There’s less than one month until one of the biggest giving days of the year: Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday, which takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, is an incredible and growing movement to encourage giving during the holiday season.
Giving Tuesday encourages people to give back to causes they care about at a time when they’re spending a great deal on material items. While 130 million people shopped on Black Friday last year, average spend per person has decreased in recent years. On the flipside, the average gift size on Giving Tuesday last year was $154 per person, for a total of $45.68 million in donations. In contrast, those numbers are on the rise.
Here’s how Giving Tuesday works: Participating organizations build campaigns around the day to raise funds from a broader audience they may not typically reach. All you have to do to participate is register, and then incorporate the #GivingTuesday hashtag into your campaign to reach that broader audience.
If you haven’t launched your campaign yet, don’t worry – we have some tips that will help you map out your plan and make the most of Giving Tuesday:
Start planning now!
Even though there’s still a little under a month until Giving Tuesday, you’ll want to start planning now. The more you strategize and prepare for your campaign, the better off you’ll be when the big day arrives. Here’s what we suggest:
- Decide what your campaign will be centered around. Whether you want to focus on a certain aspect of your organization, building up a particular service you provide, or developing something new altogether, you’ll want your campaign to be focused on something that your audience can understand and engage with.
- Come up with a communication strategy for your campaign. This strategy should be cohesive and encompass all content areas: Your website, blog, email, social – you name it. This strategy should start several weeks before the campaign, so your community knows you’ll be participating and starts to spread the word and get ready to give themselves.
Set fundraising goals
Before you launch your content strategy, come up with fundraising goals. You should have one external goal that you’ll share publicly. This goal should be ambitious, but attainable. Then, come up with a stretch goal to keep in mind internally. This goal will motivate your team to keep going after you’ve hit your external goal. And don’t just set goals, map out what these funds will allow you to do. Be as detailed as possible – it will make a big difference to your team and to your donors throughout the campaign.
Beyond these major goals, develop list of services and support that donors’ dollars will go toward. Donors want to know exactly what kind of impact their dollars will make, so the more you break it down, the better. Think through what a $10 donation will allow you to do, a $20 donation, and so forth, and use this in your content strategy.
Get your team on board
This might be the most important element of your Giving Tuesday strategy, or any fundraising strategy at that. Your team knows how the funds raised will impact the individuals and communities you work with, and so they will be your biggest ambassadors in promoting your campaign. Make sure you share your goals and the impact these funds will have with them, so they know what they’re putting themselves out there for.
Also be sure to provide them with the tools they need to promote your campaign. Share sample social posts and email drafts that they can use as a guide, and give them a list of ways they can reach out to their own networks. Then, on the day of, share and engage with their supportive posts. This will help your campaign build momentum and show that you acknowledge their efforts.
Prepare for execution on Giving Tuesday
Once Giving Tuesday arrives, you need to have a solid plan in place for executing your strategy. You will definitely want to plan to send out a reminder email the morning of, and your social strategy should be ready in advance as well. You’ll need at least one person on board to monitor donations all day. This person or team should be prepared to share posts that you’ve already drafted, as well as share live fundraising updates, and actively engage those who are talking about #GivingTuesday on social.
As you’re developing your Giving Tuesday strategy, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to stop there – you can use it as an opportunity to launch a month-long year-end giving campaign!
If you need some inspiration for your #GIvingTuesday campaigns, check these out.
Do you have tips for making the most of Giving Tuesday, or a really cool campaign that you’ve seen? Share with us! Here’s how: