Giving Tuesday donations up 25% from last year

NEW YORK (AP) — Donations on Giving Tuesday, an 8-year-old campaign to get people to give money to charities, rose 25% from last year, organizers said.

Nearly $2.5 billion was donated in the U.S. on Tuesday, according to estimates by GivingTuesday, the nonprofit behind the campaign. That’s up from last year’s total of about $2 billion.

Giving Tuesday was launched in 2012 as a way to get people to donate on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, when people are already opening their wallets for the kickoff of the holiday shopping season.

The 92nd Street Y, a community center in New York, is credited with coming up with the idea. A separate organization, called GivingTuesday, was later created to organize and promote it.

Charities and businesses use the hashtag #GivingTuesday on social media to spread awareness and seek donations. No Kid Hungry, for example, said it raised $2.3 million on Giving Tuesday, up 341% from last year’s haul of $521,000.

In May, GivingTuesday held another an online campaign to get people to donate to charities amid the pandemic, bringing in about more than $500 million in online donations.