Tis the season to be… generous? Christmas is synonymous with acts of kindness and giving to charity is a big part of that – which is why it’s such an important time of the year for most good causes.
That’s why we pull together our annual Christmas Giving Insights report, to help charities understand the best weeks, days and even hours for festive donations.
So what have we learnt about Christmas donations from last year? We’ve picked out a few key findings.
Early December leading the way
December 1st was the best day for festive giving in 2023. It’s actually the first time in the five years of this research that a day in Week 1 has come out on top, the next earliest being December 11th in 2020. Donations on December 1st accounted for nearly 5% of the month’s total giving, far above the 3.2% daily average for December.
The share of donations for the best performing day in 2023 (4.9%) is the same as it was in 2022, showing that festive giving is spreading more evenly since hybrid working has been more widely adopted. When this research was carried out for 2019 (pre-pandemic), the best performing day had 7% of the month’s donations.
Days and weeks
While December 1st (4.9%) was the best day for volume of donations, December 21st was actually the highest value donation day by income. The second busiest day for festive donations in terms of volume in 2023 was November 30th (4.8%) with December 5th (4.7%) coming in third. December 7th (4.5%) took up fourth spot and December 22nd (4.4%) was placed in fifth.
Over the 2023 Christmas giving season, Friday came out as the most popular day for donations. On average, a Friday had 3.8% of the season’s festive donations. This was just ahead of Thursday at 3.7% and then followed up by Tuesday and Wednesday (3.6%) in joint third.
Charitable organisations want to avoid the weekend. Weekends are typically quieter for giving all-year round and December is no exception. Saturday and Sunday both averaged 2.7%, despite December 23rd and Christmas Eve falling on a weekend. Monday was the worst performing of the weekdays at 3.3%.
In 2023 it was Week 1 that was the best performing with the days of the week averaging 4.1% of the month’s donations. And with the best performing donations day landing on December 1st, it suggests that the public see the start of December as the beginning of the festive giving period. By Week 5 Christmas giving can be considered finished, as it has been in every edition of the report, dropping to less than half of Week 1 at 1.8%.
Golden hour?
While not a single hour, 10am – 1pm is the golden slot for donations based on the 2023 data, a trend that has continued from the previous year. 11am – a previous winner – reclaimed first place with 7.7% of the day’s donations on average. 12pm (7.4%) picked up second spot ahead of 10am (7.3%). Charities will want to avoid scheduling appeals, social media posts and emails before 9am and after 9pm as they will see diminishing returns.
“When it comes to the festive giving season, charities can start their Christmas appeals in late November confident that plenty of people will donate to their cause early on. December 1st was the most popular giving day last year and 30th November came in at number two, fashioning a place for itself as ‘Christmas Giving Eve’. Focusing efforts close to the typical November and December paydays could prove fruitful for charities.”
Chester Mojay-Sinclare, Enthuse Founder & CEO
Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday has struggled to stand out from the crowd in recent years and 2023 was no exception. At 4.4% of donations for the festive giving season it wasn’t enough to be the best performing day in its week (December 1st 4.9%, November 30th 4.8%). What’s more, it wasn’t even the best performing Tuesday of the month, with December 5th (4.7%) finishing ahead of it. Falling on December 3rd amidst a busy Week 1 for charitable giving, it may well struggle to differentiate itself again in 2024.
Want to see the full picture? Get your free copy of the Christmas Giving Insights report.
