NEW YORK & SAN JOSE, Calif.--PayPal (Nasdaq: PYPL) today reported that $857 million was raised globally for charities through its platform during the holiday season from November 27 to December 31, 2015. This unprecedented level of year-end charitable giving was driven by the generosity of 7.24 million people from 183 countries who supported 258,759 charities around the world.
“PayPal is unlocking the generosity of global citizens by making it simple and secure for them to give to charities through their connected devices,” said Franz Paasche, VP, Corporate Affairs, PayPal. “We believe passionately in harnessing the power of our people, technology and scale to build a global network for good. The sustained surge in giving through PayPal’s platform over the past holiday season is a powerful demonstration of how we are turning this vision into reality.”
As a global leader in enabling charitable giving, PayPal shared milestones and trends in charitable giving during this past holiday season, including the debut of the PayPal Holiday Giving Tracker.
Record-Breaking #GivingTuesday
Additionally, PayPal was officially awarded the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® title for “Most money raised online for charity in 24-hours”. On #GivingTuesday, December 1, 2015, PayPal users gave more than $45.8 million to charities in 24-hours, more than doubling the previous record of $19 million.
Holiday Giving Up 15%
Over the past holiday season, PayPal users donated more than ever before. Charitable giving through PayPal grew by more than $113 million, representing a 15 percent increase over last year. The number of benefiting charities grew as well. A total of 258,759 charities received gifts this year, which resulted in a 6 percent increase over 2014.
Mobile Donations See a Spike
The old models of fundraising are rapidly giving way to a new paradigm with mobile devices at the core of how people connect with their favorite causes. Of the 9.1 million gifts made using PayPal over the holiday season, 21 percent were from mobile devices. The total number of gifts via mobile devices during this period was up 26 percent from the previous year.
Surge in Giving Was Global
In the 183 countries where people gave using PayPal, bigheartedness reigned supreme. Americans gave more than half a billion dollars ($691,924,261) through PayPal this holiday season*. The United Kingdom ($49,377,896), Canada ($42,959,820), Germany ($16,752,694), France ($14, 415, 355) and Australia ($13, 023, 564) followed next as the top countries ranked by the total amount given year-end.
Over 7.24 million donors around the world gave an average gift of $93 through PayPal’s platform to charities that support causes like children, seniors, veterans, education, healthcare, animal protection, anti-poverty, financial inclusion and participation.
“The spirit of giving during the holiday season funds our programs in 120 countries around the world including the United States. The sum of many small donations can make a really big difference in children’s lives,” said Ettore Rossetti, Senior Director of Social Business Strategy and Innovation at Save the Children. “We thank all our donors who helped us bring smiles to more children during the holidays.”
*Holiday season includes PayPal charitable giving data calculated from November 27, 2015 to December 31, 2015
About PayPal
At PayPal (Nasdaq: PYPL), we put people at the center of everything we do. Founded in 1998, we continue to be at the forefront of the digital payments revolution, last year we processed 4 billion payments, of which 1 billion were made on mobile devices. PayPal gives people better ways to connect to their money and to each other, helping them safely access and move their money and offering a choice of how they would like to pay or be paid. With our 173 million active customer accounts, we have created an open and secure payments ecosystem that people and businesses choose to securely transact with each other online, in stores and on mobile devices. PayPal is a truly global payments platform that is available to people in 203 markets, allowing customers to get paid in more than 100 currencies, withdraw funds to their bank accounts in 57 currencies and hold balances in their PayPal accounts in 26 currencies. For more information on PayPal, visit about.paypal-corp.com.