Five years ago, the good people of 92nd Street Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association (92nd Street Y) , a community center in New York City, came up with the idea of a day of giving to kick off the holiday season. Social media blog Mashable used their incredible reach (6,000,000 Twitter followers, 3,200,000 Facebook fans) to help spread the word. With the help of founding partners Skype and Cisco, Giving Tuesday was born on November 27, 2012. The first Tuesday after Thanksgiving would become a day when people would reach in to their pockets and donate to a worthy charity. The first Giving Tuesday was a tremendous success.
In 2013 Google entered the partnership and Giving Tuesday received extensive media coverage. Charitable giving on that day was twice what it had been the year before. By 2014 Giving Tuesday was being observed in 68 countries and resulted in an estimated $45.7 million in charitable donations. There was still plenty of room for the movement to grow as a survey that year revealed that only 18% of Americans were familiar with Giving Tuesday, compared to 93% familiar with Black Friday.
Last year Giving Tuesday broke records again with an estimated $168 million in donations worldwide, and this year is looking to be even bigger. Meanwhile, it has morphed from a single day of giving to the kick-off for a season of giving.
Join the CLUB
After being awarded a Givers Gain® Grant, which went toward a class library, a class of fourth graders in Miami were inspired to form a Monthly Hero Club by donating to the BNI Foundation. Teacher Jennifer Stay, wife of BNI Executive Director and Chairman Emeritus of the BNI Foundation Board, Jeff Stay, explained to her students what the BNI Foundation is and what it does. The students were so touched by the needs of children around the world that they decided they would each donate $1 a month to become a collective BNI Foundation Monthly Hero.
BNI Foundation co-founders, Beth and Ivan Misner were impressed by the social responsibility and initiative exhibited by the students. They deemed the group Mrs. Stay’s 4th Grade Class CLUB.
This Giving Tuesday, and during the season that follows, the BNI Foundation is asking BNI members around the world to Join the CLUB. If each member of a chapter donates just two or three dollars a month, we could have Super Hero Chapters all over the world. The more chapters that participate, the more schools and students we can help with our Givers Gain Grants of $1000 each.
As further incentive, the region with the highest percentage of Chapters who Join the CLUB between November 28, 2017 and January 15, 2018 will receive a personal visit from BNI Foundation Co-Founder, Beth Misner, and BNI Foundation Board Chair, Kevin Barber. Beth and Kevin will participate in both an outreach project with a community school and a social event with the regions’s members.
Please consider showing the kids how much their efforts mean by Joining Mrs. Stay’s 4th Grade Class CLUB today!