NEW YORK—Eyecare and eyewear industry NGOs, foundations, organizations, companies and eyecare professionals will take part in tomorrow's Nov. 30th #GivingTuesday initiative. This will be the 10th year of Giving Tuesday, "a worldwide celebration of generosity" designed to "drive generosity in every country in the world, continuing to inspire millions to be generous year-round." Thousands of organizations and nonprofits take part in the spirit of the event every year. The Giving Tuesday website offers a range of free, downloadable toolkits, including a range of social-media friendly resources, fundraising ideas and suggestions and more, here. The toolkits and resources are tailored to individuals, small businesses, companies, brands, schools and college and communities.




SUNY Optometry is Reminding People to Support Vision Causes.
  
Major online and social platforms, including Amazon, Meta (Facebook) and others, are expanding their commitment to support #GivingTuesday initiatives, which will continue in December for all types of causes and offering concurrent dollar donation commitments. TikTok's announcement includes a series of livestream fundraisers and the platform will also allocate $7 million to direct donations to various organizations. The increasingly popular TikTok is launching #GivingSzn to spread the word and involve many charitable causes, ranging from health care to environmental social, cultural and diversity programs. TikTok explains the range of #GivingSzn in its newsroom here.

Amazon Smile is a program from the online giant which is already contributing to more than a million charities and causes.The program donates 0.5 percent of the price of eligible purchases and customers can choose which groups to support. This week, Foundation Fighting Blindness which works to drive research that would lead to prevention, treatments and vision restoration for those suffering from degenerative retinal diseases, reminded its supporters to share the word about the program during this year's #Giving Tuesday.








#GivingTuesday is happening across the globe.

Foundation Fighting Blindness reminding donors about Amazon Smile.

Optometry Giving Sight is encouraging generosity.
      







Prevent Blindness will give 'Make A Wish' bracelets to donors.

Restoring Vision is launching the 'New Lens on Life' Campaign.


Meta (the new corporate name for Facebook) also announced it was expanding ways for people to give to charities and various causes via both the Faceook and Instagram platforms this year. The company is matching up to $8 million in donations made to eligible fundraisers on Facebook, and it is expanding access to fundraising on Instagram so that more than 1.5 million organizations can bolster their causes. The company said that since it first launched fundraising tools, more than five years ago, its community has raised more than $5 billion for nonprofits and personal causes on Facebook and Instagram. Info and details about the structure and program is posted here. Consumers can check out Facebook fundraiser choices here.

Hundreds of vision care organizations and many ECPs and optical retailers are involved in spreading the word about their causes for #Giving Tuesday. Just a few examples include: Restoring Vision, which has launched "A New Lens on Life" campaign with the support of National Vision's 20/20 Quest Foundation, as VMAIL reported last week. Prevent Blindness is reminding people of its work to support a range of vision-related diseases and SUNY College of Optometry in New York, through its Optical Center of New York, is also communicating about its work to support eyecare and research during #GivingTuesday.