Giving Tuesday-A Global Day of Giving
In 2012 a non-profit organization in New York City called 92nd Street Y* joined forces with the United Nations Foundation to create a day of giving. The humble campaign began with a grand idea: there is more to the holidays than consumerism and commercialization.
Their idea to set aside a day to celebrate the generosity of giving on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving quickly caught on. Thought leaders in social media, philanthropy and grassroots created a group of founding partners that included impressive corporate partners and non-profits.
Giving Tuesday, or #GivingTuesday to attract hashtag activists, was created as a moniker for the Tuesday following Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Giving Tuesday is a clever reminder to people that the giving season should include giving back.
The first Giving Tuesday was covered extensively by the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, ABC News, Deseret News, and the White House official blog, causing the scheme to gain an enormous amount of popularity in a short period of time. A year later, in 2013, even more organizations joined in, including eBay (which gives a percentage of all its sales proceeds from a week in December to Giving Tuesday) and fashion designer Kevin Cole, who both designed and promoted awareness ID bracelets, giving 100% of the proceeds to Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday has been praised by many, including the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper that covers the nonprofit world, as an antidote to consumer culture and a way for people to give back.
Giving Tuesday is organized and celebrated each year with the simple aim of encouraging individuals, families, schools, businesses, and other organizations to give to the less fortunate. In 2012 over $10 million was raised for charities around the world. Last year this number was $26 million.
This year Pioneers will be participating in Giving Tuesday with the aim of raising money to support the work we do in our communities. The Pioneers have a long legacy of volunteerism, dating back to 1911 with 734 members, including Alexander Graham Bell. Today the Pioneers are over 500,000 strong and are the largest group of industry-specific employees and retirees dedicated to community service.
Our projects are as diverse as the communities we serve. We focus our efforts on five initiatives to make a difference in the unique needs of our hometowns.
Our educational programs emphasize literacy, personal development, technological skills and mentoring.
We care for senior citizens and people with disabilities by building wheelchair ramps and educating seniors on modern technology, to name a few.
In times of crisis, the Pioneers are there to help. From stocking food banks during natural disasters to providing gifts for children in need during the holidays, no need is too big or too small.
Caring for our environment is important to Pioneers. You will see us cleaning up parks and beaches, building trails and ramps and championing recycle projects.
We support our military be providing care packages for those serving overseas and helping the families here at home stay connected.
Donations to Pioneers can be made at: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/defaulturl-17072
*92nd Street Y is a world-class cultural and community center where people all over the world connect through culture, arts, entertainment and conversation. For 140 years, they have harnessed the power of arts and ideas to enrich, enlighten and change lives, and the power of community to repair the world. As a proudly Jewish organization, 92Y enthusiastically welcomes and reaches out to people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds while embracing Jewish values like learning and self-improvement, the importance of family, the joy of life, and giving back to our wonderfully diverse and growing community, both locally and around the world.
