After making those shopping lists and fulfilling them on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, it's time to plan to give to charity. As Time Money put it, Giving Tuesday is the antidote to a Black Friday or Cyber Monday hangover.
"The one-day charitable giving promotion - hashtag #GivingTuesday on social media - was launched in 2012 to galvanize people around a less gluttonous pursuit," the news source said.
"Since most charities generate the vast majority of their contributions at the end of the year, Giving Tuesday opened the door to a more organized effort on a specific day that any organization could step into," it addd. "And it worked."
Although still 3 years old, Giving Tuesday has encouraged thousands of organizations in different countries to participate in the new tradition. It has involved about 30,000 organizations ranging from non-profits to corporations spanning 68 countries. Last year, its hashtag earned 750,000 mentions on Twitter.
According to NPR, last year's Giving Tuesday raised up to $46 million in donations, which is a 63% increase from the 2013 pledges.
"The success of Giving Tuesday has been with the partners around the country and around the world," Giving Tuesday founder Henry Timms explained to Time Money. "We've seen a lot of local strategies starting to develop. The secret sauce of Giving Tuesday has been community."
"The reason it has grown is because the Giving Tuesday community has found a way to do it quite publicly," he added.
However, some specialists at the Better Business Bureau warned that scammers may also try to cash in on Tuesday's activities, "maybe even going as far as creating fake websites to try and fool would-be givers," KTVB.com warned.
"If you just do a Google search for a charity and pick the first result, there's a chance that a scammer will have just set up a fake site under that charity's name," Better Business Bureau President and CEO Dale Dixon clarified. "So, you want to look at the address bar. Be sure you're on the real website."
Meanwhile, The Guardian put together a list of other ways to give on December 1, some of which does not involve money. One is volunteering to grow food for other people, while another is going on outdoor runs to maintain local green spaces. You can check out the rest of the list here.
How will you participate in Giving Tuesday? Tell us in the comments below now!
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