GivingTuesday Celebration Shows Canadians Are Awesome!

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Giving Tuesday Results

Move over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Canadians are taking a break from the shopping frenzy. December 2nd was GivingTuesday, a day for Canada and the whole world to celebrate giving back and supporting the causes that matter to them. Over 3,200 businesses, charities and organizations celebrated the second annual GivingTuesday in Canada – that’s more than double the number in 2013 – signaling a growing shift towards helping others.

The global GivingTuesday movement, encouraging people to give back in any way they can, was initiated in Canada by CanadaHelps and the GIV3 Foundation.

So did GivingTuesday have an impact?

According to new data from CanadaHelps, the second annual GivingTuesday increased charitable donations in Canada by 75% on top of last GivingTuesday’s lift of 169%. Like last year, charities that actively promoted GivingTuesday saw the greatest lift in donations, with an average overall increase of 93% in number of donations received through CanadaHelps. And, many Canadians committed to the ongoing work of a charity, with the number of new monthly donations set-up using CanadaHelps increasing 84%.

Charitable donations are just one way that people got involved; volunteering and other forms of giving are an important part of the annual event with individuals families, and work colleagues getting behind numerous initiatives such as socks and clothing drives, helping out local food banks, signing up to donate blood or organs, acts of kindness, and much more.

Civic movements power citizen engagement

This year Canada saw several cities embark on organized civic movements, including Halifax, Guelph, Sarnia-Lambton, Regina, Calgary and Vancouver. Numerous mayors, from Halifax’s Mayor Mike Savage on the East coast to Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson on the West, proclaimed December 2nd, 2014 as “GivingTuesday”. These civic movements created a platform for a deeper level of engagement between charities, businesses and local residents. One such group, GuelphGives, rallied with the mantra ONE CITY – ONE DAY – ONE MILLION. Organizers celebrated with various events around the city, all in pursuit of a $1 million dollar giving goal. GuelphGives leaders announced on December 3, 2014 that total donations had reached over $1.2 million!

Guelph Gives GivingTuesday

Online and social media phenomenon

Endorsements from President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Governor General David Johnston, celebrity twitter posts and millions of individual social-media exchanges helped power the GivingTuesday momentum in Canada. Social media was brimming with GivingTuesday stories, with #GivingTuesday trending almost all day GivingTuesdayCa was tweeted 34,000 times and generated 47 Million impressions on Dec 2nd alone. Hundreds of local and national media outlets, small and large, as well as politicians, celebrities and charitable sector advocates participated by lending their voices in support of GivingTuesday.

Businesses engaged

Businesses embraced GivingTuesday with unprecedented matching gifts and many other creative and innovative GivingTuesday campaigns. This year saw participation from large corporations like Interac, PayPal, CIBC, Deloitte, Tim Hortons, Morneau Shepell, McDonalds and Sobeys, as well as small businesses like South Street Burger Co., North York Chrysler, Paws For Pictures and more.

Global action

Globally, more than 26,000 charities, businesses and community organizations celebrated GivingTuesday this year, with activities in 68 countries. Check out this compilation of some amazing and inspiring GivingTuesday moments.

CanadaHelps is proud to be a co-founder of this movement in Canada, and of the amazing generosity demonstrated by Canadians. It’s never too early to start planning for next year: check out our tips for getting involved»

To learn more about GivingTuesday Canada, you can also visit www.givingtuesday.ca 

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