Giving Tuesday is a global day dedicated to philanthropy, charity, and giving back. Founded in 2012 as a social media hashtag, it always falls on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
The hashtag is an activist movement that draws from the ideals of Thanksgiving (of kindness, community, and giving) to encourage generosity globally. This makes it the perfect day to target some of your NPO’s goals. These include boosting brand awareness, increasing donations, working on outreach, and more.
But do you have a block on how to achieve these and reap the benefits of #GivingTuesday for your organization?
We’ve got a list of 6 easy-to-implement Giving Tuesday ideas to help you get the most out of this growing global celebration of generosity.
Donation pages are necessary tools for any charity organization and targeted campaign. They give possible donors a central place to find important information and make donations.
With a dedicated donation page, you make it easy for your supporters to share a link for people to donate. And if your donation and payment processes are easy to navigate, you’re bound to increase your company income.
For Giving Tuesday, create a campaign donation page that celebrates the day and tells visitors exactly what is about and why they should donate. Also, include clear payment instructions and one-click donation buttons to point users to your payment portal.
To cultivate new relationships, you can suggest other ways that they can support your cause and NPO after they’ve made their donation.
This day can also be a key way to inform people how they can support your NPO. Make information-sharing a central part of your Giving Tuesday campaign. First, make a list of all the avenues you have available for individuals to get involved.
For fundraising purposes, you can center recurring giving programs you run, your donation page, and other ways that you raise money. However, you can also share how people can show their care through sponsorships, volunteering, social media engagement, etc.
Find creative ways of sharing this information including infographics, social media graphics, short clips, blog posts, and more.
The role of social media in NPOs capitalizing on Giving Tuesday cannot be understated.
Create a #GivingTuesday content plan with content ideas that will help you connect to people and tell them why they should participate and donate.
Stories should be at the core of this content-creation process. Rather than make salesy stuff that doesn’t connect to the viewer and can leave them feeling pressured to donate, focus on showing them the humanity of your cause. When you touch people’s hearts, they will remember your story and see the value of your work.
Video does this the best and has proved itself a powerful tool for social media engagement. Use it to show the impact of your organization by featuring testimonials, clips of your team at work, community members’ perspectives, and other positive narratives. Through these stories, your audience can learn why they should donate.
People make NPOs go around. From your team to your volunteers, business sponsors to community members, your network is your treasure. And they have a vested interest in the success of your campaigns. Don’t forget this on Giving Tuesday by just focusing on bringing in new leads.
Ask your people to help you get the word out there and increase donations. You can do this by sending personalized messages via email to your network (i.e.: use email marketing) with Giving Tuesday featured in the subject line. Tell them all about your campaign, latest achievements, and plans for the day. Attach some of your day-specific content and encourage them to share it with their networks.
If you want to take this a step further, you can also run a peer-to-peer campaign. Your network’s family, friends, and personal communities are more likely to show interest and donate when it comes from someone they know.
Sometimes, people enjoy a visual marker of where their donations go. Sharing impact stories and visuals is one way to do this. A live fundraising meter is another. Much like how crowdfunding displays the amount raised by a user or campaign, showing your fundraising progress is a wonderful fool to motivate doors.
Having a visual representation makes it seem more tangible. As it fills after a donation, donors can feel a sense of accomplishment in their contribution.
Although Giving Tuesday is just one day in a year, its impact doesn’t have to be. There are various ways to thread the amazing sentiment and work of this day throughout the year.
First, be sure to thank those who celebrated the day with you. Send thank you messages to everyone who contributed and collaborated with your company, including donors old and new.
After the thank yous, maximize your #GivingTuesday content. Create a blog post of the work you did for the day and the results. You can share this on your social media platforms and also use it as an opportunity to thank social media users, too.
Lastly, consider how you can extend the donation period for the campaign. Instead of a one-day event, how about you make it a whole week celebration running after the day (or even from before as a way to hype it)?
You can also start to build up to the coming year by sharing the date for the next giving day and prompting people to join in on the next one. This can include having an option to sign up for next year’s campaign updates via your website.
Giving Tuesday is all about the spirit of giving. It is about connecting people to causes and shining a spotlight on important work and causes. Remember this for whichever of the campaign ideas you choose above. Show people your humanity and focus on connections!
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