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Can We Raise Many Millions of Dollars for Nonprofits?
Propel Philanthropy presents funders with an approach that we believe could raise many millions of dollars and make a real difference. However, it will require considering expanding beyond what is being done in traditional and even progressive philanthropy.

We need to explore alternative funding approaches to better address the crisis we are facing. Nonprofits are experiencing the most severe budget cuts in history. These cuts are negatively impacting more lives than we can imagine. For those unfamiliar, our Offerings for Funders page discusses GivingTuesday’s projection that $375,000 of internal capacity support (collectively raised), could facilitate raising between hundreds of millions to one billion additional dollars on its annual day of giving, December 2, 2025. The offerings page also presents other benefits this campaign is expected to produce. These include providing an onsite bot that with the support of prominent partners and its upcoming 14-part curriculum could serve to up to 50,000 nonprofits.

(These projections are at a magnitude that is difficult to believe. However, they are based on solid data from GivingTuesday. More information on this topic is available in the FAQ section and link to GT’s prospectus below).

To accomplish the critical objectives stated above, we need to embrace another path to progress by meeting the moment differently. With rare exceptions, this path does not fit into any funder’s mission or other objectives. However, it might help many nonprofits, causes, communities, and environments in ways that would be difficult to do otherwise. With this in mind, we are asking funders to be nimble by putting aside some funding if they agree that the opportunity to achieve impact is exceptional and deserving.

Giving Paticipants Recognition
If this campaign reaches its goal of raising hundreds of millions to a billion dollars, we will have broken an all time record. Between $15,000 and $30,000 dollars will be invested in social media and print publicity, and everyone involved will be credited.

Help Us Make History
If we reach our goal, we will created a record-breaking campaign. Everyone involved will be listed unless they wish not to be.

Next Steps

  1. Review the frequently asked questions below to answer any questions you may have.
  2. Download GivingTuessday’s Propsectus for Further Review.
  3. Contact Chris Worman, Chief Global Strategy and Partnership Officer, at Giving Tuesday, at [email protected]
  4. Alternatively, contact Peter Brach, founder of Propel Philanthorpy, at [email protected]

Frequently Asked Questions
GivingTuesday provides its own FAQs. However, the answers below were designed to answer questions particularly found among funders. Please feel free to contact Propel Philanthropy if we can be helpful in any way.

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How Does GivingTuesday Calculate its Ability to Raise up to 1 Billion Additional Dollars on December 2, 2025?

GivingTuesday (GT) utilizes sophisticated data analysis and AI predictive tools to calculate the number of people who will gain awareness of its movement per dollar spent on advertising and the conversion rate to donations.

Based on its publicity work last year and other factors, GT predicts:

  • Investing $100,000 in ad buys will increase awareness and engagement by approximately 3–5%, potentially generating $300–$500 million in additional giving this December. Further, 20% of these new givers are likely to give in future years.
  • A $200,000 investment in ad buys will increase awareness and engagement by approximately 6–9%, potentially generating $600 million to $1 billion in additional giving this December.
  • Investing $300,000 in ad buys will increase awareness and engagement by approximately 9–12%, potentially generating $1.1–1.5 billion in additional giving this December.

We hope to surpass our projections by raising awareness of GivingTuesday across America from 33% to 44–48%. If we reach the high 40s, we will be just shy of 50% of people in the U.S. being aware of this movement and/or hashtag.

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Is There More to GivingTuesday Than Helping to Raise Money?

Yes—far more.

Many people know GivingTuesday only as the popular hashtag or global day of giving that follows Black Friday. What’s less understood is that GT is also a deeply coordinated, strategic movement and a dedicated nonprofit organization with a global infrastructure.

  1. GT facilitates and supports national-level campaigns in 110 countries and supports partners, nonprofits and CSOs year-round. These include hundreds of nonprofits, civil society organizations, coalitions, funders, plus community to national leaders. GT pursues partnerships through:
    • National, regional, and municipal governments
    • Philanthropic institutions and community foundations
    • Grassroots organizations and local leaders
  2. GT promotes systemic change through inspiring generosity, including:
    • Diaspora giving: People giving back to countries or communities they are originally from.
    • Volunteerism: Mobilizing people to donate time and skills, including high level skills in some cases.
    • In-kind giving: Donations of food, clothes, services, or professional expertise.
    • Direct service and mutual aid: Supporting networks of care and solidarity.
  3. GT Hosts a World-Leading “Giving Commons”

    One of the lesser-known but most powerful tools developed by GivingTuesday is its sector leading Giving Commons—an open, shared data infrastructure for understanding generosity behavior globally.

    This Commons is used by:

    • Universities such as Stanford, MIT, and Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
    • Large-scale data platforms and civil society networks
    • Nonprofits, think tanks, and funders seeking insights into giving patterns

    It provides real-time dashboards, behavioral research, trend analysis, and technical tools that enable more effective giving campaigns and smarter policy design.

    D. GivingTuesday Builds Capacity for Nonprofits and Movements, including:

    • Workshops, resources, and strategy sessions offered throughout the year.
    • A soon-to-launch interactive online bot that will help up to 50,000 nonprofits build customized fundraising plans for their 2025 campaigns. The bot uses a series of questions to generate individualized materials like campaign messages, emails, and social media content.
    • An upcoming 14-part curriculum, currently in development, designed to train nonprofit and civil society leaders in effective fundraising, storytelling, campaign planning, and community engagement.
  4. GivingTuesday is a Hub for Collaboration Across the Social Sector
    Another aspect of GivingTuesday is its role in connecting platforms, funders, and movements. It actively works to improve sector-wide coordination by encouraging shared infrastructure—such as linkable maps across platforms that let nonprofits discover and access a wide array of services, tools, and collaborators.
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Do the Donations Bring About Meaningful and Lasting Systemic Change?

Yes — in many cases. But said more accurately, GT serves as a global activation mechanism that channels funding across the full spectrum of social impact work. Some work is deeply systemic and long-term. Other nonprofits address urgent, immediate needs, and everything in between.

It is worth considering that if even 10% of the raised funds go to organizations effectively focused on systems change—and we raise just $200 million, not the projected $600 million to $1 billion—$375,000 in funding would raise $20 milliondirected toward high-leverage, transformational work, creating over a 50-to-1 ROI for systemic impact alone.

GT also helps advance nonprofits doing systemic or strategic work across numerous critical cause areas, including:

  • Climate change and environmental sustainability
  • Equity and inclusion, especially in communities that face systemic barriers
  • Empowering women and children
  • Advancing social entrepreneurship, investments, and innovations
  • Global health, clean water, and food security
  • Education, vocational training, and digital inclusion

Democracy, civic engagement, and community resilience

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If GivingTuesday is So Successful, why is Global Giving and Volunteerism Declining?

It’s a fair question — and one that applies not just to GivingTuesday, but to the entire social sector. If so many people, organizations, and donors are doing so much, why do so many serious problems persist?

What Would the World Look Like Without GivingTuesday?

GivingTuesday has become one of the most widely recognized and leading global movements for generosity, spanning 110 countries, mobilizing tens of millions of people annually, and being an active participant in raising over $18 billion. But it’s easy to overlook one essential truth:

Without GivingTuesday there would be:

  • Fewer new donor acquisition opportunities for nonprofits
  • Lower public awareness of generosity as a shared civic value
  • Less coordinated, data-informed philanthropy
  • Weaker local and national nonprofit ecosystems — especially in the Global South
  • Fewer cross-border donations, in-kind giving, or volunteer activation
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Are GivingTuesday Donations Just a Redistribution of Giving that Would Have Occurred Anyway?

A large portion of donations on GivingTuesday are additive. Here is why:

  1. Long-run trend analysis shows a true bump, not a shift.
    The GivingTuesday Data Commons maintains a decade-long database of daily donation flows. By mapping “normal” year-end giving patterns, their analysts can isolate the GivingTuesday spike and still see higher-than-expected totals for the full fourth quarter—evidence that dollars raised on the day are largely incremental, not merely pulled forward.
    GivingTuesday Data Commons GivingTuesday
  2. Untapped donors are being asked—and they respond.
    Nearly half of Americans say they never recall a nonprofit asking them to give in a given quarter; of those, 9 percent say they would have donated if someone had asked. GivingTuesday’s mass, coordinated outreach fills that solicitation gap, converting people who otherwise would have stayed on the sidelines. GivingTuesday  GivingTuesday
  3. First-time and lapsed supporters re-enter the pipeline.
    Movement-wide data show roughly one-third of participants give to a new organization each year, and a measurable share of lapsed donors reactivate on—or because of—GivingTuesday campaigns. These gifts add to, rather than cannibalize, regular annual budgets. Lookback
  4. Social-proof dynamics trigger “extra” generosity.
    Real-time counters, hashtag feeds, and peer-to-peer appeals create a powerful bandwagon effect: people give because they see friends, influencers, and companies doing the same. Behavioral science research calls this the “herd” or “nudge” effect; it sparks impulse gifts that weren’t pre-budgeted.
  5. Corporate matches and flash challenges unlock fresh money.
    Brands roll out one-day matching pools, #GivingTuesday takeovers, and employee-match boosts that simply don’t exist on ordinary days, injecting truly new capital into the system.
  6. Multiple forms of generosity rise together.
    GivingTuesday lifts not just cash but goods donations and volunteering. When 36% donate money and another 38% give time or items, nonprofits receive additional resources they wouldn’t have captured in a typical appeal cycle. Neon One
  7. The deadline effect creates “found” budget room.
    A widely publicized 24-hour deadline prompts donors to earmark extra discretionary funds—much like year-end clearance sales spur unplanned retail spending—without noticeably depressing December’s broader giving totals.
  8. Repeat behavior sustains the additive bump.
    In the most recent cycle, 80% of donors who set up a recurring gift on GivingTuesday made another donation by year-end, indicating the day serves as a start, not a substitute, for deeper engagement. Neon One
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Are There More Benefits to This Campaign?

Yes, there are three additional benefits not yet mentioned. This funding will enable GivingTuesday to:

  1. Produce its first interactive on-site bot to assist an estimated 50,000 nonprofits with their 2025 GT campaigns. Nonprofits answer a series of bot-generated questions, and the bot will produce individualized presentations to raise money this December.
  2. Provide an estimated 10,000 nonprofits with a 14-module curriculum to improve their abilities to secure funding on GivingTuesday. This series complements the bot program.

If we reach our goal, Propel Philanthropy plans to conduct a media campaign to demonstrate to funders the power of pursuing broad, far-reaching impact to accelerate the social sector.

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What is the Next Step?

If possible, please make a donation so we can movet his campaign forward.  The sooner we receive funding, the more quickly GivingTuesday can begin advertising. Every dollar you give will go toward ad-buys. You can take the next steps by:

You can also find GivingTuesday’s frequently asked questions here.

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