How to navigate today’s Giving Tuesday

After the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping holidays, Giving Tuesday asks us to give back and do good, all while engaging in what the official GivingTuesday website calls “radical generosity” in our everyday lives.

With all the money being exchanged during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, which falls on the day after Cyber Monday (Nov. 30 this year), acts as charitable counter-programming to the largest shopping holidays, a way for shoppers to give back to the community after spending so much on themselves and their families. And this year, it’s easier than ever to take part.

Founded in 2012 as a collaboration between New York City’s 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation, Giving Tuesday began as a way to encourage a “day that encourages people to do good,” according to the website, but has since become its own nonprofit — and a nationwide movement. In 2020, 34.8 million people participated in Giving Tuesday, raising $2.47 billion in the U.S. for charitable causes, according to the nonprofit.

“All of that money [being spent after Thanksgiving] is coming from the same wallet,” Asha Curran, CEO of GivingTuesday (as the organization’s officially stylized), said in 2018 to the American Bar Association. “We wanted to appropriate a little bit of that money for the nonprofit world.”

GivingTuesday organizers said that Giving Tuesday can be celebrated “every Tuesday and everyday,” and that, beyond donating money, you can participate simply by being kind to your neighbor, volunteering, giving thanks to essential workers or taking part in other acts of generosity. You can also spread the spirit of doing good by sharing posts with #GivingTuesday tagged.

Here at Select, we’ve spent the weekend combing through deals and sales to get you through the biggest shopping days of the year. But as the days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday come to a close, we’ve also found companies that are conducting their own Giving Tuesday fundraisers by donating a portion of their sales on Giving Tuesday’s annual celebration day. Last year, brands that participated included DoorDash, Gap and Impossible Foods. This year, Disney, Guitar Center and Michael Kors are among the companies giving back.

These companies will donate goods or a portion of their sales to charities when you purchase their products.

• Guitar Center: Customers can round their purchases up to the nearest dollar to support the Guitar Center Music Foundation, dedicated to music education. On Giving Tuesday, the company will match 100 percent of both in-store and online rounded-up purchases on donations.
• TravelPro: The luggage company is donating 5 percent of all sales on Giving Tuesday to Tiffany Haddish’s She Ready Foundation to support kids in foster care.
• Disney: Through Dec. 31, for every Disney book purchased, Disney will donate one book to First Book, a nonprofit that provides books and other educational resources to kids in need.
• Michael Kors: The popular designer company is donating 100 percent of profits from their Watch Hunger Stop LOVE Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt to the United Nations World Food Program.
• Hairstory: The hair product company is offering 10 percent off and will donate 2 percent of sales to the Planet Partners with the code TUESDAY.
• Instacart: For each order placed with the grocery delivery service, users can donate one meal to a local or national nonprofit of their choice for no extra cost.
• Dell: The computer company will donate one new laptop to a student in need for every laptop traded in by customers between today and December 30, up to 2,000 laptops. You can use the trade in value to purchase or lower the cost of a new laptop.
• Food52: The kitchen and home store and community is donating 5 percent of sales on Giving Tuesday to Feeding America, a nationwide group of food banks working to end hunger.
• KFC: For every chicken sandwich sold on Giving Tuesday, KFC will donate $1 to Blessings in a Backpack, a charity that fights hunger.

• Shutterfly is teaming with fashion icon Iris Apfel to release a limited-edition NFT CryptoCard collection, which will be auctioned off starting on Giving Tuesday. All proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Boys & Girls Club of America.
• Chewy, the pet supplies store, will match up to $2 million of customer donations from Nov. 24 to Nov. 30 to give to animal welfare charities across America.
• Citi Bank will match 100 percent of donations up to $200,000 made to No Kid Hungry this Giving Tuesday.
• Meta is matching $8 million in donations made on Facebook this Giving Tuesday and will host a tournament for game creators, where the company will donate $25,000 to the winning team’s chosen charity.
• TikTok will donate $7 million to organizations that are “mission-driven,” as well as $1 million of ad credits to nonprofits.

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Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com