Welcome to Spend Donate Invest! I go by GG, that’s short for Genet Gimja and I’m your host as we explore the topic of how we can align our values, our beliefs, our politics, and what we do with our money on a daily basis.
Giving Tuesday is coming up, it’s always the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. So here in the U.S. we have Thursday is Thanksgiving Friday is Black Friday, Monday is CyberMonday and then Tuesday is Giving Tuesday. So we’ve got a couple of days of hardcore capitalism bookended by two days that are about thinking about others.
If you want to hear a short episode sharing a little background on the history of Giving Tuesday look for episode 59. Giving Tuesday continues to be a popular time of year to give, let’s look at the latest numbers.
According to the GivingTuesday Data Commons, “giving in the United States alone totaled $3.1 billion representing a 15% increase compared to GivingTuesday 2021, and a 25% increase since 2020.”
They also report that 37 million adults in the U.S. participated in GivingTuesday which is a 6% increase from 2021.
And by the way, these numbers are for the 24 hours of Giving Tuesday, so that’s $3.1 billion that was donated in the US on Giving Tuesday in 2022.
Usually when people talk about Giving Tuesday, they’re talking about donating money, but there’s more to Giving Tuesday than giving money. So let’s talk about your plan for Giving Tuesday this year.
I was reading a piece by Katie Teague in CNet of all places, and she talks about a broader approach, and you may have heard this terminology before, people in the nonprofit sector often talk about how we can give our time, talent or treasure. So let’s talk about each of these.
Time. So giving your time is the classic American Thanksgiving type of volunteering. You know, working a shift at the soup kitchen. Volunteering at the animal shelter. Signing up to replant trees or drive meals and visit with our elderly community members. We did a lot of this type of volunteering when I was a kid. Both of my parents come from a strong giving culture, I’ve mentioned my Eritrean roots on this show before. So for us it looked like making sandwiches once a month and giving them away to people facing food insecurity. It meant buying double of our groceries sometimes and giving them away if my mother noticed a family sleeping in their car in the parking lot. It meant playing the piano for the senior home up the street from where we lived. Now that last one, me playing the piano, I feel like I should apologize to those kind senior citizens for sitting through that. LOL. But anyway you get the idea. Giving your Time is about that type of volunteering. It doesn’t require any special skills or expertise, it’s more about your time and your presence.
Talent. Now let’s talk about giving your talents. This is where we talk about your actual skills and expertise. For example, if you are an accountant, this is one of the examples that the writer gives in the Cnet piece, if you are an accountant, you might offer to file a nonprofit’s taxes for free. She also lists examples like helping a nonprofit with their social media if you have that background. Giving pro bono medical services if you are a doctor. So this is what it can mean to donate your talents on this Giving Tuesday. You can sign up with Catchafire if you want to donate your talents, they match nonprofits with the specialized help that they need. They’ve matched over a million hours of donated time to the nonprofits that needed it. I’ll leave a link for Catchafire in the show notes.
Finally, let’s talk about Treasure. This is donating your money or other valuable items on Giving Tuesday. It’s what most of us think about when we think about our giving. Maybe you have donated a car or your still usable cell phones to a local shelter. Maybe you have donated stocks or bonds or cold hard cash. All of that is what we talk about when we talk about donating your treasure. You might be donating that money to causes here at home in the US. Maybe you’re thinking about the crises in the Congo, Sudan, and Palestine, there are opportunities to donate our treasure to help there as well. In fact, I had thought about sharing specific links in today’s episode, but I’m going to save that for the next monthlyish newsletter, if you’re not already signed up just go to this show’s website spenddonateinvest.world and you’ll get those links. Ok so that’s what we mean when we talk about giving our Treasure on Giving Tuesday.
So what’s your plan for Giving Tuesday this year? Some combination of all three? I don’t have a ton of time this particular month, but I do have talents that I have been slowly developing over decades and I think that I can give a concentrated but helpful few hours this month. Financially this year I will be donating to some of the places that I mention in the newsletter. So for me it’s going to definitely be 1 out of the 3 this year, but hopefully up to 2.
I’d love to hear what your plan is for Giving Tuesday this year, drop me a message anytime. Or maybe there’s another topic on your mind, you can drop me a line anytime at spend donate invest at gmail dot com.
I think that’s all for today- oh wait! I can’t believe I almost wrapped up the show without answering your burning question on how you can help the show? LOL
If you want to support the show, I can think of 3 ways for you to consider:
- Share an episode with someone you know. Podcasts are still very much word of mouth.
- Leave a review for the show on your podcast app.
- Let me know what other podcasts I should check out. Specifically I’m looking for other shows with similar general topics and vibes. Doesn’t have to be about money per se, but maybe there’s a show that you enjoy that is generally on this topic of doing what we can to make the world a slightly better place. I’d love to add your favorites to my queue as we enter the holiday season!
Ok I think that’s it for real today, take care everyone and let’s talk again soon :-)
https://www.cnet.com/culture/giving-tuesday-2023-when-it-is-what-it-means-and-how-you-can-help/
https://www.catchafire.org/