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.
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After a tough start amid the pandemic, lifestyle brand Magnolia Network, a collaboration between Chip and Joanna Gaines and Discovery, is pressing forward. Allison Page, the network's president, joined Cheddar to discuss the challenges and rewards of putting together the latest cable television content offerings from the Gaines team. "Really, behind the scenes, this is their vision, and we saw bits of it in Magnolia Journal, their fantastic magazine," Page said. "And just getting to bring that to life in a broader cable landscape has been such a joy and such a great opportunity." The accomplished television executive who moved over from HGTV also had encouraging words for women in the workplace as Women's History Month continues.
"Surviving Sex Trafficking" is a new documentary examining the dark world of human trafficking and aiming to lift the voices of survivors. Sadhvi Siddhali Shree, a Jain monk and filmmaker, and actor/activist Alyssa Milano, executive producer, joined Cheddar News to the new documentary releasing later this week. "We can't turn away, we need to have these uncomfortable conversations to change the static, this status quo," Milano said about the film. Shree, a sexual abuse survivor, also noted that the filmmaking process of telling these stories helped her heal. "When you carry a lot of pain, when you have the PTSD, when you carry that kind of trauma, you're always trying to find ways to heal yourself," she said.
Will Larkins, president and co-founder of Winter Park High School's Queer Student Union and one of the organizers of its
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Nadia Brown, actor and host of 'The Green Room with Nadia Brown,' and Jenny Makholm, executive producer of the show and co-founder of Be An #ArtsHero/Arts Workers United, join Cheddar News to talk about their new Ovation TV series.
