Giving Tree is Guardian campaign of the week
Howard Lake | 20 December 2005 | News
The concept of the Giving Tree is this week’s Campaign of the week in the ethical living section of The Guardian’s G2 supplement.
The Giving Tree is a method of encouraging shoppers to give a present or donation to a child in need. The tree typically appears in shopping centres covered with labels saying “Boy, 4” or “Girl, 2”, and these relate to individual children in, for example, a local hospice.
Shoppers take the label of their choice to a shop, buy an appropriate present, and then this is wrapped and delivered on their behalf.
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Giving Trees have been around since at least 1989 and are very popular in the USA, although they have now started to appear in the UK and other countries.
While they often focus on children and are set up by children’s charities, there is no reason why other causes can’t benefit. The Giving Tree is certainly reminiscent of virtual or beneficiary gifts, which are so popular at present. So, a Giving Tree could easily be decorated with labels saying “teacher training pack”, “mango plantation”, “malaria nets for a family”, or other labels appropriate to an international development charity.
Similarly, there’s no reason why a Giving Tree can’t be virtual itself and exist online. In the USA it seems the Salvation Army was one of the first nonprofits to set up a web-based Giving Tree.
Let us know if you’ve used the concept of a Giving Tree, whether online or offline, to raise funds.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.