Giving Tuesday celebrates with record-breaking 71 million CZK donation total

12/4/2019

This year’s Giving Tuesday donations in the Czech Republic totalled a record-high of 70,990,649 CZK.

This year’s Giving Tuesday donations in the Czech Republic totalled a record-high of 70,990,649 CZK. More than 330 organizations officially registered their activities on the Giving Tuesday website. The donations flowed mostly to charitable projects supporting children, handicapped people, and seniors. The Association of Social Responsibility has been the national ambassador of Giving Tuesday in the Czech Republic since 2016.

„Philanthropic records were broken around the world, including the Czech Republic. This year was really exceptional. More than 70 million CZK was donated for good causes and countless good deeds took place. People donated not only money, but also clothes, food, blood, and their time. But this is not the end of our work. It does not matter whether it is Tuesday or Thursday. We should help each other every day. Every day is the right day for doing good,” said Lucie Mádlová, executive director of the Association of Social Responsibility.

Through the donation platform Darujme.cz, people donated 6,550,674 CZK to the Giving Tuesday projects. As well as financial donations, material gifts were also popular. There were 5 tons of clothes and 640 kg of food donated within employee programs. In addition, people donated 2,287,000 CZK through online food shops Tesco.cz and Rohlik.cz.

The most generous act of Giving Tuesday was a 30 million contract signed between the company Livesport and the educational centre EDUin. „Public interest is the key for changing the educational system and media play an important role in shaping public opinion. Journalists need independent, good-quality information. We are happy that our new partner Livesport will help us to provide them with this kind of information,” said Jan Dolínek, executive director of EDUin.

The most successful public event of this year was the beneficial dancing event StarDance for Centrum Paraple. During the evening people sent 15,235,748 CZK worth of contributions to handicapped people. On Giving Tuesday, many contributions were sent by companies. The largest amount was collected by employees of CEZ Group. The company then doubled the amount and the total of 6,330,562 CZK has been distributed to 104 people in need.

Lots of young people, students, and children joined the Giving Tuesday movement this year. For instance, pupils of school ZŠ Beroun created Christmas cards for seniors living in retirement homes, other students collected money for a real present from the organization People in Need.

The Giving Tuesday celebrations were officially supported by several regional officials such as the head of the South Moravian Region Bohumil Šimek, mayor of Brno Markéta Vaňková, and mayor of Prague Zdeněk Hřib. “I am really happy that the capital city of Prague has actively participated in celebrations of giving and good deeds. On this day, the whole world came together to help, to do good and to give something back to society. Helping people from disadvantages backgrounds, in the form of financial donations, should be a common practice,” said the mayor of Prague Zdeněk Hřib.

Giving Tuesday has been celebrated around the world since 2012, always on the Tuesday following Black Friday, as a contrast to consumerism and materialism. Over the past seven years, this tradition has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity. The Association of Social Responsibility is the national ambassador of Giving Tuesday in the Czech Republic.