Giving Tuesday - the Tuesday after US Thanksgiving, and how the giving-day movement spread

Giving Tuesday on the Tuesday after US Thanksgiving (Dec 1 in 2026) is an international day of charitable giving founded in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation. Observed in 60+ countries; not a federal holiday.

The one-line summary

International day of charitable giving on the Tuesday after US Thanksgiving. Founded 2012 (92nd Street Y + United Nations Foundation). Observed in 60+ countries. Not a public holiday in any country.

When it falls

Giving Tuesday falls on the Tuesday immediately after US Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday of November). In 2026 US Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, so Giving Tuesday is Tuesday, December 1 - one day after Cyber Monday. The date moves yearly but the post-Thanksgiving-Sunday rule is consistent. Some countries that do not observe US Thanksgiving still use the same calendar date.

Giving Tuesday sits within a five-day US holiday-shopping cluster: Thanksgiving (Thu), Black Friday (Fri), Small Business Saturday (Sat), Cyber Monday (Mon), Giving Tuesday (Tue). See the US Thanksgiving brief for the anchor date.

Origin

Giving Tuesday was founded in 2012 by Henry Timms and Aaron Hurst at the 92nd Street Y, a Jewish community and cultural center in New York, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation. The campaign was designed as a charitable counterweight to the post-Thanksgiving commercial days. The first Giving Tuesday raised an estimated $10.1 million in online donations in the US. By the third year, the campaign had spread to multiple countries.

The GivingTuesday global network (registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in the US since 2015) coordinates individual country campaigns. Each national campaign is operated independently under license from the global network, and the global network licenses the Giving Tuesday name and brand assets.

How it is observed

Charities, NGOs, and community foundations run giving campaigns on the date with matched-gift asks, social media promotions, and digital fundraising drives. Individual donors give online or through workplace giving programs. Corporate donors announce gifts and employee matching programs. Schools run classroom philanthropy projects. Houses of worship coordinate special offerings. The post-Thanksgiving timing means many families schedule annual giving decisions at year-end.

The most common Giving Tuesday activities in the US: online donations, text-to-give campaigns, peer-to-peer fundraising pushes, volunteer sign-up drives, auction-related donations, and recurring-gift sign-ups. Companies including Facebook, PayPal, and major payroll services host promoted giving experiences for the day.

Global spread

Giving Tuesday is now observed in 60+ countries. Major national campaigns include: Giving Tuesday Canada (since 2013), Giving Tuesday UK (since 2014), and Giving Tuesday Australia (since 2015). Each operates with country-specific messaging but uses the Tuesday date globally. The Brazil campaign focuses on flood and disaster relief donation aggregation; the India campaign operates alongside Daan Utsav (India's independent October charity week).

In Mexico, Día de Dar (Giving Day) operates as a national campaign aligned to the Giving Tuesday date. Most EU members now have active campaigns. The global network tracks total online donations; pre-pandemic growth ran at 25-30% year over year before plateauing in 2022-2023.

Research and data

The Giving Tuesday Data Commons at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy releases annual cross-country donation estimates. The 2023 Data Commons estimated $3.1B in US online donations on Giving Tuesday 2023, a 12% year-over-year increase. Online donations now exceed offline donations for the day in the US. Globally, online giving on the day exceeded $3.6B across tracked countries.

Critical research on Giving Tuesday has focused on whether the campaign cannibalises end-of-year giving or generates net new donations. Studies by the Centre for Effective Altruism and by Network for Good suggest the campaign is mostly redistributive within the existing donor pool rather than generating new givers, though social-media recruitment drives do meaningfully expand the new-donor base.

Legal status

Giving Tuesday is an international observance and is not a public holiday in any country. The day is used by some charities to time year-end appeals before the December 31 tax deadline; year-end giving in the US accounts for approximately 30% of all individual charitable giving, with December 31 the largest single giving day.

Where it is contested

Giving Tuesday is broadly uncontested as a campaign format. Three concerns recur in commentary: (1) the campaign may be commercialised as brands attach themselves to charitable messaging, (2) the campaign concentrates donor attention on a single day rather than supporting year-round giving, and (3) the global coordination model raises governance questions about how national affiliates operate under the global brand. None of these concerns has produced a competing giving-day campaign.

The post-Thanksgiving commercial cluster

Giving Tuesday closes the five-day US post-Thanksgiving shopping cluster (Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday). The cluster was named sequentially from 2007 onward as retailers and online platforms tried to drive traffic around Thanksgiving. Giving Tuesday was inserted at the end of the cluster specifically as a charitable counterweight to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the timing has stuck: in 2025, Giving Tuesday was the second-largest US online giving day of the year behind only December 31, narrowly ahead of December 30.

The cluster's commercial origins shape how Giving Tuesday is marketed. Charities and giving-day campaigns routinely contrast their messaging against the retail days immediately preceding, and the brand-contrast framing ("a day to give, not a day to get") is part of the campaign's annual playbook. This deliberate positioning also explains why Giving Tuesday is not framed as a holiday-season opener - the cluster ends with charitable giving rather than a religious or civic observance.

In other countries

See the US Thanksgiving brief for the anchor date that defines the Giving Tuesday calendar. See also the Canadian Thanksgiving brief, which observes a different anchor in October so Canada uses the US-aligned Giving Tuesday date rather than a Canadian holiday.

Giving Tuesday by the numbers

Sources

• GivingTuesday (global): givingtuesday.org
• 92nd Street Y: 92ny.org
• Giving Tuesday Data Commons, Indiana University: givingtuesday.org/research
• United Nations Foundation: unfoundation.org