-services organization, has sat out the giving day, instead sending thank-you videos and emails to donors and volunteers. The charity made the change after fundraisers noticed it was receiving fewer GivingTuesday gifts. GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that provides cash to poor people, also skipped making appeals this year, instead asking those who had previously donated to spread the word about its mission.

“We’re loving the nonprofits that get creative with GT — fundraising for other orgs, forming mission-aligned collectives, using the day just to say thanks,” GivingTuesday co-founder and CEO Asha Curran wrote on Twitter. “It’s not a fundraising day. It’s a generosity movement. Interpret it adventurously.”

Matching Gifts and More

Many nonprofits that raised money on Giving Tuesday promoted matching gifts from foundations, corporations, and individuals, who pledged donations to spur others to chip in by doubling or tripling their contributions.

NewsMatch, a fundraising campaign, uses foundation dollars to match up to $1,000 in donations to 198 nonprofit newsrooms. While NewsMatch is not yet able to share fundraising totals, project director Jason Alcorn wrote on Twitter that the group raised more on GivingTuesday than ever before on a single day. The fundraising challenge began on November 1, which the group dubbed #GivingNewsDay.

As it did last year, Facebook again pledged to match the first $7 million raised for U.S.-based charities on its platform yesterday. More than 1.1 million people started a Facebook fundraising event or donated to one, and more than 97,000 organizations benefited. The social-media platform processed $120 million in gifts yesterday and $20 million in the week leading up to the giving day. Those funds will be distributed in January to charities through Network for Good.

GivingTuesday’s footprint is both hyper local and global, with more than 200 community campaigns across the United States and national campaigns in more than 60 countries.

Illinois held #ILGive yesterday, raising nearly $1.5 million for nonprofits throughout the state. And Hispanics in Philanthropy supported three giving efforts in its crowdfunding campaign: #LatinxGive, #GuatemalaGives, and #VenezuelansMovingFwd.

For-profit companies also used the day to give back. Massachusetts commercial real-estate company Cummings Properties makes $1,000 available to each of its employees to donate to the local charity of their choice. This is the eighth year the company has run the program, and while it was not started in conjunction with GivingTuesday, Cummings Properties encourages employees to award the gift on that day.

Not a Barometer

While this year’s results are positive, Tuesday’s fundraising results are not necessarily a barometer for the remainder of the year.

Many charities worry that overall giving will continue a decline charted last year, thanks in part to the 2017 changes in tax law that doubled the standard deduction, resulting in far fewer people claiming the charitable deduction.

New Eyes for the Needy, a nonprofit that provides glasses for people in the United States and abroad, saw a 10 percent decline in its number of individual donors this fiscal year, which executive director Jean Gajano attributes to the tax-policy changes. In addition, the group’s donors who used to donate an average of $1,000, $500, or $250 have also cut their gifts by as much as 25 to 50 percent.

On GivingTuesday, the charity asked supporters to “Give what you can, or $23,” the cost of one pair of eyeglasses for an adult or child in the United States. The organization works to reach lapsed donors via multiple email blasts on GivingTuesday. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal, a spokesman for the charity, promoted the campaign on Instagram. By Wednesday afternoon, the organization had raised $5,400, 90 percent of it from new donors.

But fundraisers at many large organizations remain positive. Vranas, the Humane Society fundraiser, is optimistic about the weeks to come but says some things like the stock market are out of his fundraisers’ hands. “Like everybody else, you always have that disclaimer: As the economy goes is how your major donors go,” he says. “Right now, we are looking really good at closing out the year.”

The caption on the Humane Society photo has been corrected to say it was a message created using the Broadcast SMS texting app, not Hustle.