EA Giving Tuesday is an initiative to direct matching funds from Meta’s (formerly Facebook’s) Giving Tuesday program to EA-aligned organizations.

Background

Giving Tuesday is a holiday celebrated on the first Tuesday after American Thanksgiving (either the last week of November or first week of December). Its organizers describe it as^[1]

a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world. GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Since then, it has grown into a year-round global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.

For the past several years, Facebook has matched some donations made through their site on Giving Tuesday.^[2] Since 2017, a group of effective altruists have organized to direct as much of this as possible to effective charities.^[3] EA-aligned donors have since coordinated tightly to move millions of matched dollars to GiveWell-recommended charities and other highly effective organizations.

The initiative reflects core effective altruist values: maximizing marginal impact, using evidence-based charity selection, and coordinating efforts to achieve better outcomes. Over time, the project has introduced simulations, live alerts, public wrap-ups, and annual retrospectives to help donors give more effectively.