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Wedding Guests Put Aside Traditional Ideas of Gift Giving to Support Couples’ Desire to “Give Back”: In National Survey, 82 Percent of Respondents Would Consider Charitable Gift Certificates as a Present for a Special Occasion
JustGive.org Releases Results of National Surveys in Conjunction
With Launch of Enhanced Charity Wedding Website
San Francisco, Calif. - May 31, 2006
- Charitable giving is playing an increasingly important role in couples’ wedding planning, according to recent surveys conducted by online survey service provider Zoomerang and JustGive® (www.justgive.org), a national nonprofit organization that uses technology to increase overall giving by connecting people with the charities and causes they care most about. Most telling, 82 percent of respondents said they would consider giving a gift certificate that was redeemable with a charitable organization as a gift for a special occasion.
Users of JustGive’s Charity Wedding Registry service cited the desire to “give back” and feeling as if incorporating charitable giving into their wedding was “the right thing to do” as common reasons for considering alternatives to traditional department store gift registries. Additionally, with couples tending to get married later in life, respondents mentioned already having “too much stuff,” and hoping that encouraging guests to give to the couple’s favorite charities would provide balance for the often extravagant nature of weddings. JustGive today released these, and other related details of two national surveys it conducted in conjunction with the launch of its enhanced Charity Wedding website, www.justgive.org/wedding.
“Despite the trendy and often exorbitant nature of the ever-expanding wedding industry, we continue to see steady new demand for charitable resources – from couples wanting to build charity wedding registries to asking about creative ideas for leftover food and flowers. In response, we have enhanced our Charity Wedding website to offer couples access to practical, easy-to-implement ideas that reflect their personalities and commitment to ‘giving back,’” said Kendall Webb, executive director and founder, JustGive. “According to The Wedding Report, the $58.5 billion wedding market in 2006 is expected to be driven by an expected 2.2 million weddings – a three percent increase over last year. Considering average donations per wedding guest using JustGive have risen from $70 to $100 since 2005, that could mean a significant increase in the amount of money going to charity.”
National Charitable Giving Trends
JustGive polled nearly 600 U.S. consumers regarding their charitable giving habits and preferences. Key findings include:
Charity Gift Certificates, a Non-Traditional Idea Whose Time Has Come?: Eighty-two percent of respondents said they would consider giving a certificate that would be redeemable with a charitable organization as a gift: 18 percent said “yes,” 29 percent said they would if requested by the recipient, and 35 percent said “maybe.”
Charity Gift Certificates Also Suitable for Memorials, Birthdays: With multiple selections possible, 72 percent of respondents said they would most likely purchase a charity gift certificate for a memorial, with the next highest response rate, 34 percent, saying a birthday would be an event for which they would likely purchase a charity gift certificate.
Wedding Guests Warming-Up to Charitable Giving: Forty-five percent of respondents said a donation would be a suitable wedding gift on its own, while a slightly higher number of respondents, 48 percent, were more inclined to give a small gift in addition to the donation.
...but Tax Deductions Don’t Encourage Larger Gifts: Despite charity gift certificates being tax deductible, 88 percent of respondents said their donation would remain equal to the amount they would plan to spend on a physical gift.
JustGive Charity Wedding Registry Survey Highlights
Of the JustGive Charity Wedding Registry users who responded to the survey conducted through Zoomerang, 92 percent have only been married once. More than half of respondents were between 30 and 39 years old and tended to select JustGive’s Charity Wedding Registry service because they are more “established” and less in need of material items like place settings and coffee makers.
The majority of couples (43 percent) who had selected “traditional” gift registries in addition to JustGive’s ended up returning, discarding, regifting or never using approximately 10 percent of their wedding gifts.
Most couples (88 percent) using JustGive’s registry service had previously donated to the causes they selected, though fewer (41 percent) had volunteered with their charities of choice. That may be due in part to the fact that most users did not register with local non-profit organizations.
JustGive’s Enhanced Charity Wedding Website
JustGive’s Charity Wedding website has been redesigned with improved navigation and ease-of-use features, while providing users with access to expanded resources that offer creative ideas for incorporating charitable giving with all aspects of their special day.
JustGive’s Charity Wedding Registry service provides couples with a convenient, customizable web page to create and update their registry, make changes or additions, view password-protected reports and share details with guests. Wedding guests can personalize gift messages to the couple with their donation and couples are alerted to new donations through timely email notification. JustGive offers more than one million charities to choose from, including national and local organizations – more than any other charity wedding registry service. Since launching the Charity Wedding Registry in 2003, JustGive couples have raised nearly $1 million for their favorite charities. A range of local and national organizations have benefited from this service, with the highest contributions in the last year being directed to: Citizens for NYC; Human Rights Watch, Inc.; Morry’s Camp; Sanctuary for Families, Inc.; Save the Children; and American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
Couples can also find expanded resources to help them with creative solutions for dealing with leftover food and flowers, learn where to donate wedding and bridesmaid dresses that can be resold to benefit someone who is fighting breast cancer, or explore ideas for volunteering on their honeymoon. Couples wishing to make a donation to charity in lieu of wedding favors can do so through JustGive. They can also consider giving charity gift certificates to members of their wedding party, allowing them to donate to their own favorite causes.
For more information on JustGive’s Charity Wedding Registry, visit the online press kit: www.justgive.org/news/wedding_press.html
About JustGive.org
JustGive (www.justgive.org) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to increase charitable giving across the United States by leveraging unique technology to connect people with more than one million 501(c)(3) charities representing the causes they care about most. JustGive offers services such as charity gift certificates, a charity wedding registry and charity wish lists to make giving a part of everyday lives.
JustGive deducts no administrative costs from the gift other than credit card fees. All donations made through JustGive are tax-deductible, donor names are never passed on without permission, and donors have the option of making anonymous donations to charities. Donors can also keep track of donations made through a customizable password-protected account area, a helpful feature around tax time. For additional information, please visit www.justgive.org.
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