The Ultimate Guide to Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday: Let’s do this!
If you’ve been a part of the Out in the Boons Community for a while now, you know that I’m not a big Giving Tuesday fan.
...well, it’s not that I’m not a big fan, but it’s more like I see WAY too many nonprofits:
Put all of their eggs in the Giving Tuesday basket
Stop asking for donations during the rest of the month of December which statistically sees the highest rate of donations in a year, with the most coming in the last three days of the month
That being said, if there was ever a time to say, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” it would be now.
And so, if you are going to be a player in the game, you might as well play well.
Here is my complete guide to mastering Giving Tuesday:
Step 1: Make Giving Tuesday a part of your entire end-of-year campaign strategy.
In 2019, it is reported that donors gave $511M on Giving Tuesday. In 2018, that number was $380M. That’s a lot of dough. But when you remember that there are 1.5M nonprofit’s in the US - you come back down to earth and recall what I always say, “there are no silver bullets in fundraising.”
Giving Tuesday is one of the most saturated giving days of the year. For example, last year I received 38 asks for donations in my inbox from 32 different organizations (yes, some organizations sent more than 1). Therefore, it is my strong advice to make Giving Tuesday one piece of your end-of-year giving strategy, but not the entire thing.
Step 2: Set a Giving Tuesday specific donation goal
Donors LOVE to reach goals. So give them one. Using a power statement, on Giving Tuesday, you want to communicate your financial goal and the specific impact that amount of money will do for your organization as a part of your larger end-of-year campaign.
For example: Your end-of-year goal is $50,000 to rescue 500 dogs from high kill shelters and bring them home to their forever families.
Your Giving Tuesday goal could be: You have the power to help us raise $10,000 TODAY to help us get 20% closer to our goal of saving 500 dogs in high kill shelters.
Do not go general on this statement. The more specific you can be - the better.
Step 3: Recruit outside help
Did you know, on average it can take 18 months to convert a cold lead into a major gift donor? That’s a long time and I’m guessing you don’t have the kind of runway room.
The fastest way to slice down that 18 month time period to basically 0 is through outside help: aka Peer-fundraisers.
Peer-fundraisers are champions, board members, volunteers, advisory committee members or anyone involved in your organization who will reach out to their personal and professional networks on your organization’s behalf.
Let’s say you recruited 10 peer-fundraisers who each reached out to 10 family, friends or co-workers. That is 100 new potential donors that you wouldn’t have gotten in front of AND who are likely to give just because they were asked by someone they know, like and trust. Real life: anytime a friend or family member asks me to donate to a cause they love, I do it. It might only be $25, but it’s still more than $0 and sometimes, nonprofit organizations do a great job of stewarding me which results in more, larger donations over time.
Pro tip: When recruiting peer-fundraisers, offer them a fundraising toolkit complete with talking points, email swipe copy and images. It makes them asking (and wondering what to say) super easy.
Step 4: Secure a match donation
Nothing is more motivating than a match donation. When you already have a donation secured - it builds credibility for your organization (people like to bet on a winning horse) and it makes people think they just have to help you cross the finish line.
Try recruiting a match donation (the amount is less important) from one donor or perhaps a collective (for example, from your board members).
Step 5: Make sure your list segmentation is on point
I believe priming your donor audience is critical prior to running your end-of-year campaign. That means if you are currently communicating with your donors on say a quarterly basis - I want you to turn the dial up to at least monthly. For social - I recommend at least 3x per week.
That might mean that you get some donations in during your priming phase. Therefore, as with your entire campaign, you want to be really smart about your list segmentation.
If a donor has recently given to your organization (for example, in the last 30-60 days) - they need to go into the “nurture” phase of communication - or more commonly called: stewardship. This means that you should NOT continue asking them for money. There is nothing that makes a donor feel less seen than them just giving you a donation and you keep asking them for money.
Throughout your entire campaign, but especially Giving Tuesday, make sure that your filters are set so that if someone donates - you do not ask them for money again until your nurture phase is complete. Instead - you should put them through a 7 point thank you series that I’ll teach about more soon.
Lastly, my strong recommendation is to do the above, but ultimately, to put out one social post and one email blast to your segmented list on Giving Tuesday - that is it. And after Giving Tuesday - make sure you keep on asking all the way through December 31st.
Good luck!
P.S. Want to save time this Giving Tuesday while raising more money? Check out my customizable Giving Tuesday templates made for email and social media that I’ve personally used to help nonprofits raise big money.