Women Drive Giving Tuesday Donations, Report Says

Title: “Gender Differences in #GivingTuesday Participation”

Organization: Women’s Philanthropy Institute, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University

Summary: Although they gave just over half of all donations collected by charities the rest of the year, women contributed 63 percent of all gifts on last year’s Giving Tuesday, the annual day devoted to philanthropy. The study, completed with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, analyzed donation records from Charity Navigator from October 29, 2015, to August 2, 2017. The report offers charities some insight into how to reach female donors.

Among the findings:

• Women’s average gift size on Giving Tuesday 2016 was $105; men’s was $116. But women’s greater participation means charities raised more money from them that day. Female donors generated 61 percent of all dollars raised on Giving Tuesday 2016.
• Education, the environment and animal welfare, and health causes, in that order, were most likely to benefit from female donors on Giving Tuesday. Women gave 76 percent of all gifts received by education organizations on that day in 2016, compared with just under half of all gifts to those groups the rest of the year.
• The researchers extrapolated that women may participate more in Giving Tuesday because of their higher engagement on social media and on smartphones. A higher share of donations — 26 percent — were made on mobile devices on that day this year, compared with 22 percent in 2016, according to Blackbaud. “The simpler it is to make a donation on a smartphone, the more successful a Giving Tuesday campaign will be,” the Women’s Philanthropy Institute report reads.