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Giving Reimagined, Through the Lens of Build Up, Inc.

All over the world, #GivingTuesday has become a moment when generosity rises to the forefront of our minds, especially as many communities experience a heightened level of need. Under the #GivingTuesday banner, volunteers have helped build clinics in rural DRC; a youth after-school organization in Ukraine pivoted to care for children living through war; and soccer clubs in Poland and across Eastern Europe have turned into hubs for refugee families overnight. These examples are only a few ways in which those who want to see change in the world lean in and adapt to world challenges to bring that change to life.

#GivingTuesday continues to be less about a single date on the calendar and more about the ripple effect of human beings choosing to do good, simply because it is good to do.

This year, Build Up, Inc., a member of the Build Up Companies, is asking what that same spirit of generosity might look like in a different kind of space, one many of us move through every day as professionals. Not a village square or a community hall, but a LinkedIn feed.

What does “doing good” mean for grassroots projects that are invisibilized and marginalized, that do not have big-name backers, that are hidden in the blind spots of traditional philanthropy? For leaders who hold their communities together, yet rarely show up in the algorithms that shape attention and opportunity.

In response, we are launching a campaign: #GivingReimagined. Instead of centering dollars raised, we are reimagining what visibility can do. In this campaign, shares, comments, and tags act as tools of solidarity. A like becomes a small act of witness. A share becomes an introduction. A comment becomes a door into a new relationship or resource.

We believe generosity is not only what you give away, but where you place your attention, whose stories you uplift with your platform, and who you refuse to let remain unseen.

And if you are reading this, you are part of this movement, too.

Through #GivingReimagined, we want to explore how social media can be more than a place to perform success. It can be a space where generosity shows up as amplification, as recognition, and as a steady practice of making room for the projects and people who are usually out of frame.

This article was written by Chioma Sophia Amaechi, Senior Program Associate at The Build Up Companies.