Since its inception in 2012, Giving Tuesday has grown from a grassroots initiative to an entrenched feature of the annual giving cycle. The goal of Giving Tuesday is to “take back” Thanksgiving from the major commercial events that threaten to eclipse the holiday's theme of thankfulness with cold, hard consumerism. In contrast to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday seeks to replace frenzied holiday shopping with expressions of gratitude in the form of charitable donations and volunteer activities.
Clearly, Giving Tuesday (or #GivingTuesday) struck a chord. Perhaps it taps into our deep, collective desire to make the world a better place. Or perhaps it serves to quickly offset the guilt that naturally follows a long weekend of binge-eating and binge-shopping. Whatever the reasons, Giving Tuesday has grown steadily year over year. That’s true both in terms of its national profile and the money it has helped raise. In 2018 alone, Giving Tuesday resulted in $400 million in online donations in the U.S (compared with $28 million in 2013).
Today, it could be argued that Giving Tuesday is to social impact organizations what Black Friday and Cyber Monday are to profit-driven companies. That is, a predictable, recurring scaffold on which to build major campaigns that are responsible for driving a large percentage of annual proceeds.
But is Giving Tuesday really an altogether good thing for social impact organizations? What are the downsides of this otherwise heartwarming event? And how should thoughtful social impact organizations approach Giving Tuesday moving forward?