Eight-hundred U.S. nonprofits, foundations, and companies like -- TechSoup's donor partner Microsoft -- are actively promoting #GivingTuesday, a campaign to divert some of the commercial holiday frenzy toward charitable volunteering and donations.

#GivingTuesday is a brand new thing in philanthropy this year. Thanksgiving kicks off the American holiday season followed immediately by Black Friday bargains and Cyber Monday online deals to get the holiday shopping season going.

Giving Not Receiving

The disaster relief NGO, World Vision, is a founding member of GivingTuesday and conceives it as an ongoing tradition to encourage Americans to dedicate the Tuesday after Thanksgiving to get back to the true meaning of the holidays. "It is about community not commercialism; giving not receiving."

Microsoft Citizenship, as a founding partner, is featuring their Give for Youth micro-giving portal that makes it easy for people to fund and follow youth programs around the world.

Give for Youth

Give for Youth is part of the Microsoft YouthSpark program, which is a companywide initiative designed to create opportunities for hundreds of millions of youth around the world.

Through partnerships with governments, nonprofits, and businesses, they aim to empower youth to imagine and realize their full potential by connecting them with greater education, employment, and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Join #GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday invites nonprofits to become members. Registration is no cost and provides a good place to describe your charitable work and also how you want to participate in the initiative.

#GivingTuesday is an umbrella organization and not a funding organization and each partner organization is responsible for its own initiative.