Standalone Fundraiser
Team or Connected FundraiserTable of Contents
What Is Giving Tuesday?
GivingTuesday is a worldwide movement to give. On this day, thousands of people worldwide work together by carrying out actions, doing volunteer work or donating to charities. All of this is highly publicised on social media to reach out to the masses. #GivingTuesday was founded in 2012 by the Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact team at 92nd Street Y (a cultural centre in New York City) and has since become a global philanthropic movement.
What Is Interesting About The Date Of Giving Tuesday?
GivingTuesday is celebrated on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (in the US) and the famous shopping events are Black Friday and Cyber Monday. #GivingTuesday2022 falls on November 29 this year. It kicks off the charitable season and the traditional “giving month”.
According to The GivingTuesday Data Commons approximately 35 million adults participated in many ways on Giving Tuesday 2021 in the U.S., a 6% increase over 2020.
GivingTuesday mainly uses the power of social media and the charity of people around the world. It encourages and encourages them to donate time, talents and resources to urgent local and global challenges. Many appreciate #GivingTuesday and see it as a way to compensate for the consumerism of the holidays. And what could be better than being able to give during the holidays?
Is GivingTuesday Something For Me?
Various organisations, from local schools to large international charities, participate in #GivingTuesday. GivingTuesday is suitable for non-profit organisations if you are at least willing to invest time and have the necessary resources at your disposal.
What Does The Fundraising Process Look Like?
Apart from the ideas for GivingTuesday, the fundraising process strongly depends on your non-profit: its size, the available resources (staff, time, money) and the priority that the campaign receives. Yet, there are several steps that your non-profit organisation can follow to make this #GivingTuesday a real success.
1. Plan Well
If you haven’t started in August or September, this is the right time to start planning your GivingTuesday campaign.
- Determine a goal for your fundraising and use the SMART method for this.
- Think of your target group – who do you want to inspire to donate?
- Determine your campaign message – consider having only one message for the entire fundraising at the end of the year.
- Increase your resources – time, money, staff.
- Think about what has worked for your non-profit so far – consider using it again.
- Map how you want to inspire your audience to donate.
- Make a timeline with activities, including deadlines, responsible employees and a list of everyone that needs to be kept informed.
- Decide on internal communication methods – the joint action of the team and communication within and the organisation of the team are essential.
2. Prepare Well
“Success is where preparation and opportunities meet.”
Before you start the fundraising activities, the preparation must take up most of your time. Carefully assemble your call for fundraising – clearly communicate what you want to achieve with this GivingTuesday and why it is important.
- Start developing your fundraising site – this is where your campaign is hosted and how you receive the donations.
- Start developing your content – videos, flyers, blog posts (everything you’ve identified supports the strategy you’ve chosen during the planning).
- Identify community partners, corporate sponsors and/or large donors who can promote and match donations.
3. Promote
- Start promoting your campaign at least 2-3 weeks before #GivingTuesday.
- Send an email to your supporters at least a week before GivingTuesday with an announcement of the campaign.
- Increase the frequency of emails around #GivingTuesday – send at least one email the day before and two emails on the day itself.
- With the help of content and images that you have already created for this purpose, promote all your social media channels.
This is the basic process your non-profit organisation can follow to conduct a fundraising campaign for GivingTuesday. If you are interested in more specific ideas for GivingTuesday, continue reading.
Ideas For Giving Tuesday
1. Provide An Online Fundraising Page
Maybe one of the most essential items on the GivingTuesday task list is creating an online fundraising page to tick off because an online fundraising page is essential for successful fundraising. This is especially the case with GivingTuesday, which is mainly driven by social media and online donations.
Create a special GivingTuesday 2022 fundraising/donation page. Make sure the page is responsive, loads quickly, is well-designed, and clear above all. If a donation page is messy, difficult to navigate, overwhelming or confusing, it lacks purpose: to increase donations. A donor must be able to find your donation link within a few seconds of loading your donation page. It is wise to place the link in the top navigation in the header of the website. Highlight this button/link by possibly using a bright and striking colour.
Not every visitor who visits your website intends to donate. However, most visitors must be convinced. A short but convincing ‘why’ helps. Your donation page should not feel like just a payment processing form. If you choose to work on even one of these ideas for GivingTuesday, make sure you’re doing it right!
2. Show The Progress In Real-time
For campaigns with a relatively short duration, such as this, it is essential to show your donors real-time progress. You can do this by displaying a fundraising thermometer on your donation/fundraising page. Thanks to a visible thermometer with the progress of donations, your fundraisers will be more motivated to raise money, and your donors will be able to view the impact of their contributions in real-time (especially as the thermometer automatically rises when donations arrive).
Displaying the progress bar works great because it shows the purpose and the progress. Also, seeing the thermometer rise through a donation gives a feeling of immediate satisfaction. Finally, a fundraising thermometer is also a way to build trust in your fundraiser.
3. Set Up A Peer-to-peer Fundraising System
Peer-to-peer fundraising for GivingTuesday is an idea with a lot of potential for fundraising. The best source of an organisation, which unfortunately is not always fully used, is the current basis of donors and other supporters. Your current donors and supporters database can help to make the fact that you participate in #GivingTuesday known to their networks. They are also the most likely to donate on the big day.
Ask your supporters to create a personal fundraising page so that they can gather their family, friends and acquaintances and have them donate to your purpose. Make sure you give your fundraisers a specific purpose for fundraising – this will help motivate them. Finally, don’t leave them alone – after all, they do this for your purpose! Send them some tips for fundraising or if you have the resources, train them. Follow them up, encourage them and help them get momentum.
4. Use Price Anchoring
Anchoring tends to accept and trust the first piece of information received before a decision is made. That first piece of information is the anchor and sets the tone for everything that follows.
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Some visitors were first asked an anchoring question: “Would you be willing to pay $ 5 …?” Some were asked “Would you be willing to pay $ 400 …?”
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Those who did not get an anchor were willing to pay an average of $ 64.
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When the anchor amount was $ 5, the average contribution was $ 20.
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When the anchor was $ 400, the average contribution was $ 143.
This is why it is advised to request a specific amount based on the history of donating and the capacity of that person to do direct fundraising. The vast majority of the top 100 non-profit organisations used an approach that included 4-5 proposed donations, coupled with the option to enter an adjusted amount. About half of these organisations emphasised a standard suggested amount (usually as the 2nd or 3rd option).
5. Create And Foster Strong Partnerships
GivingTuesday is intended as a joint effort. Implement this idea of GivingTuesday and let go of the notion of competitiveness. GivingTuesday is not only about raising money for your purpose, but it is also a time to get in touch with potential and current donors. Besides, it is an excellent opportunity to get in touch with companies, other non-profit organisations and movements in your area or country.
This will help increase your visibility and reach. As a result, more donations will flow in, more individuals will promise to do voluntary work, and more people will be aware of your non-profit. The potential that lies here is really huge. Whether you choose to collaborate with just one or two organisations (companies or non-profit organisations) or choose to participate in a large-scale movement – partnerships are essential. Whatever you decide, make sure that you:
- Use the same media kit and hashtags for social media.
- Share each other’s campaigns online.
- Contact celebrities and social media influencers who care about your case and ask them to represent your cause.
- Contact the local and national media and ask them to donate this GivingTuesday media time to your business.
- Develop compelling images (images and videos) and share them across the board.
- Retweet, share, mention – give your partners lots of love!
- Gain insight into the conditions of the partnership – better to set expectations and to prevent potential problems.
- Donate to other organisations on GivingTuesday and set a good example!
6. Focus On The Impact
Donors are more focused than ever on impact. Make sure that the donors in your GivingTuesday campaign know where their money is going. How can that make a difference? Be as specific as possible. View these two examples of fundraising:
“Please donate €10 to help prevent violence against women in Africa.” “With your €10 gift, one healthcare provider can respond to phone calls about domestic or sexual violence in Kenya for one day. Interventions aimed at empowerment help to prevent or reduce violence against women. “
Although both calls for the same amount of money to create the same result, the second one has a much more apparent appeal. The second gives an action plan with a resulting result – the impact is visible.
7. Telling Stories And Video
GivingTuesday has grown enormously! Although it is quite possible to achieve your fundraising goals for GivingTuesday, that time of the year is also hectic. Fundraising calls constantly bombard people, and many organisations compete for their attention. In that noise, it is essential to stand out and find a way to conquer the heart of the donors. One of the best ways to do that is to tell stories.
Our brains are programmed to remember stories and find them attractive. Stories provide an emotional connection. To make good use of the power of storytelling, you can:
7.1. Make a video
Videos are an increasingly popular way to tell impact stories. Video is the way to raise more money in 2018 and increase your reach. Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
Viewers remember 95% of a message when they view it in a video, and this is only 10% when they read it in a text. A video can display characters and situations in a way that a text will never be able to and is much more dynamic than still images. See this video from World Vision as an example.
7.2. Create a positive message
Non-profit organisations sometimes resort to negative messages to evoke feelings of guilt. However, research shows that negative messages do not lead to donations. This does not mean that you should not talk about difficult things; many non-profit organisations have to deal with very unfavourable circumstances. It is about positively framing your story.
7.3. Choose 2-3 critical messages about your organisation
Maybe you would like to add more for a complete communication plan, but 2-3 is sufficient for GivingTuesday. Think of your “why” and not your “what”.
7.4. Choose characters
People sympathise with people. Having recognisable characters is essential because they bring the problems that your organisation addresses to a personal level. It can be difficult for ordinary people to relate to significant social issues such as poverty or hunger.
8. On Social Media – Go Loud Or Go Home
This idea for Giving Tuesday is a must. Giving Tuesday is strongly driven by shares and mentions on social media. Most fundraising is done online, and the movement depends on massive online campaigns and peer-to-peer fundraising.
Here are some things you can do to get the best out of social media:
- Use the digital nerds by mobilising them to share #unselfies. A #unselfie is just a self-portrait where someone writes on a piece of paper about the case they are supporting with the hashtag #unselfie and then places a photo of it on social media.
- Brand your social media accounts. Provide your profile image with the #GivingTuesday logo. Also, align your cover photo with #GivingTuesday.
- Contact your platforms all day long to tweet again and share messages from your supporters about your campaign.
- Share your content (videos, images, blog posts) on social media.
- Name and thank those who shared your messages, especially those who donated during the day. Respond immediately to the comments you receive online.
- Go live on Instagram and Facebook and communicate with your donors or show what is happening behind the scenes at your office.
- Use Thunderclap and get creative with your messages.
- Your messages must contain a link to your campaign or donation page. This link must lead users directly to your donation page.
9. Promote A Monthly Donation Program
Now, this may not seem like a real idea for GivingTuesday, but #GivingTuesday is the perfect time to launch or promote your recurring or monthly donation program.
When a donor sets up a recurring donation, he chooses to donate a predetermined amount regularly. Many people like to donate monthly, bi-monthly or annually, but of course, they can donate as often as they want. A monthly donation is probably the most common form of periodic donation.
Great monthly donation programs have a much higher return on investment than one-time donation programs. The average regular donor gives 42% more in one year than those who make one-off donations. Monthly donors also have a more considerable lifetime income per donor.
Finally, 52% of the millennials more often give a monthly donation than one significant one-off gift. They prefer the ability to show their support without a substantial financial commitment and donate a small amount to a cause they give that they will hardly feel in their wallets.
A monthly donation program is the most effective and easy way to keep the donors of Giving Tuesday out of the 24-hour buzz of social media.
10. Don’t Forget To Follow Up
After #GivingTuesday, it can be easy to forget the aftercare process for your donors/supporters. However, this step is essential for maintaining a good reputation and a good relationship with your donors and supporters. After GivingTuesday:
- You must write a blog post with a summary of the success of your GivingTuesday.
- The day after, you have to place thank you everywhere on your social media.
- You must send an email to the donors to thank them for their donations.
- It would be best if you asked super fans to become ambassadors for the following year.
- You should send an email to those who have not donated and let them know that you are extending the campaign for another week.
- You need to update #GivingTuesday on your website with a “Save the Date” for 2021with an email opt-in.
Conclusion
As a day to give back, GivingTuesday is a great opportunity for non-profit organisations around the world to raise much-needed funds for their worthwhile goals. It is a good time to get in touch with your donors, enter into partnerships, give your finances a boost and try out new ideas for fundraising without having to commit yourself for a whole year! Organise a physical event, find a business partner that matches the donations or make a cartoon – whatever it is that lets your creative juices flow!
Don’t forget to visit # GivingTuesday.org, which is rich in resources, results from previous years, case studies and more. Their toolkit contains ideas, logos and branding materials, videos and more.
View WhyDonate if you want to use a reliable and efficient donation system that ensures that you receive and manage your donations on GivingTuesday!
