Giving Compass' Take:

· According to Ben Paynter at Fast Company, Facebook online fundraisers raised $125 million on Giving Tuesday and both Paypal and Facebook contributed $7 million each. 

· What is Giving Tuesday and how did it become so big? Where is the money that was raised going? 

· Check out how Facebook has participated in charity in the past. 

Facebook online fundraisers raked in $125 million for charities on Giving Tuesday. That’s nearly three times more than the $45 million that the social network helped people raise on the same day last year.
For donors, part of the lure was a huge matching program provided by both Facebook and PayPal. The companies agreed to mirror up to $7 million in contributions on a dollar-per-dollar, first-come, first served basis. The fine print: It was capped at $250,000 per nonprofit and $20,000 per donor.

If the incentive sounds like a Black Friday door buster, it disappeared just as fast. The funds became available at 8 a.m. Eastern time, and were gone within “a matter of seconds,” according to a Facebook spokesperson. At 9:05 Eastern, the company issued an update (“Wow, that was fast!…”) confirming the deal was over.

Read the full article about Giving Tuesday by Ben Paynter at Fast Company.