NEW YORK (AP) – GivingTuesday raised a record USD3.1 billion in 24 hours for charitable causes in the United States (US) earlier this week, as the event that started as a hashtag in 2012 celebrated its 10th anniversary and its status as a staple of fundraising for nonprofits, the group’s leader said on Wednesday.
Despite the difficult economic year that many households have experienced, with inflation in the costs of basic goods, gas and housing, people were still willing to give, said GivingTuesday Chief Executive Officer Asha Curran.
“That’s really what we saw yesterday,” she told The Associated Press.
“That whatever it is that people are experiencing, they were as generous as they had the capacity to be.”
GivingTuesday estimated that giving increased about 15 per cent from 2021’s USD2.7 billion, outpacing inflation.
Donations were tallied using an array of data sources that includes major community foundations, companies that offer fundraising software, the payment processor PayPal and large grantmakers like Fidelity Charitable and Vanguard Charitable.
Their methodology for compiling the estimate seeks to eliminate duplicate data points, Curran said.
In another measure of the resilience of donations, Fidelity Charitable said on Tuesday that for the first time since 2018, the value of grants from its donor advised funds exceeds the value of investments going into the funds.
The organisation said this year’s totals marked the largest amount donated on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving since the group started tracking it.
The hashtag to promote fundraising on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving started in 2012 as a project of the 92nd Street Y and the organisation GivingTuesday became an independent nonprofit in 2020.
The organisation has also launched a campaign to raise USD26 million over five years to expand their database of giving.
In the tenth year of nonprofits and donors marking the day, Curran said, people continue to show incredible generosity.
“They give in a multitude of ways. It does not always have to do with money. It often has to do with community. It is very collective. It has a lot to do with people feeling like they are a fractal of a larger whole,” Curran said.
“And yesterday was just one more reaffirmation of that.”
