We spent Tuesday’s Hangout chatting about getting the family involved in giving back.

Our all-star cast was comprised of: Beth Teitelman, director of scholarship services at the 92nd Street Y; Emily McKhann, co-founder of The Motherhood; Morra Aarons-Mele, founder of Women Online and The Mission List; and Chrysula Winegar, #GivingTuesdaycommunications project lead and community manager for the Million Moms Challenge. And the Hangout was produced by me, your humble social media gal

For your viewing pleasure, here is the video of the chat:

Here are some highlights from the discussion:

• Emily flagged results from a recent survey by The Motherhood. One finding: 86% of mom and dad bloggers who responded to the survey said giving is important to their families.
• Involve your young kids by doing projects that are on their level and age appropriate, such as baking cookies etc.
• Beth advised looking for organizations who have already done the homework on how to engage children. “If it’s not in your community, start it, replicate it, build it,” she said.
• Giving at different levels — philanthropy isn’t only for the rich!
• #GivingTuesday is not just about one day. Yes, it’s a kick-off for the giving season, but it should be about so much more than giving once a year.

The next Hangout will be on October 30th. Be sure to sign up for our emails so you get all the details!

Wondering how some organizations are embracing the #GivingTuesday movement and getting involved? In this post, Liz Eddy, Special Projects Associate of DoSomething.org explains what they’re doing for #GivingTuesday and how they’re doing it, too.

Why did DoSomething.org decide to become a #GivingTuesday partner?

It’s brilliant! Black Friday and Cyber Monday are shopping movements — donating to a great cause should be treated the same!

What is DoSomething.org planning for #GivingTuesday?

We are planning a rockin’ quiz that gets teens to challenge the old people (that’s DoSomething.org speak for people over 25) in their lives. Questions will expose many shocking facts about teen culture, technology and trends. Now, what’s the fun without a little wager? While we never ask our teens for money, adults can make a pledge for each wrong answer to be contributed to DoSomething.org! Sound fun? Try it at Thanksgiving dinner!

What are you doing to get your fans involved in this initiative?

The quiz is intrinsically social. Teens sign up and challenge as many old people as they want. They can also send it to their friends so they can partake in the challenge too!

This post originally appeared on Event 360′s blog and is cross-posted here with their permission.

Fifty-five days, 18 hours, 21 minutes, 23 seconds: That’s how long we have (as of when I began writing this blog) until November 27. What’s so special about November 27? It’s #GivingTuesday!

Put it in your Outlook, jot it down in your day planner, set a reminder in your cell.

What is #GivingTuesday, you ask? It’s a day (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) for all of us to join in acts of giving, whether that means volunteering at a local nonprofit or contributing to a favorite cause. How you participate is up to you.

Here are some more details from the website:

#GivingTuesday™ began its life as a simple idea….

We have a day for giving thanks. We have two for getting deals….Wouldn’t it be great to have a day for giving back?

A lot of people then got behind the idea…

New York’s 92nd Street Y has been the catalyst and incubator for #GivingTuesday, bringing the expertise of 139 years of community-management to the project, and providing #GivingTuesday a home.

The United Nations Foundation joined as partners, bringing their strategic and communications clout to the project.

An amazing team of influencers then offered their ideas, contacts and wisdom to help shape and improve the concept.

A powerful list of corporations and non-profits agreed to be founding partners, helping spread the word and committing to their own #GivingTuesday initiatives.

And, since then, countless organizations, friends and leaders have all added their support and talents to make #GivingTuesday a reality.

But what really matters is YOU. #GivingTuesday relies on people everywhere playing their part to make it a real success.

Why do I like this idea so much? Three key reasons:

1. #GivingTuesday embodies what America is known for. Did you know we’re the most generous country in the world? Last year, we gave almost $300 billion to charity. Behind us are Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Britain.
2. On the heels of breaking bread to give thanks with our family and friends and breaking a sweat early the next morning to buy them gifts at a great price, #GivingTuesday reminds us to take a break from the chaos long enough to give back to those less fortunate.
3. #GivingTuesday supports a mindset of looking outside ourselves and taking action on what upsets us. We may work within institutions, but we live in communities. And as fellow beneficiaries of all things around us — the air we breathe, streets we drive on, food/water we eat, schools we send our children to, arts we experience, safety we take for granted — we have a responsibility to help maintain those shared community rights and ensure everyone else has access as well.

I’ll also add that in a sector that’s constantly seeking out the next creative way to catch donor attention, #GivingTuesday provides a unique ask focusing on where most people spend much of their time: online, and more specifically, on social media.

The “non-event” event idea for peer-to-peer fundraising seems to be appreciated around the holidays, given that we’re all even shorter on time than usual. The timing and message of #GivingTuesday hits the heartstrings just right: Our wallets are already open but not spent, and our most heartfelt thoughts are top of mind.

It’s a win/win. So join #GivingTuesday, the nationwide campaign that celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support YOU.

“Meghan’s Strategy Lab” blog posts are featured monthly. Vice president, fundraising strategy Meghan Dankovich serves as the lead for many of Event 360′s consulting engagements, striving to help nonprofits exceed their event fundraising goals. Her expertise includes strategic planning, implementation of qualitative fundraising work and developing successful quantitative approaches for collecting and analyzing event-related data.

We announced a big milestone yesterday. Here’s the release from PRWeb:

#GivingTuesday Movement Announces 200 Partners Showing “America Gives as Good as it Gets”

#GivingTuesday Releases List of Innovative Organizations Supporting a New National Day of Giving this Nov 27th

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 04, 2012

The #GivingTuesday movement today announced that the list of partner organizations, businesses and philanthropies helping to create a national day of giving on November 27, 2012 has reached 200. This achievement happened just two weeks after the initiative’s public launch, surpassing expectations of the founding partners and pointing to a growing nationwide movement. In an overwhelming show of support, 200 charities, universities, individuals and small and large businesses alike have all come together and pledged their support of the #GivingTuesday effort to change the way Americans think about giving.

The full list of #GivingTuesday partners is available here: http://givingtuesday.org/partners/

#GivingTuesday has put social media at the heart of its approach to building support and raising awareness about the power of giving. “Social Media Ambassadors” and partner organizations are calling for a national moment at the start of the holiday season dedicated to charity and giving back, similar to the way Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become days that are, today, synonymous with holiday shopping. #GivingTuesday aims to inspire people to take collaborative action to improve their local communities, give more, give better, and give in smarter ways to the charities and causes they care about.

“The tremendous response to #GivingTuesday – from individuals, businesses, and nonprofit organizations – reaffirms that Americans are ready and willing to join forces in new ways, across geographical and socio-economic boundaries, for the greater good,” said Sol Adler, executive director of 92nd Street Y, the cultural and community center in New York where the idea of #GivingTuesday was born.

Read the rest here.

Did you miss our second Google+ Hangout?

We had an awesome “girl power” panel with Patty Huber Morrissey, manager, Groupon Grassroots; Rachel Hutchisson, corporate citizenship & philanthropy, Blackbaud; Sandra Miniutti, vice president, marketing & CFO, Charity Navigator. Our fabulous communications project lead Chrysula Winegar moderated and your humble social media gal produced yesterday’s Hangout.

Need to catch up or want a recap? No problem, the video is right here:

Some highlights from the discussion:

• #GivingTuesday has now hit well over 100 partners and we’re on track to get up to 200 soon.
• US Airways has created a public service announcement about #GivingTuesday that they’ll be playing in flights for the months of November.
• Rachel gave us the highlights from Blackbaud’s newly released Index of Charitable Giving (around 4:30): Giving in the U.S. has been at about 2% of household income since the 70s. The Index found that giving decreased 3.4% over June, July and August compared with the same period during the previous year. It is the first time it has dipped since March 2011. #GivingTuesday is a potential solution because it amplify the message about giving.
• Around the 9:20 mark, Patty describes Groupon’s plan for #GivingTuesday. On Nov. 27th, Groupon will offer a variety of ways to give to organizations around the country. “We’re not deciding for the donor,” Patty said. “We allow the customer to decide for themselves which cause is going to be really meaningful to them.”
• Sandra provided Charity Navigator’s expert advice on how to choose your cause wisely (around 18:30). She advised checking a charity’s financial health and looking into their commitment to accountability and transparency. Finally, she recommends looking at their results.

That’s all for this week! Keep an eye out for our next Hangout! Sign up to receive email updates (here if you are an individual, here if you are an organization) so you’re sure not to miss the next one.

Last weekend marked an incredible moment for #GivingTuesday as we kicked off the initiative to a globally connected audience at the Social Good Summit.

The 2012 Social Good Summit was a dynamic, worldwide conversation that proved overwhelmingly that technology and social media are powerful tools in solving the world’s toughest problems.

The #GivingTuesday panel featured the Social Good Summit founding partners who are also some of the founding partners behind #GivingTuesday, Henry Timms of 92^nd Street Y, Sharon Feder of Mashable and Aaron Sherinian of the United Nations Foundation.  This panel on day two of the Summit exemplified how we all have a role to play when it comes to giving and that #GivingTuesday is the perfect day to do that.  The panel focused on how technology provides us with the perfect tools that make it easy to give, and social media drives us to think about how we give back as we can be more informed about where to give then we have ever been before.

Watch now:

Anastasia Dellaccio is a Senior Outreach Associate with the communications team at the United Nations Foundation and works on special initiatives such as the Social Good Summit and Rio+Social. Anastasia also owns an all- natural artisan gelato company called Dolci Gelati in Washington, D.C.

Wondering how some organizations are embracing the #GivingTuesday movement and getting involved? In this post, Anne Marie Dougherty, Executive Director of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, explains what they’re doing for #GivingTuesday and how they’re doing it, too.

1. Why did the Bob Woodruff Foundation decide to become a #GivingTuesday partner?

The Bob Woodruff Foundation (BWF) was co-founded by award-winning television reporter Bob Woodruff and his family after he sustained serious injuries while covering the Iraq war in 2006.

The Woodruffs realized they were in a unique position to be a voice that could be heard throughout our nation- in civilian and military cultures and across political lines- on behalf of injured service members and their families. What Bob Woodruff and his family endured through his recovery inspired them to create a foundation to fight for those who have fought so strongly for us. Additionally, the Woodruffs felt compelled to ensure that wounded service members get that same level of care particularly after they return to their communities and face years and perhaps a lifetime of therapy, guidance and support.

The spirit of #GivingTuesday beautifully ties with BWF’s Co-Founder’s. The concept behind #GivingTuesday is brilliant and inspiring. We are thrilled to be a part of the exciting initiative.

2. How does the BWF help others?

The Bob Woodruff Foundation provides resources and support to injured service members, veterans and their families to successfully reintegrate into their communities so they may thrive physically, psychologically, socially and economically.

Across the country, BWF collaborates with organizations and experts to identify and solve issues related to the return of service members from combat to civilian life and invests in programs that connect our troops to the help they need — from individual needs like physical accommodations, job training, financial counseling, to larger social issues like homelessness and suicide prevention.

Through our charitable investment program we seek out innovative programs nationwide, many of them at the grassroots level that are providing actionable and meaningful assistance to post-9/11 injured, wounded, or ill service members, veterans, their families and/or caregivers in the areas of education, employment, mental health and wellness, and community integration. BWF is finding and funding organizations that bring hope and fulfillment into warrior’s lives and futures.

From a group that is helping amputees heal by teaching them to master musical instruments to helping veterans become farmers or livestock producers as a new career, our connections to and affiliation with the network of groups helping veterans allows us to learn about and find some of our nation’s most innovative and constructive groups who have their boots on the ground helping vets heal.

The Bob Woodruff Foundation has invested $12 million in over 70 organizations, impacting more than 1,000,000 service members, support personnel, veterans and their families nationwide. Together, with our partners, we are healing the physical and psychological wounds of war.

3. How do you plan to get your community involved in #GivingTuesday?

The Bob Woodruff Foundation intends to fundraise through micro-donations and activate our social media constituency. We plan to unveil tweets and facebook updates leading up to the exciting November 27th launch; cross promoting #GivingTuesday via all of our social media outlets, featuring #GivingTuesday on our homepage; sending dedicated blast emails to our faithful followers and our constituency.

Did you miss our Google+ Hangout yesterday?

No problem!

You can view the recording right now and hear from some of the folks who have helped shape #GivingTuesday so far: Sharon Feder, COO of Mashable, Henry Timms, Deputy Executive Director at the 92nd Street Y, and Aaron Sherinian, Vice President of Communications and Public Relations at the UN Foundation.

Your humble #GivingTuesday Social Media Manager (ahem, me!) makes a minor appearance, too.

Be sure to mark your calendar for the next Google+ Hangout on October 2nd. Make sure you’ve signed up to get our emails so you get the details early!

Here’s the video from yesterday’s Hangout:

Wondering how to give on #GivingTuesday?

In this video, Ken Berger — CEO of Charity Navigator, an organization that evaluates charities worldwide — explains what you should consider when investing your money or time in an organization.

“Not all charities are created equal. Typically, people give based upon emotion and heartfelt need, and that’s great. But the other thing that often doesn’t happen is a connection with the head and looking at data and looking at evidence, and that’s really important for you to find the best charities out there,” Berger says in the video.

Watch his three pieces of advice now:

You’ve checked us out. Followed us on Twitter, “liked” us on Facebook and sign up to be a Social Media Ambassador (you have done that last one, right?!).

So what next?

Join members of our “Team of Influencers” for a Google+ Hangout on Thursday, September 20th and 12:30pm EST. Tune in to our YouTube channel to hear the #GivingTuesday back-story, learn how you can help lead this movement and ask questions!  Here are the details at a glance:

Who:

Sharon Feder, COO of Mashable
Henry Timms, Deputy Executive Director at the 92nd Street Y
Moderated by Aaron Sherinian, Vice President of Communications and Public Relations at the UN Foundation
Hangout operated by Jaclyn Schiff, #GivingTuesday Social Media Lead

When: 

Thursday, September 20th and 12:30PM EST

Where:

GivingTuesday’s YouTube channel

Tweet your thoughts and questions using the #GivingTuesday hashtag. Select questions will be asked during the hangout.

See you then!