Giving Tuesday: A Chance to Give Back During the Holiday Season

Will donating to charity ever be as popular as shopping during the holiday season?

A partnership of nonprofits hopes so.

For many people, the holiday shopping marathon began Thanksgiving day, with some national chains opening their doors just hours after the traditional turkey dinner. Then comes Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, which has morphed into Cyber Week.

Now, there's a new campaign asking you to open your wallet — Giving Tuesday.

The Giving Tuesday website says the effort, coming on the heels of days devoted to consumerism, is designed “to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations.”

In the St. Charles area, some nonprofits have signed on, using their websites and social media networks to kick off the inaugural effort — they are Anderson Animal Shelter and the DuPage Children’s Museum.

But throughout the Chicago area, other worthy nonprofits — both large and small — are involved. They include Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity, Compass to Care Childhood Cancer Foundation, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, Environmental Law and Policy Center, Family Ideas Network for Down Syndrome, Feeding America, Interfaith Worker Justice, Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare and the Leukemia Research Foundation.

The effort includes the Twitter hashtag #GivingTuesday, designed to help spread the word.

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What do you think? Can a social media push get people giving more of their money and time to charities during the holiday season?