Celebrate The Season With #GivingTuesday
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MIAMI (CBSMiami/CNN) -- With Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the rear view mirror, today marks Giving Tuesday, a day to raise funds for charitable causes.
Giving Tuesday started six years ago by the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation.
"It was also an experiment in how powerful social media could be as a force to encourage charitable giving and sharing of acts of kindness," explained Asha Curran, Chief Innovation Officer at 92nd Street Y.
"When this started out a couple years ago we were pretty skeptical about it," admitted Colleen Finn Ridenhour, Senior Vice President of Development for Habitat for Humanity.
However, by 2015, Giving Tuesday had spread to 98 countries and raised approximately $177 million, according to the campaign's official website.
Last year in the US, a record 180 million dollars was raised online in just 24 hours.
"Giving Tuesday enables us to have a formal anchor on the calendar that ushers in and starts the season of giving," said Ettore Rossetti, Director of Social Business Strategy and Innovation at Save the Children.
"Our annual giving is growing [as a result of the campaign] but it's also becoming globalized. It's becoming not only a national day but an international giving holiday," Rossetti said.
To take part in Giving Tuesday, all you need to do is pick a charity you trust and visit their website to donate.
Many organizations are including the hashtag #GivingTuesday in their social media posts as a reminder.
"The beauty of #GivingTuesday is that everyone has something to give -- whether it's donating money, volunteering time or giving essential resources like food and clothing," said Curran.
(©2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company, contributed to this report.)
