Giving Tuesday was “the biggest ever day of grassroots giving” in the UK, the Charities Aid Foundation has said.
According to a statement released by the Charities Aid Foundation, who lead #GivingTuesday in the UK, donations to charity were up by 35 per cent on last year’s event, which was the first time #GivingTuesday had been held in Britain.
Visa Europe said that its customers in the UK donated more than £6,250 every minute to various good causes.
Online fundraising platform JustGiving raised £1.25m on #GivingTuesday alone, a 46 per cent increase on the same day in 2014. A JustGiving spokeswoman also told Civil Society News that the online giving platform had its one millionth fundraising page of 2015 created on the same day, marking the first time the organisation has reached that milestone in a calendar year.
Virgin Money Giving also saw a 50 per cent increase in donations compared to 2014 while Blackbaud’s everdayhero platform saw a 54.8 per cent increase in donations.
The event was also mentioned on Twitter over 100,000 times in the United Kingdom alone, more than three times the number of mentions in 2014. #GivingTuesday was mentioned over 600,000 times globally.
Localgiving’s #GiveMe5 campaign, which was supported by the Cabinet Office, raised £36,448 during the 24-hours of 1 December – a 581 per cent increase on the donations made on a normal day. That resulted in over 3000 individual donations being made to 550 different charitable organisations.
In total over 1,400 organisations registered to take part in #GivingTuesday 2015.
#GivingTuesday campaign manager Kim Roberts, said: “Support from people all over the UK for #GivingTuesday has been absolutely amazing.
"With millions donated, events held up and down the country and support for charities dominating social media, this was a massive day of grassroots giving and shows what happens when people, businesses and charities come together.
“#GivingTuesday may only be one day, but the huge response from people who gave money, their time and their voice to good causes will help charities make a positive difference to people’s lives over a much-longer period of time.”
