Giving Tuesday is a golden opportunity for non-profits to rally supporters and boost fundraising efforts. In this video, we'll outline the best practices that can help organizations make the most of Giving Tuesday.
#1 Start Early!
Successful Giving Tuesday campaigns don't happen overnight. Begin planning well in advance to create a comprehensive strategy, and to start acquiring names, emails and phones numbers.
Now, there’s no exact right time to start working on the campaign, but it would be ideal to begin growing your list of contacts early in the year so that it’s all taken care of by the time fall rolls around.
And communication to your audience about Giving Tuesday can begin as early as September. Again, there’s no right or wrong way to start planning, as long as you give your team enough time to be strategic at every step.
#2. Craft a Compelling Story
People connect with stories about people. We suggest choosing one impact story to be the flagship story for your campaign, where all communications throughout your campaign stem from. The most essential element of this story? Emotion. Choose a true story that’ll be likely to pull on your audience’s heartstrings. This is when giving happens.
#3. Start Email Communications as Early as September
Begin telling your story a couple months out from Giving Tuesday. Get people excited about your cause and thinking about your ministry before giving season rolls around. Giving Tuesday gives organizations social license to ask for money and to communicate more frequently. Don’t miss that opportunity.
#4. Streamline Your Donation Process
Make sure your website has a user-friendly donation form that isn’t cluttered and asks for only the essential information from that donor. Also make sure this webpage allows for users to set up recurring monthly donations easily. You don’t want poor UX to be the reason for missed donations.
#5. Express Gratitude
Every organization is going to have a different capacity for connecting with their donors. If you’re able to, individually call or text donors to thank them for their gift. Or perhaps you choose to record a selfie video with a personalized thank-you to send to individual donors. These personalized messages can go a really long way.
You can also connect with them over the phone before Giving Tuesday to set the tone for the season of giving — without asking for money on that call. Maybe you send out Christmas cards with a thank-you. At the very least, an email going out to all donors expressing your sincere thanks and giving them your best wishes for the Christmas season is a must. Again, no where in these communications should there be an ask. This is about connecting with the individual and building upon their relationship to your organization.
Those are our top five tips for a successful Giving Tuesday campaign. We wish you all the best as you head into the end-of-year giving season. If you need help strategically tackling your giving campaigns, reach out to us.
