Sick of Black Friday, Cyber Monday hype? Try ‘Giving Tuesday’

At this rate, soon every day of the holiday season will have a name.

Thanksgiving Thursday begot Black Friday, which then begot Cyber Monday, and which nonprofits are hoping this year will now beget Giving Tuesday — a new branding effort after record-shattering holiday sales this weekend.

(NPR quoted a Twitter user who suggested rounding out the cycle with “Weeping Wednesday ... the day after you get the bill.” All of this, by the way, is happening during No-Shave November, which is presumably followed by Do-Shave December.)

The holiday season is not just a big moneymaker for retail stores but for the competitive world of charity fundraising, which leans heavily on advertising and messaging to persuade holiday spenders to open their wallets a little wider for the needy.

Giving Tuesday — or, as organizers hope it will become virtually known as, #GivingTuesday — is aimed at getting Americans to “GIVE more, GIVE better, GIVE smarter this holiday season,” as the organization put it in a promotional video. The project was born of a collaboration between New York’s 92nd Street Y, a culture and arts center, and the United Nations Foundation, with more than 2,000 partners signing on in support, including the social-media gurus over at Mashable.

“Our goal is simple: #GivingTuesday will not collect money; we want to encourage Americans to take collaborative action to improve their local communities and give back in better, smarter ways to the charities and causes they support,” writes Mashable Chief Operating Officer Sharon Feder.

The 92nd Street Y plans to hold fundraising and donor drives up until Giving Tuesday, at which time it will announce the results of its efforts. Others planned to use the day to launch their year-end fundraising efforts.

“The noise is so loud around retail, retail, retail. How is it possible for us to break through that noise?” Aaron Sherinian, vice president for communications and public relations at the United Nations Foundation, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “If the [campaign’s] founding partners have done anything, it’s to offer an opening day for people to talk more loudly about what they’re doing.”

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