Giving Tuesday encourages people to share money, time and ideas

The day after Cyber Monday, a new campaign in Canada is encouraging people to support community charities or efforts that benefit others.

The Giving Tuesday campaign, which originated in New York, encourages people to think about donating their time and money after a weekend of spending during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

"It's a day where we want people to think about giving. Giving in all forms giving of money, giving of time, anything that makes their community better, we want people to celebrate that, promote it on social media and really just reflect on how this is the start of the giving season for many people," said Kevin McCort, spokesperson for Giving Tuesday in Vancouver.

'Tis the season

McCort says the vast majority of Canadians dogive their time or money to charities, but that they seem more generous during the holidays. About 80 per cent of all Canadians give to charities and about 40 per cent of that money is given to charities in the last six weeks of the year, according to McCort.

"So we're expecting Canadians to give, in monetary terms, some $5 billion in the last six weeks of the year."

Sharing ideas

McCort says the main goal of #GivingTuesdayCA is to celebrate the act of giving charitably and demonstrate how big of a difference it can make.

"It's not designed around a campaign to give more. It's real purpose is to focus the fact that we are generous, that giving makes our communities better places."

#GivingTuesdayCA is also a way for people to share their ideas on giving with others. McCort says he's found that of the people who do not donate time or money to charity, many simply don't know how.

"The reason they don't participate is not because they don't have time or money, it's because they don't know what they can do."

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To listen to the full audio, click the link labelled: Giving Tuesday campaign celebrates charitable acts.