Happy New Year from 127 Worldwide!

I’m a big fan of holiday traditions. I didn’t grow up with very many, so once I got married, I quickly got to work forging brand new traditions around the holidays that I hope my kids will love and adapt into their own traditions when they’re adults. Picking a Christmas tree from the farmers’ market on the day after Thanksgiving and decorating it is probably my single favorite holiday ritual, but there’s another that I’ve spent some time thinking about recently.

Giving Tuesday comes along on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and the idea is that after the consumeristic hysteria of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and ideally before you find yourself arm-wrestling a stranger over the last item on your Christmas shopping list, you set aside some time (and money) for charitable giving. I generally appreciate the sentiment of purposefully pausing to consider and intentionally setting aside some resources for the amazing work being done by nonprofits. Yet, I find myself torn, mostly because it seems to me that as Christ-followers, generosity isn’t limited to a specific window of time and it certainly isn’t intended only as a brief interruption to the endless waves of consumerism.

In considering 127’s approach to Giving Tuesday this year, we’ve decided to try something a little different. We know our supporters are not limiting their generosity to just once a year. In fact, 44% of 127’s donors give monthly– a true blessing to our ministry and a testament to the lifestyle of generosity so prevalent among those who have partnered with us. In 2019, we’re flipping the script. Instead of encouraging folks to give to 127 on Giving Tuesday, we want to be in a position where 127 is doing the giving on that day! 

Every generous dollar given to 127 throughout the year supports our mission, but on Giving Tuesday we want to do something truly special. We will be raising funds leading up to Giving Tuesday so that we can give a surprise gift to our partners on Giving Tuesday. These gifts will be for the purpose of providing support for some of their existing initiatives.

Your gift to the We Give on #GivingTuesday campaign will support initiatives such as providing locally-sourced school uniform shoes to children in the Kibera slums, providing high school scholarships to students from Tumaini and various other ministry efforts.

We work to connect and equip local leaders who are caring for orphans, widows, and vulnerable communities all year long. This Giving Tuesday, we want to give our partners a generous gift. Would you join us in making that happen? Your gift throughout November to the We Give on #GivingTuesday campaign will play a huge role in showering our partners with gratitude and generosity. Perhaps this becomes a new tradition for us at 127 Worldwide as we work together to restore hope to the vulnerable.