Giving Tuesday is a day of global giving – an antidote to the consumerism of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, unsurprisingly it falls just after these two days so usually the last Tuesday in November and this year it was Tuesday 27 November.
Giving Tuesday, powered by CAF in the UK, has been running here since 2014, having originated in the US in 2012. It now runs officially in over 40 countries worldwide and is powered by lots of different organisations, but by CAF in Russia and our sister organisation Bcause in Bulgaria. Many of our global offices support the lead organisation in their country.
We use Giving Tuesday to encourage as many people as possible to do something for charity, whether that is through a donation (money, clothes, household items), volunteering their time, campaigning for a good cause, or buying something (maybe a Christmas present) from a charity shop!
This year the CAF Venturesome team volunteered at two of our investees; St Mungo’s and Tapestry Care UK.
Half of our team participated in a Train & Trade Multi Skills workshop (plumbing, lock fitting, decorating) at St Mungo’s in Southwark, London, whilst the other half of the team volunteered at Tapestry Care UK’s day centres in Hornchurch and Romford, Essex.
Visiting our investees, hearing their impact stories and seeing first-hand what they do is very important for all our team. We spend most of our weeks in our London office - generating enquiries for social investment, raising funds, meeting other social investors, speaking to potential investees and writing up social investment loan applications for our monthly investment committee meetings; but it’s the days out and about all over the UK, meeting new and existing investees, that really mean the most to us and thanks to CAF we are encouraged to give our time on Giving Tuesday. It reinforces why we do what we do and we are humbled by the work that social enterprises and charities do every day.
Some photos of our happy team!