44 countries represented at Giving Tuesday summit

The Giving Tuesday Global Summit took place in Santo Domingo from 30 April to 2 May: the largest summit so far with 46 participants representing 44 countries.

Communication, cooperation and ‘giving without borders’ were the main themes of this year’s summit, which saw countries that had become Giving Tuesday global partners in 2017  sharing experiences from their first year.

The summit heard how in Norway, for example, Giving Tuesday had an impact on younger people through social media, while in Russia, Giving Tuesday has become connected to a ‘Confession Week’, where both celebrities and ordinary people shared their giving stories online.

Asha Curran, director of the Center for Innovation & Social impact at 92Y, the organisation behind Giving Tuesday, said:

“Our global summit is the chance to come together and learn from one another. At this summit, no one person is the “expert”—everyone has areas they are experts in and each leader shares what has worked well for them with the rest of the community. The result of this peer learning is that the entire movement is strengthened. Each leader represents the best of the social sector globally: they are entrepreneurial, risk-tolerant, and always questioning conventional wisdom and the status quo.”

Five new European countries will also be joining the movement this year: Finland, France, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine. So far, there are now official GivingTuesday campaigns in 46 countries across the globe, from countries as big as Russia, Brazil, India and Canada, to those as small as Croatia and Barbados.