Military families stationed at Camp Pendleton tend to be young and at the lower end of the pay scale. Many need the assistance of the Armed Services YMCA, Camp Pendleton (ASYMCA). When GivingTuesday rolled around in 2024, the ASYMCA raised $8,526 from 42 donors. That might not seem like a lot of money, but it went a long way for those serving.
“To our small team, it was a motivator to keep implementing the campaign, learning and improving from 2024,” said LaRonda Schenck Scott, senior director of development at ASYMCA, Camp Pendleton. The needs are great and any donation, cash or otherwise, is important. For example, staff was thrilled when a donation of 900 cartons of eggs was made.
Armed Services YMCA is mixing in social media, email and a giant postcard to get GivingTuesday noticed. Then there’s the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) where an augmented reality experience was created for the Festival of Trees in that city. People could decorate snowflakes with messages and photos for children in the hospital, which allowed for better connection between the community and the hospital, a more flexible donation experience and the opportunity to engage with donors beyond a single transaction, explained Jon Thompson, CHOP’s associate vice president, philanthropic strategy & technology.
Thompson said he likes to avoid “a single point of failure” by marshaling public attention and thus a greater long-term value of the donor.
With the 14th annual GivingTuesday slated for December 2, events at ASYMCA and CHOP are blended into the organizations’ year-end appeals. The theme at ASYMCA is Season of Support, which builds on last year’s theme, Support Their Strength.
Information via GivingTuesday Data Commons (GTDC) shows an estimated $3.6 billion was raised in the United States on the day during 2024. That brought the U.S. total since 2012 to more than $18.5 billion. The event has evolved into a day of overall generosity that includes acts of kindness and other community building events. GTDC has 180 data partners and 2,000 collaborators providing information from around the world.
“GivingTuesday reminds us that generosity is a powerful antidote to isolation and division,” said Asha Curran, CEO of GivingTuesday. “This annual celebration of giving isn’t just about donations. It’s about communities coming together in a collective moment that inspires lasting connections and reminds us of our shared humanity.”
According to Curran, GivingTuesday’s data shows inspiration translating into real action, with 86% of people who are aware of GivingTuesday saying it motivates them to be more generous.
There is always a need for generosity at Camp Pendleton. There’s an annual 30% to 35% turnover in families stationed there. Donors are consistently told of those families’ stories and the need for the basics. Often the only paycheck is the military salary with the spouse out looking for work since the family just moved there. Important targets for messaging are the generation close to those families, Millennial and younger donor, Schenck Scott explained.
“GivingTuesday 2025 is our biggest opportunity to engage everyday givers at a time when their support is more critical than ever,” said Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer of GivingTuesday. “It is the biggest day for donor acquisition, and we see higher rates of recurring giving.”
Many fundraisers were putting the final touches on holiday appeals back in July and hitting the mail around the end of October. Emailing donors started not long thereafter. GivingTuesday on December 2 is in the middle of the rush to end-year giving.
“The nonprofit sector is following the commercial trend of turning giving days into giving seasons, similar to how Black Friday sales start earlier and earlier every year. I think there’s strategic merit behind this,” said Dan Sonners, director of direct marketing at Judicial Watch and immediate past president of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington.
“There are donors who will respond to your end-of-year appeals in October when there is minimal competition and more time gives nonprofits more opportunities to fine-tune their messaging,” said Sonners. “Ultimately, donors decide what’s ‘too soon,’ not nonprofits or fundraisers. Most nonprofits are planning their end-of-year campaigns while they should actually be executing them.”
Some donors are motivated by the spirt of the holiday season and end of-year tax write-offs but there’s a significant group that prefers to do their giving outside the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, explained Sonners. “Many nonprofits have their strongest membership renewal season in January, but we start our membership renewal cycle in September with great success.”
According to Rosenbaum, “The majority of GivingTuesday donors say they gave to be part of a bigger group of people doing good — in an uncertain climate, organizations that give their supporters the opportunity to join in by activating their communities, welcoming people in by asking for support, and offering multiple ways to participate will unlock the untapped generosity that’s waiting to be unlocked.”
A group can be a community and that is what leaders at CHOP seek, such as at the Festival of Trees. CHOP was able to convert 2,000 donors out of 5,000 to 8,000 participants who went through the augmented experience, which they plan to improve this year. Thompson explained that the compelling aspect of the experience is connecting people on the streets to children in the hospital.
Thompson believes technology, including virtual and augmented reality, can advance philanthropy by connecting people to missions. He emphasized that AI and machine learning could help scale philanthropic efforts by augmenting gift officers, enabling them to effectively manage more relationships.
The expense is comparative to other channels, he said. CHOP is developing dashboards to measure the return on such investments, citing that their augmented reality budget is $50,000, which is comparable to the cost of standard e-card campaigns, and which offers a better connection to the mission. NPT
