PayPal sets world record on Giving Tuesday
Melanie May | 11 January 2016 | News
PayPal has won the Guinness World Records title for ‘Most money raised online for charity in 24 hours’ for its achievement on 2015’s Giving Tuesday.
PayPal users gave more than $45.8 million to charities in 24 hours, more than doubling the previous record of $19 million.
Overall during the 2015 festive period, $857 million was raised globally for charities through the PayPal platform between 27 November and 31 December. PayPal’s Holiday Giving Tracker, which launched last year, showed that 7.24 million people from 183 countries supported 258,759 charities around the world during this time, giving 9.1 million donations with an average gift size of $93.
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Charitable giving through PayPal grew by more than $113 million: a 15 per cent increase over 2014. The number of benefiting charities grew as well, with 258,759 charities receiving gifts: a six per cent increase over 2014.
21 per cent of the donations given by PayPal users during this period came from mobile devices, an increase of 26 per cent on the previous year.
The USA and UK were the top givers: Americans gave more than half a billion dollars ($691,924,261) through PayPal this holiday season, while those in the UK gave $49,377,896.
Franz Paasche, VP, corporate affairs, PayPal said:
“We believe passionately in harnessing the power of our people, technology and scale to build a global network for good. The sustained surge in giving through PayPal’s platform over the past holiday season is a powerful demonstration of how we are turning this vision into reality.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.