Last year’s Giving Tuesday results and this year’s projections

If you follow our blog, you know we left off last Giving Tuesday with a lot of hope. We saw exciting metrics, that were not only encouraging but in general, successful. 2020 was a quite a year, but what does 2021 look like?

2020 results:

According to GivingTuesday Data Commons, it's estimated that 34.8 million people participated in GivingTuesday 2020, a 29% increase over 2019 🎉

Total giving increased from $1.97 billion to $2.47 billion in the United States alone, representing a 25% increase compared to GivingTuesday 2019👏🏽

2021 projections:

Well, here's where you can choose to be an optimist, a realist, or a little bit of both. That's our summary of the projections. Some are predicting an increase and others are predicting pre-Covid giving habits — resulting in a decrease.

The reason? That's hard to say but one glaring factor is there are no stimulus checks going out right now. Last year that was a HUGE reason why fundraisers saw a jump in giving. Another is a lot of people are playing “catch up.” We don't have to go into details, but Covid was hard for some people and they had to dip into money that they didn't anticipate on doing for a long time.

Lastly, now that things seem to be on the up-and-up, folks who were so generous last year, don't really see the value in their larger gift this year. Psssst, they should have been seeing the value the whole time if you've been following our fundraising marketing tips. If not, though, that's okay. There's still time. Follow up with your donors, not with an ask but with an impact.

Now, the 2 most compelling projections that give some hope:

• Charitable giving is expected to increase 4.1% (The Nonproft Times)
• Charitable giving was up in 2020, and projections for nonprofit giving trends in 2021 and 2022 are even rosier (Bloomerang)

Always remember, if your Giving Tuesday doesn't go as planned, there's always End of Year. December 30 and 31 have historically brought in the most cash, pandemic or not. Engage your constituents, let them know every dollar counts, and encourage them to find a gift that's meaningful to them.

Happy Thanksgiving and HAPPY GIVING TUESDAY (almost)!