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What if GivingTuesday campaigns could raise more money — and tap generosity to fix polarization?
Those are the twin goals of a new effort by GivingTuesday, the nonprofit behind the annual post-Thanksgiving giving spree that last year raised $3.6 billion, a record for the event. In June, the organization will start an “accelerator” to help create community-wide giving and volunteering campaigns through which it believes nonprofits can raise more money, bring people together, and earn trust.
The accelerator initially will target states in the South, and particularly rural areas that lack the big organizations or philanthropic machinery to organize such campaigns. Ultimately GivingTuesday wants to ensure that community-wide giving events touch every county.
“There is generosity in every county of this nation,” CEO Asha Curran says. “There’s no doubt about that, but there is not adequate infrastructure” to create the campaigns to connect people and build the events.
With the accelerator, GivingTuesday aims to build upon the success of about 300 community campaigns that have come together organically in its 13-year history. Such fundraising drives remain digitally focused — a GivingTuesday trademark — but depart from the traditional script, in which organizations run individual campaigns.
Instead, businesses, houses of worship, nonprofits, and government entities mount a joint effort. Curran describes them as “philanthropic county fairs” — not because they have cotton candy and Ferris wheels, but because they aim to celebrate a community, its people, and its generosity.
These celebrations raise 90 percent more money and attract 85 percent more donors than what communities see when individual groups go it alone, according to GivingTuesday data. With federal cuts hitting nonprofits hard, local groups need the additional cash and support, Curran says.
GivingTuesday also believes the efforts can create a strong year-round culture of giving that will help reduce polarization and reverse a decline in trust in nonprofits. “We don’t just need money” in the sector, says Chris Worman, the GivingTuesday lead for the project. “We need trust.”
A $12 Million Success
Participants will receive six months of training in a cohort as well as one-on-one coaching. “It’s about building civic infrastructure — strengthening networks, identifying leaders, decreasing isolation, and creating civic muscle memory,” Curran says.
Giving Tuesday is building the accelerator around a peer-learning network that it previously ran informally for community campaigns that sought its help. The Amarillo Area Foundation, which manages the 25-county Panhandle Gives event in rural West Texas, has been part of the network since 2016. It raised $11.6 million last year — up from just $830,000 in 2017.
Maura Teynor, chief advancement officer with the Richland County Community Foundation in Ohio, joined the network in 2022. She says she’s picked up ideas for marketing and new approaches to the foundation’s 10-year-old Richland Gives campaign. Last year, when it raised almost $805,000 — up from $357,000 in 2020 — she recruited social-media influencers to promote the event for the first time, including the popular mayor of Mansfield, the county’s biggest city.
“I had never thought to use influencers before I heard about them in one of our Zoom meetings,” Teynor says.
In Michigan’s northernmost region, the Copper Shores Community Health Foundation’s community drive raised more than $1 million last year — the vast bulk coming from residents of the remote and economically troubled area. Organizations are expanding services, and they’ve become visible in the region as community leaders, says Michael Babcock, director of marketing and donor relations for the foundation.
“The campaign has brought people together in a way that’s really surprised a lot of us,” Babcock says. “I don’t think many of the nonprofits realized that they have the ability to raise so much money locally.”
‘Philanthropy Deserts’
The accelerator’s direct and formal support represents a different approach for an organization known for the “new power” ideas of founder Henry Timms, who believes that movements blossom when organizations give up control and allow followers to put their own stamp on things. “Our strategy so far has really been to let people come to us” with ideas for community campaigns, Curran says. “This will involve a little bit more targeted outreach and recruitment. We’ve never really targeted geographically before.”
GivingTuesday will launch the accelerator with a cohort of 24 leaders from community foundations in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — all states with high poverty, relatively small concentrations of wealth, and rural areas with little philanthropic infrastructure.
“We’re looking at some of the philanthropy deserts in the country and how these sorts of campaigns could help foment more community engagement in places where there’s been less support to do so,” Worman says.
The first cohort is not yet selected, but GivingTuesday is already looking at expansion to Appalachia, Kansas, Indiana, Texas, and other places, Curran says. Its research has found that residents of rural areas in Middle America have the lowest sense of belonging.
GivingTuesday described the accelerator as a multimillion-dollar effort but did not offer a total or details about funding.
‘Civic Intent’
The impetus for the accelerator comes from GivingTuesday research. Last year, its GivingPulse survey of charitable behaviors began to measure what it calls “civic intent” — in short, a person’s inclination to do good in the community. The organization’s new civic intent index reflects an individual’s actions, such as giving and helping others, as well as their attitudes toward their community and motivations for doing good.
The research suggests a strong correlation between giving back to a community and fostering the trust in other people that’s key to reducing polarization. GivingTuesday will measure attitudes toward the nonprofit sector before and after each community campaign that’s part of the accelerator.
Civic engagement often is measured simply by voting, Curran notes, “but I would argue that the size and strength of giving culture is as important or more important in making sure that our communities are healthy and thriving and resilient.”
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