What Happened on #GivingTuesday 2024?

By Sal Morton, Content Marketing Lead, and Dahye Lee, Marketing Research Lead at Pulsar

Generosity’s role in building resilience and fostering hope has only grown more significant in recent years. That’s why people are continually finding innovative ways to give, support one another, and create change in their communities – often using social platforms to amplify their stories and connect with others who share their vision for a better future. Each year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, following Black Friday and Cyber Monday, GivingTuesday inspires millions to take action, reminding us that generosity is not just about money, but also involves time, energy and compassion. With active national movements in more than 100 countries, GivingTuesday is a catalyst for a culture shift toward radical generosity.

To help understand how global audiences talk about giving, each year Pulsar collaborates with GivingTuesday to host a live dashboard. The dashboard provides hourly updates on the keywords, hashtags, causes and types of appeal mentioned in conjunction with the #GivingTuesday hashtag. Let’s unpack what we found.

So, what were people talking about on GivingTuesday 2024 December 3rd? Here we dive into the data behind the world’s most generous day of the year and examine the state of generosity today.

What are the top causes trending on GivingTuesday?

2024 sees a return to Health & Healthcare as the top cause, as was the case in 2022. Last year’s top cause, Science & Education, drops to third place, while Animal Welfare and Children & Elderly round out the top 4.

Top-engaged posts within Health & Healthcare include raising funds for medical debt, disease cures, plus somewhat unexpectedly, calls for organ donors. This highlights how GivingTuesday isn’t just about money. Over the past few years we’ve been seeing an increasing trend within the #GivingTuesday hashtag of alternative ways of thinking about generosity outside money, with organ donation being only the latest.

What types of ‘call to action’ are used on GivingTuesday?

Urgency and Empowerment are the first- and second-most mentioned respectively. Urgency refers to users speaking about having to ‘act now’ to make a change, whilst Empowerment aims to uplift audiences with affirmations of how they can help and make a difference. Duty involves appealing to a sense of responsibility. Direct Appeals, the least-used of these CTAs, contains mentions of point-blank ‘we need you’-type asks.

Appeals centering on Urgency see users making pleas that play on an emotive sense of time, pairing phrases such as “right now” with descriptions of the state of the issue they’re advocating for. Many posts in the Urgency category appeal to medical needs, especially for animals.

When we cross-reference the CTAs on top of these four causes, we can see that it’s Health & Healthcare and Animal Welfare that appeal most to a sense of urgency. We see that Science & Education and Children & Elderly take a zeroed-in focus towards Duty, with the conversation focusing on emotive appeals that tug on the heart strings for children’s welfare and education.

Which keywords are most used on GivingTuesday?

Other than ‘giving’ and ‘Tuesday’, the most mentioned keyword in relation to #GivingTuesday is ‘support’, being used even more than ‘donation’ and ‘donate’.

The sixth most mentioned keyword, ‘consider’, jumps up from its previous position of 15th place in 2023. This word is about inspiring others to take action, make donations, embrace a fresh way of thinking, or engage with new learning or perspectives. This indicates an attempt to ground appeals in reason, acknowledging that in a time of economic difficulty, even consideration of a donation is valued.

For #GivingTuesday, consider gifting the healing power of play to kids receiving care in hospitals – https://t.co/U664Qjgehq pic.twitter.com/yLu6nEA5rM

— Gamers Outreach (@GamersOutreach) December 3, 2024

This shows that GivingTuesday, in addition to fundraising and spotlighting important causes worldwide, is also about transforming how people think about giving.

What hashtags are generating the most buzz on GivingTuesday?

This year shows an increase in hashtag diversity in the GivingTuesday conversation – amid a decline in hashtag use, we see increased attempts to ‘hijack’ #GivingTuesday.

For the first time in our analysis, #donate is not the top most used hashtag. Instead, it comes second to #freeirantelethon, a hashtag that is attached to a telethon run by Simaye Azadi (a TV station run by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran – a resistance organisation) promoting and raising funds for the movement for a free and democratic Iran. In this instance we see a concerted effort by a political body to gain visibility (and donations of their own). The declining importance of hashtags means this behavior likely went unnoticed by the vast majority of GivingTuesday participants, but is notable for being part of a wider ‘hashtag-hijacking’ trend.

🚨Giving Tuesday🚨 lots of people give directly to #operationshelter and that is amazing. I get a lot of questions from people wanting to go help directly. I can’t keep up with the ask so here is a tip
If you want to go to the area and spend some time, money, and be charitable. pic.twitter.com/8633VUkzw4

— Shawn Hendrix (@TheShawnHendrix) December 3, 2024

Of course, #donate is still prevalent, with the hashtag acting as a shortcut to asking for monetary giving. But this year, the hashtags used are more diverse than ever. We can see another campaign, #operationshelter, being used to help connect people looking to help victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Here survival influencer Shawn Hendrix taps into the hashtag #GivingTuesday to raise funds and spread information about hurricane survival.

We also see the confusingly irrelevant #alieninvasion hashtag appear in fifth place. This hashtag, propelled by a moon landing conspiracy, is unrelated to GivingTuesday in any way. This is emblematic of a trend we’ve seen take of this year in conjunction with GivingTuesday – users piggybacking off the #GivingTuesday hashtag in order to gain virality. But this isn’t always for the benevolent means above – #applemusicreplay and #wweraw sees users promoting spam or conspiracy narratives whilst hijacking the hashtag for viewership.

#GiveBack on #GivingTuesday to protect children from school shootings, gun violence, suicide, bullying, and other harmful acts. Please make a tax-deductible donation: https://t.co/NCTkUchDfK Donate now to have your gift doubled!#ProtectOurKids #EndGunViolence #SandyHookPromise pic.twitter.com/ht2xoOLNGt

— Sandy Hook Promise (@sandyhook) December 3, 2024

It’s important to note the fourth most used hashtag: #giveback. This hashtag is appealing to GivingTuesday audiences who are fortunate enough to benefit from societal structures and economic privilege to ‘give back’ to those who are less fortunate. This call for altruism ties into the ‘call to action’ of Duty.

The diversification of hashtags used in the GivingTuesday conversation signals that the giving event is doing its job in driving interest, clicks and attention towards conversations on social media. The conversation is evolving beyond its original remit,developing into a wider approach towards giving and generosity.

What are the non-monetary ways of giving trending on GivingTuesday?

On GivingTuesday, people gave back in ways beyond donating dollars. Volunteering was the top alternative way of giving that audiences associated with the #GivingTuesday hashtag – the same as 2023. Volunteering has long been the traditional way to support charities non-monetarily, with posters in this conversation mentioning initiatives such as volunteer pet therapists, mental health workers, heritage enthusiasts, as well as corporate volunteering programs that put philanthropy at the heart of organizations.

This year, Kindness sees a big jump, coming in as the second most popular form of non-monetary giving. In this conversation, general ‘random’ acts of kindness and ‘radical generosity’ are being shown as a way to promote gratitude.

It’s #GivingTuesday—time to celebrate radical generosity!
Fishing communities thrive on generosity: fishermen help one another, families stand together, and small acts of kindness keep coastal life strong.
How has radical generosity shaped your life? pic.twitter.com/ZRnSr1MjVi

— Fishermen’s Mission (@thefishmish) December 3, 2024

To hear more about how giving behaviors are changing, tune into The Audiences Podcast episode The Audience of Generosity.