The 2014 #GivingTuesday Challenge

Once again, I decided to challenge my self to stretch my philanthropic potential and to give to different organizations on #GivingTuesday. I have tracked my online giving experiences with 28 organizations here in this spreadsheet for you all to see. I tracked things like frustration level, online receipts, mobile compatibility and other factors and I have to tell you that while the results are better than 2012 and 2013, the world of online giving can be a scary place. There are some organizations that have clearly invested in their online giving sites and others in which the experience was like being teleported back to 1994.  It looks like we still have a long way to go. But the interactions on Twitter were much better this year. 

A word of note here, I was INUNDATED with  solicitations yesterday. And sadly, mere hours after I gave to Oxfam, SOME in DC and Heifer International, they RE-SOLICITED me on the same day. I am completely offended and turned off by this behavior, especially since I received 3 solicitations from Heifer urging me to give before the day was over when I had given at 7am that morning. Someone needs to do a better job of pulling their data. It will be next to impossible for me to give to those organizations again since obviously my first contribution wasn't enough for them.


I received 56 solicitations via email in one day. One of them was from 20/20/20, a non profit that promised me that when I responded to their solicitation and gave, I would NEVER BE ASKED AGAIN. Broken Promise. SMH.

The GREAT:

The SOLID:

The TRAGIC: