In the Classroom

Participation Guide for Teachers, Schools, After-School Programs + Youth-Serving Organizations

Quick Start Guide

1. Discuss with your students what social issues matter most to them. There are discussion guides, curriculum, and worksheets at GivingTuesdaySpark.org

2. Invite your students to develop their own class or individual projects on November 29, 2022 to help move the needle on that issue. Get inspiration on our Ideas page.

3. Register your classroom project at GivingTuesdaySpark.org

4. Take photos and short videos of your project in action and share on social media using #GivingTuesday and #GivingTuesdaySpark!

   Note: Sharing on social media is optional, we respect children’s privacy. Doing the project and learning how amazing it feels to give, is the more important part!

THINGS TO KNOW

What is GivingTuesday?

GivingTuesday started as a day for anyone, anywhere to give, and it's grown into the biggest giving movement in the world.

Celebrated each year on the Tuesday following U.S. Thanksgiving, and fueled by the power of social media, GivingTuesday inspires millions of people across the globe to show up and give back to causes and issues that matter to them. The goal is to create a massive wave of generosity that lasts well beyond that day, and touches every person on the planet. GivingTuesday takes place on November 29, 2022 this year.

GivingTuesday History

When GivingTuesday launched in the US in 2012, we believed that technology and social media could be used to make generosity go viral; that people want to give and to talk about giving; and that society had the capacity to show more innovative leadership, creativity, and collaboration. People and organizations around the world proved us right. In just seven years, GivingTuesday has changed how we think about generosity and showed just how much power communities everywhere have to create change.

Learn More:

GivingTuesday, Explained (Vox)

How GivingTuesday Became A Worldwide Phenomenon (Fast Company)

How GivingTuesday First Got Started (Time Magazine)

What is #GivingTuesdaySpark?

Led by and for young people, #GivingTuesdaySpark is all about giving young people the agency to create change in their own community and inspire generosity throughout the world. We strongly believe that if we can change behavior - make people more likely to default to kindness, empathy, and radical generosity - that we will create the just society we all want to live in.

Step 1: Find Out What Issue Matters Most To Your Students

What causes or issues are most important to your students? Check out our portal to help them discover and learn about various issues. 

Step 2: Teach a Lesson on That Issue

With the help of Learning To Give, we’ve developed curriculum, toolkits, and resources to help you teach generosity on our Teacher Resource page. We encourage you to differentiate the curriculum to meet the different needs of your students, and adapt curriculum into a remote/virtual or hybrid teaching model if need be.

Step 3: As a Classroom, Decide on an Activity To Do Together

Identify a project your students can do together, either during school or after, to help move the needle on the cause they’ve been learning about. Find projects that leverage the educational skills you are seeking to develop in your students and allow your students to  collaborate, share ideas, have autonomy, and take accountability for their learning.  Register your project here.

Project Ideas

You can find a lot of ideas at GivingTuesdaySpark.org. Here are just a few thought-starters – the sky is really the limit. If your students are interested in:

1. Combating climate change: clean up a neighborhood playground, park or beach; plant a garden; harvest fruits & vegetables; or plant trees

2. Support other young people: collect and donate school supplies; run a toy drive before the holiday season; visit a children’s hospital

3. Spreading kindness: make a generosity wall to spread kindness; write random-acts-of-kindness prompts and put them in public spaces

4. Helping the homeless: prepare care kits and deliver them to homeless shelters; volunteer at a soup kitchen; have a clothing drive and donate to a shelter

5. Assisting the elderly: provide help at the supermarket; write and send out “get well soon” cards; visit a nursing home and put on a performance or concert; provide meals

6. Animals: volunteer at an animal shelter; set up a donation drive to support animals in need; advocate for animal adoption

7. Supporting our servicemen and women; write thank you messages to first responders; spend time with retired Veterans; send letters to troops overseas; sew “comfort quilts” for children with parents overseas

8.  Addressing bullying: ask your school or after-school activity to set up a “stomp out bullying” discussion; offer words of kindness in-school and on social media

9. Hunger and tackling food insecurity: Create bagged lunches, insert kind notes, and give them to anyone who might be hungry. Visit #HashtagLunchbag to learn more.

10. Social justice and fighting inequity: help your students organize a virtual rally, write letters to elected officials about a local policy change, create an awareness campaign to teach others how to be anti-racist.

Step 4: Building Your Class Project

Decide on your goal.

You can plan multiple small volunteer actions throughout your school and community or put all your effort into planning one big event! You decide your goal.

• What will your volunteer action be?

• What supplies will you need?

• Create a timeline to help plan your actions! Plot the steps your group will take to gear up for your volunteer actions around the school or community, including how you will rally people together to participate.

Think about what to measure.

On December 1st, the day after GivingTuesday, we’ll ask you to report back on your project. Think about how you can quantify the impact of your project. For example

• If you’re picking up litter in your neighborhood, can you weigh the garbage bags to find out how much you collected?

• If you’re passing out care kits to people experiencing homelessness, how many bags did you give away? 

• How many volunteers joined your project? 

Spread the word

• See if your school and the after-school activities you are engaged in can post about your project on social or in newsletters. 

• See if your local news, tv, or radio will cover your project!

• Post #GivingTuesdaySpark posters in lobby areas, cafeterias, etc. These are available free for download at GivingTuesdaySpark.org. 

• People want to know their time is being invested in something that will make a difference. In your group’s recruiting messages, get people excited and engaged by emphasizing the global scope of #GivingTuesday and the importance of the particular causes that you all have selected to support. 

Step 5: Ready, Set, Go!

Put the plan into action.

Whatever you and your students decide to do on November 30, 2021 -- put your plan into action. 

Share what your group is up to.

Whether you are using social media or not, be sure to share what you do! Tell your schools, community, and local businesses, post on social media, and have students reach out to family and friends. The more people hear about the amazing acts of generosity your students are up to, the more they will be inclined to support your group’s causes or even participate themselves!

Reflect with your students.

Have students do a think-pair-share and write about their experience and reflect on their generosity initiatives!

Use these questions as prompts:

• How did it feel to help others? Do you feel like you had an impact? 

• Why is it important to ask others to join you?

• What could be done better next time?

• How will you take your volunteer actions further or continue your actions?

• Visit GivingTuesdaySpark.org and share what you did and include your photos, videos, and how many people participated in your event, and any other ways you can quantify your project.

Step 6 - Take The Next Step

Generosity and giving doesn’t just stop once GivingTuesday is over! We believe that if we create a habit of giving that it stays with young people for a lifetime, and will lead us to the world we all seek to live in.

We always want to know how your students are doing and how we can support your efforts. As well, we will want to keep you updated on what’s happening in the GivingTuesday movement, on resources that can help your students, and how we can help amplify your platform, so let’s keep in touch! 

• Take it a step further and start a Spark chapter! As a teacher, year round, you would help guide your students in generosity initiatives big or small and you would be joining a global movement of generosity and changemaking and even be added to our global map of community campaigns and Spark chapters. Learn more about Spark Chapters.

Notes on Students’ Privacy

Privacy 

We’re committed to children’s privacy. When you and your students register your project, that information goes to the GivingTuesday team only via a secure server. We don’t ask for students’ names or ages, simply how many in your classroom are participating on a project and a general location of where you are. We will never, under any circumstances this information or give it to anyone outside of the GivingTuesday team. Your email address will only be used to communicate directly with you, to follow-up on your students’ project and to let you know about next year’s #GivingTuesdaySpark activation. 

Sharing Your Students’ Project on Social Media

We believe strongly that when we share our generosity, it inspires others to be generous as well, creating a ripple effect that will change our world. While we encourage social sharing, please know that sharing on social is not at all required for you and your students to participate in #GivingTuesdaySpark. Please obtain parental consent if you share on your school’s social media page and be aware that we may share to the GivingTuesday social media channels.

Tips for Social Media Safety

• A good way to keep kids safe online is to post to “friends only” on Facebook, or to a locked Twitter or Instagram account. Keep in mind our team won’t be able to see it or share it if you do though. If you would like us to share your student’s project, you can share publicly and tag @GivingTuesday or email us the images and a brief description at spark@givingtuesday.org.

• For your child’s safety, please turn off any geolocation tagging when you post on social and don’t “check-in” anywhere while you’re doing your project.

Photo/Video Use Policy

We will be  sharing social media posts with the hashtag #GivingTuesdaySpark on GivingTuesday’s social media channels on and after GivingTuesday, as well as sharing photos/videos of youth projects with media outlets.  We will not be sharing children’s full names or their exact locations. When you register your project, there’s a checkbox that acts as a photo release. If you would rather your students’ images not be used for these purposes, please email us at spark@givingtuesday.org.