In this unprecedented year in history, GivingTuesday, the largest global generosity movement, reported an equally unprecedented showing of giving, kindness, and unity by millions of people worldwide. Created in 2011 as a response to commercialization and consumerism in the post-Thanksgiving season, GivingTuesday unleashes the power of our shared humanity to transform our communities and our world. Whether it’s making someone smile, helping a neighbor in need, or giving voice to a cause that matters, every act of generosity counts and everyone has something to give.
Over the past nine years, GivingTuesday has grown into a year-round global movement that inspires millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity. GivingTuesday now has a distributed network of entrepreneurial leaders who have launched more than 240 community campaigns across the U.S. and national movements in more than 70 countries. At the local level, people and organizations participate in GivingTuesday in every single country across the world. Twelve countries participated for the first time on GivingTuesday 2020 as official GivingTuesday national movements: Chile, Ghana, Guam, Ireland, Lebanon, Nigeria, Paraguay, Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Korea, and Turkey.
The GivingTuesday Data Commons states that nearly 34.8 million people participated in GivingTuesday 2020, a 29% increase over 2019. Further, total giving this year increased from $1.97 billion to $2.47 billion in the United States alone, representing a 25% increase compared to GivingTuesday 2019. These totals are in addition to the surge of generosity represented by the #GivingTuesdayNow campaign launched earlier this year, with more than $503 million online donations in the U.S. alone.
GivingTuesday 2020 was a big day for OC Habitats as we spent an entire month galvanizing our community for our 3rd annual fundraising drive. During the week leading up to GivingTuesday, we launched the first ever OCH GreenFast Challenge, asking our community to adopt one environmentally-friendly practice for a single week. We promoted our challenge across social media by asking participants to create a short selfie video describing their environmentally-friendly practice. We were thrilled with the amount of challenge videos shared across social media and gained lots of new followers on OCH social media during the week.
On the day of GivingTuesday, OCH shared #UNselfies across social media to encourage participation and promote our fundraising drive to close out the year. The #UNselfie is a simple yet powerful way to give a voice to an organization or cause that matters by taking a selfie with a piece of signage that states how and why you are giving. We were so grateful to see such a strong showing of #UNselfies voicing support for OC Habitats and other excellent organizations across the world.
Because of our generous supporters, OCH raised $3045 in donations to support our education, restoration, and monitoring programs. As part of a matching grant we received, each of these donations will be doubled to total $6090. We graciously thank all of our supporters and staff who made our GivingTuesday 2020 such a success!
For anyone who missed the chance to participate in our GivingTuesday fundraising drive, donations are still being accepted and matched. You can choose to donate through Facebook or go directly to the donation section of our website. In addition, we always welcome volunteers and hope you will join us in the future for one of our socially-distanced restoration events.
We are so grateful to everyone who has supported OC Habitats throughout the year. We simply could not do this without you and look forward to 2021 as we continue our mission to protect our precious habitats in Orange County through education, outreach, monitoring and restoration.
For more details about the GivingTuesday movement and how to get involved, visit the GivingTuesday website (GivingTuesday.org), Facebook page or follow @GivingTuesday and #GivingTuesday on Instagram and Twitter.
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