GivingTuesday Is Coming: Are You Ready, Canada?

GivingTuesday Canada is a national day for giving and volunteering co-founded in Canada by CanadaHelps and the GIV3 Foundation.

Most people know about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but do you know about GivingTuesday? Get ready, because Canada’s second annual GivingTuesday happens on December 2, 2014. Here at CanadaHelps we are committed to ensuring the movement continues to grow and reaches as many Canadians as possible.

What is GivingTuesday?

GivingTuesday marks the opening day of the giving season. The Tuesday after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the movement encourages individuals and organizations to join together and find innovative ways to give back to the charities, causes they support, and their communities throughout the holiday season.

CanadaHelps, along with GIV3, brought the GivingTuesday movement to Canada last year, after watching first hand the power of the movement created in the US in 2012 by the 92^nd Street Y, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation and a group of notable founding partners ranging from charities to corporations. We were thrilled and proud to take part in this incredible movement, and the success experienced in the first year was inspiring and surpassed our wildest expectations.

GivingTuesday Canada:  Key 2013 Results

What happens when over 1300 Canadian charities and businesses come together in a collective, grass roots effort to launch engaging campaigns that promote giving back on the same day? The data we collected at CanadaHelps showed that Canadians responded very generously!

• The number of charitable donations made using CanadaHelps increased by 169% over the same Tuesday last year and the total dollar value of donations increased by 91%.
• Charities who joined and actively promoted GivingTuesday enjoyed the greatest lift in donations. These charities saw an overall increase of 225% in number of donations received through CanadaHelps and 153% in the dollar value of donations.
• Over 77% of donations were made by first time donors to CanadaHelps, another indication of the power of GivingTuesday to engage new donors into charitable giving.
• Many Canadians chose to spread the word about GivingTuesday and share the giving spirit by sending Charity Gift Cards. These donations increased by 650% on GivingTuesday. With a Charity Gift Card, the sender chooses the value and the recipient gets to choose the charity the gift supports.

The results of the day also demonstrated that the GivingTuesday movement struck a chord with Canadians:

• More than 1,300 partners from across Canada, including charities, volunteer organizations, corporations and foundations, joined the GivingTuesday movement.
• Hundreds of local and national media outlets, small and large, as well as politicians, celebrities and charitable sector advocates participated by offering extensive coverage in support of the day.
• Social media was full of GivingTuesday stories. At the peak of activity on December 3^rd 2013, the #GivingTuesdayCa hashtag was trending in 2nd place. There were more than 12,000 shares of the hashtag on Twitter alone, with many organizations also engaging on Facebook and other platforms. As a result, millions of Canadians were exposed to GivingTuesday messages with tens of thousands directly engaging in the conversation. GivingTuesday spawned hashtags like #unselfie (images of generosity), and phrases like “conspicuous compassion.” People were excited about giving back!

All of this information leads to conclusion that GivingTuesday was a HUGE success in Canada last year.  We were thrilled to see Canadians respond positively and take part in this global movement. More than 10,000 partners in 43 countries contributed to GivingTuesday in 2013.

GivingTuesday 2014: How YOU can get involved!

Based on the tremendous success of GivingTuesday 2013, we are thrilled and eager to continue this movement in Canada to ensure that GivingTuesday 2014 gains even more momentum with Canadians, and has an even bigger impact. GivingTuesday is for ALL Canadians, and everyone can get involved. Over the next few weeks, check back here every Tuesday for ideas and examples of how you can join in!

To learn more about GivingTuesday visit www.givingtuesday.ca