In just its third year, Tuesday’s national day of charitable giving – known as #GivingTuesday – attracted widespread participation, with $34.9 million raised online via five major donation processing platforms, according to initial estimates tallied by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and supported by the Case Foundation. Very early reporting of the amount for offline donations processed by some these platforms as of Noon on December 3rd included an additional $10.8 million was raised offline, for a combined $45.7 million.

Giving results for #GivingTuesday 2014 are expected to grow substantially as offline donations continue to be processed. Online giving represents an estimated 6-10 percent of total annual giving.

More than 296,000 online and offline contributions to charities were made during the 24-hour period that began at 12:00 a.m. on Tuesday December 2nd and continued until 11:59 p.m. The estimates are based on contributions tracked by several major donation processing platforms for nonprofits: Blackbaud, DonorPerfect, GlobalGiving, Network for Good and Razoo.

“It’s encouraging that early results already indicate that Americans donated $45 million on #GivingTuesday this year, highlighting their commitment to making a difference in the lives of others,” said Una Osili, director of research for the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “As tremendous as that amount is, though, #GivingTuesday is not just about the money that is raised, it is also about people and nonprofits engaging with each other to improve the world. In just three short years, the number of people making contributions and the number and types of nonprofits of all sizes receiving those gifts has increased dramatically.”

The 2014 initial results indicate that the amount raised during this year’s #GivingTuesday increased by at least 63 percent over the same period for #GivingTuesday in 2013. The total number of donations is estimated to have increased by at least 53 percent, and the total average donation is estimated to have increased by 6 percent. On #GivingTuesday 2013, a total estimated amount of $28.09 million in primarily online contributions was raised, following an estimated total of $13.46 million in primarily online contributions on #GivingTuesday 2012 collected through several of these platforms.

#GivingTuesday is largely driven by social media and online giving campaigns, demonstrating the popularity of online giving in recent years. Over the course of the day, more than 698,000 tweets mentioning the #GivingTuesday hashtag were shared.This was an increase of 159% percent from 2013.

The Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and Giving USA Foundation will present broader findings on how #GivingTuesday has been affecting year-end online giving in a special Giving USA Spotlight report, to be released at a later date.