What you can do for Giving Tuesday
The turkey has been carved, the door busters have been bought and many of the online聽聽have expired. But if you thought Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday were the end of pre-holiday shopping festivities, you鈥檇 be wrong.
Today is Giving Tuesday, and people everywhere are turning their spending into donating. On this day of charity and hospitality, we鈥檙e giving you a few ideas to help you do your part.
What is Giving Tuesday?
Giving Tuesday is the聽brainchild of New York City-based cultural center 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation. The聽聽describes the post-Cyber Monday event this way: 鈥淲e have a day for giving thanks. We have two for getting deals. Now, we have #GivingTuesday, a global day dedicated to giving back.鈥�
Launched in 2012, Giving Tuesday falls on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
The effort to shift the focus of the holiday season from receiving gifts to giving them to others has been gaining steam ever since. Givers are encouraged to use the #GivingTuesday hashtag to share their efforts and spread the word about the day on their social media accounts.
How can you participate?
If you want to join your friends, neighbors, fellow Americans and worldwide participants in this day of giving, there are plenty of ways to do so.
1. Donate to charity.聽Perhaps the simplest method to give back is to make a donation to a charity of your choice. Instead of buying that one extra Christmas present, devote those funds to a wider cause instead. You can stay local by giving to your community鈥檚 homeless shelter or food bank, or go national by contributing to well-known organizations, such as the聽聽or the聽.
2. Shop at participating retailers.聽Some retailers are pledging to donate to the Giving Tuesday cause, and by shopping at these outlets, you can help aid this effort. Website development site聽, for instance, will donate $100,000 on Giving Tuesday to education nonprofit Code.org. Squarespace customers can use coupon code GIVINGTUESDAY on Dec. 1 to take 20% off their subscription to the site. Similarly,聽聽will donate 1% of customers鈥� total spending made with an Old Navy (or other Gap Inc. brand) credit card on Dec. 1 (up to $75,000).
3. Combine spending and giving.聽It鈥檚 possible to buy gifts and give to others at the same time. Coupon website聽, for example, is helping shoppers feel good about their purchases on聽Dec. 1.聽, 鈥淰ia Goodshop, shoppers will find more than 500,000 great coupon codes and deals and a portion of what they spend at thousands of stores including Amazon, Best Buy, Apple, Macy鈥檚 and more will be donated right back to the cause of their choice.鈥�
4. Give a聽non-monetary gift.聽If you don鈥檛 have much room in your budget, you can give in other ways. Donate your time by volunteering at a nearby animal shelter or soup kitchen. Sign up to become an organ donor. Give blood. The possibilities for good deeds are truly endless.
5. Keep your giving in the family.聽Giving doesn鈥檛 have to be limited to charitable organizations. This Giving Tuesday, give some extra care and attention to your friends, family members and neighbors. Spend time reading to a younger relative. Volunteer to finish off a project around the house. Buy your grandma or grandpa that one item they鈥檝e been yearning for.
Courtney Jespersen is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email:courtney@nerdwallet.com. Twitter:聽.
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