Have You Started Planning Your Giving Tuesday Campaign Yet? You’re Late!
4-Step Fast Action #GivingTuesday Planning Guide
Fortunately, you’re not too late though. But the moment you finish reading this, go plan your next Giving Tuesday campaign.
What’s so great about Giving Tuesday? #GivingTuesday is a rejection of holiday consumerism, so the ‘sales’ pitch is super easy to communicate. Sure, go buy things, but let’s use some of what we would normally give as gifts for relatives and friends, many of whom we only see once a year, and use it instead to make an impact for good in the world.
I love it.
Here’s a quick Giving Tuesday campaign planning guide to save you time.
Step 1: Set Your Giving Tuesday Goal
#GivingTuesday is a special day. It’s unlike almost any other fundraising campaign because it focuses on a single day, and then it’s over. Yes, other campaigns have deadlines, but this is really a one-day power fundraiser. And yes, people can give in advance (and you should invite them to do so), but the idea is to give on that first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, en masse.
With that in mind, your Giving Tuesday campaign must be centered around a single, limited, easy-to-communicate goal.
Do not use Giving Tuesday to ask for donations to “continue our mission” or something vague like that (in reality, you should never be vague when fundraising, but especially on #GivingTuesday).
So find something specific, tangible, defined, and limited in scope.
Great examples include:
- Double a matching gift
- Fund a capital campaign (or part of it)
- Rescue 100 kids
- Feed 100,000 people a Christmas meal
- Get 50 new recurring donors
- Hire a new counselor/caseworker
Examples are endless. The point is – find something your nonprofit needs that is clear, easy to understand, and has a story around it. Why do you need this amount of money, and why do you need it now?
Your goal MUST have a dash of real-world urgency mixed in.
Why is this so important on Giving Tuesday? For one, because it inspires quick action. You want people to decide to give without a lot of thought. Second, because the very next day you can go immediately to your email list and social media sites and share your results.
And if you come up short, that’s okay. If you’re real close, ask people to give a little bit more to reach the goal. If you are far from the goal, use your Giving Tuesday donations as a springboard into your end of year fundraising.
In fact, you can even plan it this way if you know your goal is unlikely to be met on #GivingTuesday alone.
Step 2: Start Promoting #GivingTuesday Several Weeks in Advance
Remember, this is a purely online fundraising campaign. That means email, social media, perhaps text if you have that capability. It could mean Ad Grants too.
I’ve read too many Giving Tuesday campaign recommendations that say to start sending emails out the week before Giving Tuesday.
That’s not early enough.
Here’s a better plan:
- Start emailing and posting several weeks before the Big Day
- I recommend 4-week campaigns, with 1 email and 2 social posts per week leading up to the day
- On #Giving Tuesday, send as many emails and posts as you can stand. Minimum of 2
I’ve used this approach many times, and it has produced big ROI every t
ime. Yes, every time. ProActive Content has never created a Giving Tuesday campaign that failed. Is that because we’re so great? Well… But seriously, it’s because Giving Tuesday just works. The concept is so easy to communicate.
So get your supporters excited about it. Start promoting it weeks in advance. Tell them the stories they need to hear. Tell them how to give. Give them a chance to share some content and get excited about it. Give them the chance to give early if they want.
You can even get core supporters to set up #GivingTuesday Facebook fundraisers, which is like peer-to-peer fundraising, but on Facebook. Here’s a guide for how to set up a Facebook Fundraiser.
If you wait until the last minute to start your campaign, two bad outcomes can happen:
- You’ll catch people by surprise, after they’ve already blown their holiday spending budget (remember – we’re asking people to spend less so they can give more)
- Other nonprofits will have gotten to them first
Get in their minds early, and you’ll come out ahead on the big day.
Step 3: Remind People What #Giving Tuesday Is About
This goes into your campaign messaging, so don’t forget to include it.
In other words, don’t just ask for money to meet your campaign goal. Don’t just tell the stories, explain the impact, put up the photos, and all the other usual fundraising steps.
Make sure to also remind people why Giving Tuesday is special. Remind them what it’s about.
Ask them to spend a little less on gifts, dinners, and other holiday expenses, and set aside money to give to your charity. #Giving Tuesday is the antithesis of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Those days are about spend, spend, spend. Buy, buy, buy.
This day is about generosity, giving out of our abundance, and out of the same love we have for the people we’re buying gifts for. This is about love for people who may not have anyone to give them gifts, and causes that have no one else to fight for them.
Sell people on the values behind #GivingTuesday. It’s bigger than just your nonprofit’s specific mission.
Step 4: Share Your Results the Very Next Day
The beauty of a one-day online fundraiser is you know your results immediately.
Wake up the next day, get the numbers, and blast them out on email and social media. Don’t wait. People want to know. You could call it #WowWednesday.
And again – it doesn’t matter if you come up short of the goal. Ask donors to help bridge the gap. Or, as said earlier, just use this as a springboard to your end-of-year fundraising. Then, people already know the story, so you have less work.
Does Giving Tuesday Steal End of Year Donations?
In short – no. The evidence suggests that Giving Tuesday donors come from a different demographic slice than end-of-year donors, in general.
Here’s an article with some research behind this claim
All set?
To recap, here’s your 4-step fast action Giving Tuesday campaign planning guide:
Step 1: Set Your Giving Tuesday Goal
Step 2: Start Promoting #GivingTuesday Several Weeks in Advance
Step 3: Remind People What #Giving Tuesday Is About
Step 4: Share Your Results the Very Next Day
Need help writing your emails or getting clear about your Giving Tuesday goal?
As I said earlier, ProActive Content has never failed to produce big ROI from a Giving Tuesday campaign.
Ask for help planning and writing your next Giving Tuesday campaign
ProActive Content Giving Tuesday Guarantee
If your campaign somehow ends up being our first failure, meaning you spend more than you earn in donations, we will refund the difference.
So – at the very worst, you’ll break even. But you’ll also have learned something so you can do better next time. And the lifetime value of the donors who do give will turn your ROI positive in the future anyway.
So let’s Tuesday this thing (there… now it’s a verb).
