Festive donations increased on Giving Tuesday 2024 in defiance of previous years where charitable contributions were stagnant, new research has found.
Giving Tuesday, held on 3 December in 2024, amassed 5.2% of the festive month’s donations per day, an increase from the year prior which fell on 28 November.
Despite 12 December recording the greatest volume of donations at 5.5%, Giving Tuesday 2024 was the highest in terms of donation value, according to fundraising platform Enthuse’s latest Christmas Giving Insights report.
This marked an increase in charitable activity on Giving Tuesday from previous years, with the day accumulating 4.4% of the festive season’s donations in 2023, 3.5% in 2022, 3.9% in 2021 and 4.2% in 2020.
This year, fundraising platform GoDonate has predicted that Giving Tuesday will be among the top December donation days alongside Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Claire Stanley, UK lead for Giving Tuesday, was also optimistic about the day’s potential for charitable donations in 2025.
She said: “It’s fantastic to see there was such a surge in generosity on Giving Tuesday last year and I’m confident that will continue in 2025.
“UK donors are generally very generous throughout the year, but these stats highlight that Giving Tuesday falling in December has made a difference compared to previous years.”
Earlier peak giving days
Giving Tuesday, created in 2012 and occurring after Thanksgiving in the United States, was created to counterbalance Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending sprees in late November and early December.
Digital fundraising has meant there is less reason for people to wait until the last week of December to make their Christmas donations, the 2025 Enthuse report reads.
Tuesdays generally came out as the most popular day of the festive period for giving in 2024, according to Enthuse’s report, compared to Fridays the year prior.
Between 2020 and 2022, three out of the four top donation days were in the final week of December.
But this changed in 2023 and 2024 when the best performing days fell in the first half of the month, Enthuse data shows.
