4 Smart Ways to Prepare your Org for Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday is taking place this year on November 29, 2022, which means now is the perfect time to ensure your organization is prepped and ready for the upcoming action.
Are you interested in smart practices your team can take to maximize the results of your campaign? You’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll share four key ways that any nonprofit can prepare for Giving Tuesday:
- Determine lofty yet attainable goals.
- Identify any software needs.
- Get ready with matching gifts.
- Launch a digital marketing campaign.
Ready to set your organization up for an impactful Giving Tuesday fundraising campaign? Let’s dive in with our first tip.
1. Determine lofty yet attainable goals.
In order to identify and calculate a campaign’s success, it’s important to begin with a well-crafted objective. In the case of Giving Tuesday (and other fundraising initiatives), we recommend utilizing the SMART goal framework as follows.
Your Giving Tuesday goals should be:
S — Specific;
M — Measurable;
A — Attainable;
R — Relevant;
T — Time-bound.
Here’s an example of an effective campaign objective that meets the above criteria: “To collect $10,000 in individual donations to our Giving Tuesday campaign page by 11:59 on November 29, 2022. As you can see, this is a much SMARTer goal than a more generalized desire to “raise a lot of money.”
From there, you’ll be able to easily track your organization’s progress toward its campaign goal throughout the day. You can even share campaign follow-ups with donors and supporters to inspire participation!
2. Identify any software needs.
The fundraising software you provide to your team is an essential component for maximizing fundraising success come Giving Tuesday, not to mention every day leading up to and following the big campaign.
Consider this quick checklist of types of fundraising tools that we recommend to ensure your nonprofit’s efforts are well-equipped:
- Donor outreach tools
- Online donation forms
- Text-to-give
- Peer-to-peer giving
- Event planning and management
- In-person fundraising
- Donor data management
- Matching gift tools
Luckily, we offer all of the above functionality.
Take the time to walk through this list, and anything else you might need, to determine if your existing tech stack is ready for Giving Tuesday success. If not, now is the time to consider upgrades to your fundraising toolkit so that you still have the opportunity to get up and running by the big day.
Just remember, you don’t want to miss out on potential revenue due to lacking the tools to receive it on any day, especially one with such high potential as Giving Tuesday.
3. Get ready with matching gifts.
You’ve probably heard about corporate matching gifts. You know that these programs allow nonprofits like yours to double donations and stretch donor impact even farther for their causes.
But did you know that, although $2 – $3 billion is donated through matching gift programs, an additional $4 – $7 billion in matching gift funds goes unclaimed per year?
Or that more than 26 million individuals work for companies with matching gift programs—despite 78% of these employees having never been informed of the giving opportunities in the first place?
Or even that 84% of survey participants say they’re more likely to donate if a match is offered, and 1 in 3 donors indicate they’d give a larger gift if matching is applied to their donation—which results in fundraising appeals that mention matching gifts seeing a 71% increase in response rate and a 51% increase in average donation amount over appeals that don’t mention matching programs?
These astonishing facts are provided by Double the Donation’s comprehensive matching gift research—but they also offer the tools needed to increase matching power substantially. And those tools work seamlessly alongside Click & Pledge’s fundraising solution to allow nonprofits to raise more with little to no added effort.
In order to prepare your matching gift fundraising efforts this Giving Tuesday, we recommend—
- Collecting employment information (to identify eligibility status) directly within your online giving forms while donation momentum is high;
- Hosting a dedicated matching gift web page on your organization’s website to spread the word about matching gift opportunities;
- Following up with match-eligible donors post-transaction to provide company-specific matching gift program information and direct individuals to the next steps in their employers’ request process.
The right matching gift strategies enable your organization to raise more through this revenue source. Not to mention, it will empower you to begin closing the matching gift knowledge—and funding—gaps for success. On a day like Giving Tuesday, this can make a huge difference.
4. Launch a Digital marketing campaign.
For the best results, you want your donors to know Giving Tuesday is quickly approaching, even before the day actually arrives. And for that, we recommend launching a digital marketing campaign prior in the weeks leading up to the main event.
This might include—
- Sending text messages informing supporters about your Giving Tuesday efforts;
- Including Giving Tuesday information in your nonprofit’s digital newsletter;
- Crafting dedicated email blasts that highlight upcoming initiatives;
- Adding a Giving Tuesday campaign page to your organization’s website.
Then, be sure to leverage your favorite digital marketing avenues on Giving Tuesday as well! This may involve day-of Giving Tuesday donation appeals, fundraising updates throughout the campaign, and even matching-gift follow-ups.
There are a ton of ways to get your Giving Tuesday campaign in front of your donors. Taking a multi-channel approach can help your organization’s fundraising efforts stand out before, during, and after the big day.
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Giving Tuesday is one of the most popular and effective year-end giving strategies for nonprofits of all shapes, sizes, missions, and more. And when done right, this single day can lead to an even more impactful end-of-the-year giving campaign in the final weeks of the year. Best of luck, and happy fundraising!
