<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*UzSHXnxoMA5f903nvkD8Xg.png" /></figure><h3>Anyone in nonprofits knows the story.</h3><p>We take Thanksgiving, the frezied spending of the holiday season through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday and leverage it in our communities and nonprofits on GivingTuesday.</p><p>The burgeoning idea for GivingTuesday took shape in 2011 <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cyber-monday-charity_b_1115516">in an article</a> authored by Carlo Lorenzo Garcia and the next year it was <a href="https://www.foundationlist.org/news/givingtuesday-about-to-start/">branded and founded as a nonprofit</a> in its own right by 92nd Street Y in New York and the United Nations Foundation.</p><p>Today, the Giving Tuesday organization focuses on <strong>radical generosity</strong> — the idea that other’s suffering should be as intolerable as our own. And it has expanded and complicated its thinking in some important ways like:</p><ul><li>valuing non-financial ways to give in addition to financial</li><li>expanding thinking about the giving ecosystem beyond just nonprofits</li><li>considering advocacy and volunteerism</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.givingtuesday.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GT_2021LookBack_Report-FINAL.pdf">Giving Tuesday’s 2021 Report</a> emphasizes that only 10% of giving in that year was to nonprofit organizations. That’s important and helps paint the full picture of what giving actually looks like for people in the U.S. because it’s not limited to people with financial means and it’s not only to nonprofits. We give every day in time, talents, and even financial gifts outside of the nonprofit system to friends and family.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*zYYn4spq2Veus2LzQxEh6w.jpeg" /><figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@swastikarora?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Swastik Arora</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure><h3>But let’s dive into the 10% of giving to nonprofits for a minute and what the end of the year looks like for these organizations.</h3><p>It’s an exciting day to work at a nonprofit — the office is buzzing at <a href="https://www.helloneighbor.io/together-we-go-far">Hello Neighbor on GivingTuesday</a> as we see the energy and generosity of our community online that kicks off an end-of-year movement.</p><p>This time of year is crucial for organizations like ours. <a href="https://neonone.com/resources/individual-giving-trends-report/"><strong>Nonprofits get one-fifth of all their donations for the year in December</strong></a><strong>.</strong> So that means, in the last month of the year, most nonprofits have to raise the remaining 20% of their revenue to do their work.</p><p>That’s a lot.</p><p><strong>Imagine waiting for December to get such a large portion the income you need to pay for necessities for that same year.</strong></p><p>The 2021 Giving Tuesday report also shares that “small nonprofit organizations have stopped reporting fundraising data at a higher rate than ever before, indicating tool attrition and perhaps insolvency.” That well may be, we know that <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/starting-a-business/the-true-failure-rate-of-small-businesses/361350"><strong>50% of small businesses fail within the first five years</strong></a>. As someone who works with <a href="https://www.neighbornetwork.io">around 100 nonprofits across the country every day</a>, I would guess this reduced reporting also has to do with capacity limitations.</p><p>These are organizations working with a couple paid staff, maybe none, and often without dedicated development or fundraising professionals.</p><p>So here’s my pitch this year: Giving Tuesday is more than a day.</p><p>It’s a day with a hell of a lot of energy and generosity, but instead of giving a one-time donation, hear me out, become a monthly donor.</p><h3>In my opinion, monthly giving is a love language for nonprofits.</h3><p>It can be as little as $10/month and it might not be monetary at all. It’s also a great benefit to nonprofits to have regular volunteers we can count on week after week. But monthly donors keep the lights on, they keep programs running, they allow nonprofits to budget with more information about their revenue for the full year.</p><p>It’s like getting your income at regular intervals one or twice a month (like most of us do who work full-time!) rather than all at the end.</p><p>Here’s what’s promising for me — we already see monthly donations going up. From 2020 to 2021, <a href="https://neonone.com/resources/blog/year-end-giving-statistics/">monthly giving to nonprofits increased 24%</a>. So why not keep it going this year? And why not start on GivingTuesday?</p><h4>Now what?</h4><p>Here’s a short list of ways to become a sustaining supporter.</p><ol><li>Sign-up as a monthly donor at your favorite nonprofit(s). Even $5/month can make a difference and most organizations have an option on their website for secure, automatic withdrawals.</li><li>Sign-up as a regular volunteer. This could be just a few hours a month depending on the needs of the organization and show your local nonprofit they can count on you!</li><li>Consider what other sustaining ways you can support nonprofit work — maybe board service or advocacy are in your future?!</li></ol><h4>Not sure where to give this year?</h4><ul><li>If you’ve given before, keep an eye on your inbox this GivingTuesday!</li><li>Check out <a href="https://medium.com/hello-neighbor-network/support-refugees-and-immigrants-this-giving-tuesday-4a7c999a5dec?source=collection_home---6------0-----------------------">how to support refugees and immigrants this year</a> and <a href="https://www.helloneighbor.io/together-we-go-far">Hello Neighbor’s GivingTuesday campaign</a></li><li>Follow along on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/givingtuesday/">GivingTuesday social media</a> for ideas (not just financial!)</li></ul><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/202/0*W4tiaGRLQuLt89Ij.png" /></figure><p>Learn more about the <a href="https://www.neighbornetwork.io/">Hello Neighbor Network</a>, powered by <a href="https://www.helloneighbor.io">Hello Neighbor</a>. The Hello Neighbor Network accepts applications for Fellows every fall. <a href="http://eepurl.com/hnAmkT">Sign up for our newsletter</a> to be the first to know when applications open.</p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=c7b535b1391d" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr><p><a href="https://medium.com/hello-neighbor-network/the-nonprofit-love-language-and-why-you-shouldnt-just-donate-on-givingtuesday-c7b535b1391d">The Nonprofit Love Language and why you shouldn’t JUST donate on GivingTuesday</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/hello-neighbor-network">Hello Neighbor Network</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>