I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, a successful black Friday, are enjoyed your cyber Monday and are now ready for the most important day of all… #GivingTuesday. What is #GivingTuesday, you ask? It is a global generosity movement that began in 2012 to celebrate and support giving and the power of people to transform their communities and the world. Giving Tuesday began as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good and something to counter Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Over the past seven years, this idea has transformed into a global movement that has inspired hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate and celebrate generosity.

Since I’m heading to the birthplace of Giving Tuesday today to kick off the holiday season, I only thought it was fitting to share a little about this special day. For those of us in the nonprofit space (all 1.7 million nonprofits in the US) Giving Tuesday is one of the biggest days of the year. It was started by New York’s 92nd Street Y, which has over 140 years of fundraising experience. They reached out to the United Nations Foundation with this innovative idea and joined as partners. Soon after, big corporations and non-profits signed on to help spread the word and the rest is history, as they say.

Giving Tuesday has become a global movement that last year united over 100 countries around the world by sharing our human capacity to care for and empower one another. Today, more than ever, we need to be doing a little more of that. What I think is even more fantastic is the volunteering efforts that go along with the day. If you are not sure where to start then simply go the link here and you will find a list of local volunteer opportunities in your neighborhood.

Last year alone over 700,000 people volunteered for clothing drives, tutoring projects and a wide range of activities aimed at helping local non-profits across the country. Almost 40,000 charities, corporate and civic partners registered to officially be a part of Giving Tuesday this year. Sheila Herring from the Case Foundation was quoted as saying,”The biggest thing for us is that Giving Tuesday directly challenges Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What if, as a nation, we focused that kind of attention on giving and we wanted that to be our identity.”

What if? Our world would be a better place. And it already is because what started as an idea seven years ago, has raised over one billion dollars in the United States alone online for charities and causes, around the world. When we come together in unity, we can make beautiful things happen.

Charity Matters.