It is touted as a "global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world".
A similar concept was floated in 2011 at the non-profit Mary-Arrchie Theater Company in Chicago by then-producing director Carlo Lorenzo Garcia, who urged shoppers via The Huffington Post to consider donating to charity after they had finished their Cyber Monday shopping.
[16] As an organization, GivingTuesday promotes the concept of "generosity not as a benevolence that the haves show to the have-nots but rather an expression of mutuality, solidarity, and reciprocity.
In each country, a team of entrepreneurial leaders work with their own ecosystems of communities, nonprofits, platforms, religious institutions, families, schools, and private sector partners to drive increased giving, connection, and innovation.
[18] At a local and cause level, GivingTuesday operates through a network of leaders working toward a common goal.
In the U.S. alone, more than 240 GivingTuesday communities and coalitions drive generosity among people with a common connection to a geography, cause, culture or identity.
[20] Originally called GivingTuesdayKids, the #GivingTuesdaySpark program focuses on amplifying the voices of young people and spreading the culture of generosity all over the world by connecting leaders from 8 to 22 years old to boost the impact of young people assuming leadership and recognizing their power to make change.
[21] Starling Collective is a learning lab and innovative fellowship for grassroots organizers that are often philanthropically unrecognized and under-supported.
Other partner organizations announced over the coming weeks included Microsoft,[57] Sony, Aldo, Case Foundation, Heifer International, Phoenix House, and Starwood.
[82][83] In 2015, Blackbaud supplied data to show real-time statistics on an online dashboard to highlight the impact of #GivingTuesday.
[85] However, Blackbaud's data analysts suspected that Zuckerberg's announcement did not have much effect on the overall volume of charitable giving for the day.
[11] In 2016, according to USA today, #GivingTuesday broke a record with $168 million in charitable donations worldwide, topping 2015 by 44%.
In the U.K., Charities Aid Foundation announced more than one in ten adults took part in the event while 6.4 million people stated they had heard of the movement.
[54] Reception of GivingTuesday has generally been positive, with a large number of organizations, including Google, Microsoft, Skype, Cisco, UNICEF, the Case Foundation, Save the Children, and others joining in as partners.
[63][73][75] Timothy Ogden, managing director of the Financial Access Initiative at New York University and board member at effective altruism organization GiveWell, wrote articles for the Stanford Social Innovation Review skeptical of GivingTuesday, one in 2012[98] and another in 2013.
[99] Inside Philanthropy attributed GivingTuesday's growing success and global reach to the role that technology companies and founders played in promoting the event, including the $5 million matching grant to GiveDirectly announced by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz's foundation Good Ventures and the $75,000 in matching funds announced by former AOL CEO Steve Case for donations made to charities supported by his organization.
[100] A January 2015 article in Nonprofit Quarterly discussed GivingTuesday in the context of giving days in general.
GivingTuesday was described as a federated, multi-platform campaign, that involved many different nonprofits and many donation processing platforms, all focusing on a single day so that they could coordinate efforts to raise awareness and publicity.
It was contrasted with the Give to the Max Day in Minnesota, that involved many nonprofit participants but used a single donation processor every year to allow for better tracking of the money moved.