Today, Nov. 29, 2016, is Giving Tuesday.
What is Giving Tuesday? Giving Tuesday is the first Tuesday following Thanksgiving. The day is set aside as a time for people to donate to charities. It follows the shopping sprees of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The event has been around for five years now and looks to take people away from consumerism for one day.
The first Giving Tuesday took place in 2012. Now the event gets promotion from the United Nations Foundation. People can do more than just donate money. They can also give items, or their own time, to help areas in need.
Several companies also have deals going during Giving Tuesday. Most of these involve matching donations, or making donations when customers post a selfie with their product. One promotion has customers bringing a canned food to any World of Beer tavern to get a can of beer for free, reports USA Today.
“The way the calendar was developing, someone was going to grab Tuesday,” Henry Timms, the Y’s executive director and creator of Giving Tuesday, told The New York Times. “We wanted to make it about philanthropy, not consumerism.”
There’s also an official website for Giving Tuesday that people can check out. It claims that 700,000 people across 70 countries worked together in 2015 to raise $116 million. Users of the website can also learn about different charity events, as well as learn more about the day set aside for giving there. You can check it out for yourself by following this link.
