October 15th, 2021
Last year, nonprofits raised more than $2.47 billion on Giving Tuesday in the U.S. alone. Yes, that’s billion with a B!
Hopefully you’ve brainstormed for this year and are already working on creative assets and implementing your strategy.
Here’s a checklist to help your organization make the most of this once-a-year fundraising opportunity:
And lastly, evaluate your results and start planning for next year. Build on techniques that worked and change those that didn’t!
- Use the Giving Tuesday logo but make it your own.
- Feature a Matching Gift offer if you have one.
- It doesn’t matter how much the match is, just have one.
- Name your campaign if you don’t have a match. You need a strong reason to give.
- For example, “Give the Gift of Health” or “Save a Child” on Giving Tuesday.
- Launch your campaign early.
- Deploy at least one email a week before Giving Tuesday.
- Earlier and multiple times is better. There is no reason why you shouldn’t encourage your constituents to give now — they don’t need to wait for Giving Tuesday to support you.
- “Brand” your emails, donation page, and automated gift receipts and thank yous to Giving Tuesday.
- Use #GivingTuesday in all your email and all your social media promotions AND create a Giving Tuesday hashtag that you can own.
- Make sure your donation page is mobile friendly — big boxes for ask amounts, third-party payment options like ApplePay, Google Pay, PayPal — to encourage easy online donations and attract a younger donor.
- Create a video if you have time — especially with the explosion of TikTok!
- Create a social media campaign to acquire donors.
- Promote Giving Tuesday in your e-newsletters.
- Include #GivingTuesday in your Google ad.
- Go ahead and search Giving Tuesday and see what nonprofits are at the top.
- Schedule an email the day before Giving Tuesday to remind your constituents.
- Competition for the Inbox (and share of wallet) is fierce, so deploy emails throughout the day on Giving Tuesday.
- A minimum of one in the morning*.
- A minimum of one in the late afternoon or evening*.
*In 2020 donations seemed to ramp up between 9am and 11am in relative time zones — however some nonprofits reported a big uptick in donations after 7pm.
- Grab their attention with a great subject line and if you’re deploying multiple times throughout the day, change the subject line and add an emoji or personalization.
- Use a GIF in some of your email templates. Make sure it will render properly with the new iOS update.
- Use a different “signer” or ”from” sender than usual to stand out in the Inbox.
- Demonstrate your immense gratitude to those who donated with a Thank You email the day after Giving Tuesday.
- Deploy an email the day after Giving Tuesday to non-donors letting them know it’s not too late.
Good luck! We hope these tips help your nonprofit get your share of #GivingTuesday!
Blog written by Barbara Johnson | Vice President of Client Services