We’ve had Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, all aimed at encouraging holiday spending.

Now comes a different day making a pitch to part you from your money. But this gift is not for family, or even yourself. In fact, you might never know exactly who benefited from your participation in #Giving Tuesday.

That doesn’t mean it won’t make you feel good to give.

Giving Tuesday — the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving — has blossomed since it started in 2012, and reportedly drew almost $3 billion in donations in 2021, up 9% from the previous year.

Like the two major shopping days before it, #GivingTuesday offers some definite good reasons — beyond the simple thought of helping some charity or cause achieve their goals — for participating on that day.

Some organizations will provide matching funds, such as Meta, which runs Facebook and has pledged up to $7 million for recurring donations made to charitable causes across its platform, along with covering donation processing fees.

You can go international — all of the recommendations at www.givewell.org are outside the U.S. due to the level of help that can be achieved for every dollar. Many worthy groups can be found in the U.S. as well.

Or perhaps you’d like to keep the money right in the community. At least two area non-profits are listed on give906.org’s Giving Gift Guide 2022, the Upper Peninsula’s #GivingTuesday portal: Dickinson Iron Community Services Agency, which with extra funds can take people off its waiting list who desperately need their home-delivered Meals on Wheels; and Iron County 4-H, a program that “provides positive youth development opportunities” — to donate, make checks payable to Iron County 4-H Council, 2 S. Sixth St., Suite 14, Crystal Falls, Michigan 49920.

The #give906 site, at https://glcyd.org/programs/giving-tuesday/, lists more than 50 U.P. organizations seeking donations, includes a description of their GivingTuesday initiative and a link to donate or to learn more about getting involved. The guide is coordinated by Grow & Lead: Community and Youth Development as part of the GivingTuesday global generosity movement.

“Nonprofit organizations have had to work harder than ever to overcome the challenges of the past year,” Grow & Lead CEO Amy Quinn said in a statement on the website, “yet they persevere because their missions are so important. The initiatives shared in the #give906 Giving Guide show the ingenuity and passion of U.P. organizations to meet the needs of their communities.”

A little advise for #GivingTuesday, and any other time you choose to donate: do a little research on how the money is used and how much goes to the cause rather than management, stay away from businesses trying to tap into the trend as a marketing tool, beware of scammers and be certain the site you use is legitimate.

Otherwise, Giving Tuesday is a great excuse to join a growing global movement and help some great causes.