First, it was Black Friday. Then came Cyber Monday. Then Small Business Saturday became a thing. Holiday shopping events are a marketing team's holy grail, an opportunity to change consumer behavior writ large that doesn't come around very often.
Enter Giving Tuesday, the most recent of the holiday shopping holidays ー though this one is all about altruism. Started in 2012 by the New York nonprofit 92nd Street Y, in partnership with the UN Foundation, the movement has grown to become a de facto response to the consumerism that surrounds the holiday season, in which companies and non-profits urge people to donate money or time to charity ー at least for a day.
According to predictions from the data firm Whole Whale, #GivingTuesday, as it's known online, is expected to top $500 million for the first time, a 25 percent increase from the estimated $400 million that was donated online last year. Still, that haul represents less than 14 percent of the amount of money that will be spent online on Tuesday, according to Adobe Analytics data.
Save the Children, the 100-year-old charity that works to help disadvantaged kids in 120 countries, is among the nonprofits that looks to Giving Tuesday for a portion of its annual fundraising. CEO Carolyn Miles told Cheddar in an interview that millennials still have limited awareness of the day. Save the Children is trying to leverage its relationships with brands and celebrities to spread the word on its social media accounts (and to broadcast that it is matching all donations, 1:1, on Tuesday).
The charity has partnered with red-hot designers like Gabriela Hearst, who is donating 100 percent of the net proceeds from her handbag sales to Save the Children's efforts in Yemen. Those handbags are typically only available by invite, though Hearst is opening the collection to the public this week to spur donations. There are also partnerships with Dave Matthews Band, Jennifer Garner, and the shoe brand Toms.
Many people who give want their donations to help "closer to home," Miles said, noting that Save the Children also works in impoverished communities in the U.S. as well as "all the toughest places to be a child in the world."
The charity counts on the last few weeks of the year for nearly a third of its donations, she said, which is why the awareness around Giving Tuesday is particularly important. Save the Children has an operational budget of $2.2 billion ー equivalent to the entire budget of the newly created U.S. Space Force over the next five years. Last year, it brought in a half-million dollars, the latest in a number that has been "growing every year," though it is still a fraction of the overall budget. The rest comes from corporations, foundations, individual donors and grants from the UN, she said.
Markets closed the day mixed, and well off their lows of the day following a market meltdown earlier in the session. The Nasdaq staged a comeback late in the day, even amid ongoing worries about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. Doug Flynn, certified financial planner and co-founder of Flynn Zito Capito, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the markets' close and what's driving the major indexes.
Two companies recently announced a new partnership aimed at addressing the growing demand to borrow against crypto - digital assets capital markets firm CrossTower is partnering with commercial bank, BankProv. The companies are launching a crypto lending platform that will allow Bitcoin miners to receive loans to invest in crypto mining equipment. The companies say the program also addresses the difficulty of breaking into crypto mining due to the high cost. CrossTower research analyst Martin Gaspar joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-gen social sports platform Break the Love recently raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Break the Love's platform and iOS app allows users to discover and book group-based tennis activities, to either learn, train, or compete. The new company has already gotten support from a few big names in the world of tennis, including the coach of Naomi Osaka, as well as the United States Tennis Association and the brand Wilson. Break the Love founder and CEO Trisha Goyal joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
As the Omicron variant continues to sweep across the country. The US Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments at the end of this week on whether or not the Biden administration can force private companies to vaccinate or test millions of their employees. In addition, the National Nurses United has spearheaded legal action to protect nurses and health care workers, patients, and the public while on the job. President of the National Nurses Union, Zenei Cortez, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
China's ongoing crackdown of its own entertainment industry has been raising eyebrows for once now. With the ruling Communist Party instructing media companies to boycott immoral and overly entertaining stars. But the country has gone even further. Now experts warn that this could lead to further issues such as gender-based violence. Professor at the Institute of Sociology at National Tsinghua University, Hsiu-Hua Shen, and Associate Professor of Politics at Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame Joshua Eisenman, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Today marks one year since the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. The Country watched as supporters of then-President Trump stormed what was assumed to be the most secure building in the country in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 Election. Several lawmakers, including the Vice President, could be seen ducking down as they feared for their lives. Democratic Michigan Representative Dan Kildee, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Bed Bath & Beyond delivered disappointing fiscal third-quarter results for 2022. Shares initially dove more than 9% in premarket trading on the news but finished the day up nearly 8%. Bed Bath & Beyond has been a meme-stock target for online investors in the past -- so was meme-stock mania a factor in the recent stock movement for the company? Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of the subreddit WallStreetBets, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell for more, as his forum helped spark the meme stock phenomena. He also discussed some decentralized finance services and trends for the retail investor to watch for in 2022.
Digital medical care provider Pear Therapeutics rang the closing bell on the Nasdaq Friday and President and CEO Dr. Corey McCann, joined Cheddar to talk about how the company plans to grow the business of software-based therapeutics and how the first FDA authorized prescription digital therapeutics company will go about treating illnesses like insomnia and addiction. "These really are pieces of software. In many cases, they're apps and in the cases of our addiction products, these are based on something called cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT," he said. "These products change the patient's brain circuitry to help them be abstinent, to help them stay in treatment, and that's exactly what we see in randomized clinical trials and that's what we see in the real world." He also addressed the ongoing mental health crises brought on by the pandemic. **copy updated to remove IPO information as Pear Therapeutics went public in December**
James Tattersall, director of sales and marketing for Lake Nona Wave Hotel, talks about the hotel's initiatives to foster diversity and how these amenities champion inclusivity in the Orlando area.
