The archive · Public & Social · Strategic decision · 2012–2016
GivingTuesday: 92nd Street Y invents a global day of giving — $168M in a day by 2016
In 2012, New York's 92nd Street Y created GivingTuesday, a fixed day after Black Friday for one generous act — $10M in year one, $168M by 2016.
92nd Street Y
What it had to solve
In 2012 the 92nd Street Y in New York saw Black Friday and Cyber Monday own the post-Thanksgiving calendar while giving back had no anchor day. Henry Timms and colleagues built a counterweight: a fixed date, a hashtag, and a call for one generous act from anyone.
How it works
GivingTuesday is a global day of generosity created in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y, a community center in New York, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation. The idea: on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, everyone is asked to do one act of generosity — a donation, volunteer time, or a kind act — with #GivingTuesday carrying it.
The insight was calendar-shaped: Black Friday and Cyber Monday owned the post-Thanksgiving days with shopping, while giving had no fixed moment. The 92nd Street Y pitched the day as a counterweight, and the Associated Press reported the first year generated about $10 million in donations.
Instead of a centrally run campaign, GivingTuesday was designed to be decentralized: any nonprofit, company or individual could run their own appeal under a shared name and hashtag. Henry Timms, then the 92nd Street Y's executive director and co-founder, credited its success to 'the work of ordinary people all over the country'.
By 2016 the day had become a record-shattering event: organizations in the US and abroad reported $168 million in donations over 24 hours — about 1.6 million donations from people in nearly 100 countries, up from roughly $117 million in 2015. GivingTuesday is now a year-round movement active in more than 100 countries.
Why it lands
- A fixed date gives giving the same calendar momentum that shopping days have.
- A shared name and hashtag let thousands of organizations multiply the message without a central budget.
- Anyone can define their own 'generous act', so participation has no income or skill barrier.
- Anchor it after the shopping days when attention is already on money and consumption.
What it did
About $10 million was raised in the first year. By 2016 the day generated $168 million in donations reported by organizations in the US and abroad — roughly 1.6 million donations from people in nearly 100 countries — and givingtuesday.org now lists more than 100 country movements.
What you can take
A movement can be created with a name, a fixed date and a hashtag instead of a media budget — give the idea away, set minimal rules, and let every organization make it their own.
Since then
GivingTuesday grew from a one-day US initiative into a global movement: by 2016 it drew 1.6 million donations from nearly 100 countries in a single 24-hour period, and the organization now reports country movements in more than 100 places. The 92nd Street Y's innovation became a template for other invented 'days', and GivingTuesday itself expanded beyond one Tuesday into a year-round push for radical generosity, with local leaders organizing communities around causes rather than a single calendar date.
Sources
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