With Thanksgiving fast approaching, the usual flurry of Black Friday and Cyber Monday initiatives are beginning to saturate the advertising landscape. Even when it’s an abstinence from participating in Black Friday, like REI’s brilliant #OptOutside campaign, it’s hard to scan the media and not see something pertaining to the sales. The Tuesday following the Thanksgiving weekend is #Giving Tuesday, and it’s the perfect opportunity to stand out from the crowd and build brand engagement as company leaders worldwide are building out #GivingTuesday campaigns for their communities through their year-end giving activities. For many, #GivingTuesday is the pinnacle of holiday season corporate giving.
#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration. Now in its fourth year, the event has become a central focus of many annual holiday campaigns, an opportunity to engage employees in a worldwide philanthropy phenomenon and in the process engage employees in their companies as well.
According to Asha Curran, Director of 92Y Center’s for Innovation & Social Impact, “#GivingTuesday grew out of looking at our core beliefs in community and philanthropy and imagining how social media might catapult them well beyond our walls. The result has been a global movement around giving that exceeded all of our expectations.”
#GivingTuesday By the Numbers
- More than 30,000 partners in 68 countries, including small businesses, nonprofits, government agencies and major corporations.
- An estimated 470% increase in online donations on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving since its inception in 2012.
- 32.7 million Twitter impressions and 750,000+ hashtag mentions.
- 15.4 billion global impressions in print and social media.
For companies interested in standing out and holding onto consumer attention right now, #GivingTuesday is a gift. By running crowdfunding campaigns to sponsor a cause your team cares about, you can engage employees, increase customer loyalty, and reward donors for giving by providing perks that could convert them into customers, increasing your bottom line and brand engagement.
What’s Been Done
The key to making the most of #GivingTuesday is by applying creativity and generosity, like matching gifts or dollar matching. Here are some past corporate initiatives for #GivingTuesday:
EBAY – eBay launched a #GivingTuesday sweepstakes to connect consumers to their favorite nonprofits from #GivingTuesday through December 31. In addition, eBay awarded three grants totaling $50,000 to the nonprofit organizations who drove the most favorites on eBay during the sweepstakes.
BANK OF AMERICA – Bank of America organized a campaign to support (RED) in the fight to end AIDS by doubling each donation made on #GivingTuesday to the US Fund for the Global Fund, up to $2,000,000. This was part of the company’s $6,000,000 pledge to fund the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.
BITCOIN – The Bitcoin Foundation and the BitGive Foundation encouraged their community members to give microdonations to organizations that accept Bitcoin in 2014. Bitcoin saw record-breaking on-blockchain transactions on #GivingTuesday, an all-time high for Bitcoin
If you want to maximize the success of #GivingTuesday for your company, planning is essential. While it may be a one-day event, they hype surrounding it is great enough that you should be giving it a great deal of focus. How are you participating in #GivingTuesday? Tell us on Twitter!
Sponsifi is doing its part to promote #GivingTuesday by making giving back as easy as possible for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Talk to us about how your company can benefit from running a Sponsifi campaign for #GivingTuesday!