In Pasadena, a City of Nonprofits Rallies for a Day of Giving

At Friends In Deed, a Pasadena nonprofit focusing on homelessness, food insecurity, and eviction prevention, today’s  Giving Tuesday campaign has been framed around a stark warning: “deeper needs” await this winter.

Across Pasadena, more than 1,200 active nonprofits are mounting their own campaigns — a concentration that former Mayor Bill Bogaard once described as giving Pasadena “more charitable organizations per capita than any other U.S. city.”

What makes Pasadena’s embrace of this global philanthropy movement particularly striking is its grassroots nature. Unlike cities that have established official municipal programs or mayoral proclamations around Giving Tuesday, Pasadena’s version has emerged entirely from the nonprofit sector itself.

There is no city council resolution, no civic committee, no taxpayer-funded coordination. This is “a community-led, nonprofit-anchored tradition” that operates “without formal municipal recognition.”

Giving Tuesday was first launched in 2012 as “a response to post-Thanksgiving consumerism” by New York’s 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation.

Nationally, the movement generated approximately $3.6 billion in donations from roughly 36 million U.S. participants in 2024, according to a joint report by the Blackbaud Institute and GivingTuesday. Since the movement began, cumulative giving has exceeded $18.5 billion.

Making Dollars Tangible

At Pasadena Humane, the mathematics of giving have been amplified through corporate partnership. The organization’s Giving Tuesday campaign promises to “5x your impact.” The Sterling Pile Trust is committed to matching each donated dollar up to $100,000, and the match window runs through midnight on Dec. 2.

AbilityFirst, which serves people with disabilities and has a Pasadena presence, has developed what organizers call a “menu” approach to Giving Tuesday — linking specific dollar amounts to defined services in ways that make abstract charity concrete. Fifty dollars can fund a community excursion, $500 covers a month of job-coach transportation, and $1,000 provides a year of public-transit access for a participant.

Mayfield Senior School of the Holy Child Jesus in Pasadena exemplifies how educational institutions have adapted Giving Tuesday to their annual fund strategies. The school describes it as “our biggest online fundraising day of the year,” with a 2025 campaign themed “give today, inspire tomorrow,” targeting $250,000 for the Mayfield Annual Fund.

Club 21 Learning and Resource Center timed its annual walk during Down Syndrome Awareness Month in October but kept fundraising open for a month afterward specifically to capture today’s Giving Tuesday momentum — ultimately exceeding its $425,000 goal.

On the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, when social media feeds fill with matching gift announcements and “save the date” reminders, when animal shelters promise to quintuple every dollar and schools connect $50 donations to specific student experiences, Pasadena will have demonstrated once again that formal recognition is not required for a tradition to take hold — and that a city’s philanthropic character can be shaped as much by its residents as by its government.