Have you begun planning for Giving Tuesday? If your nonprofit decides to participate this year, we have a Giving Tuesday Checklist to get you started.
If you’re unfamiliar or new to Giving Tuesday, it’s a global day of giving. Since beginning in 2012, the digital event has grown drastically, reaching over 150 countries and raised above $1 Billion in the USA alone. Taking place on the first Tuesday of December, it kicks off the giving season and is a day to celebrate supporting the community. Especially being so close to Black Friday it’s a nice reminder to keep charity in mind.
What is the point of Giving Tuesday? It can be ample opportunity to raise funds, build awareness around your nonprofit and support your cause! If you’re a smaller charity, it also brings an opportunity for awareness by taking advantage of Giving Tuesday’s hashtags and events. It's the second biggest giving day of the year, right behind December 31st. So if you're looking to be part of the global giving movement we've created a free checklist to help you with your Giving Tuesday campaign.
Giving Tuesday Checklist 2020
Create and Schedule a Content Calendar
Plan out your posts leading up to the big day to get your audience ramped up and in the spirit of giving. Try to keep your posts diverse and offer new information like sharing a fundraising update, fact or goal. Be sure to include a call to action, even if it is to set an alarm for Giving Tuesday, or keep your eyes on the social streams for the day.
After deciding on your content, schedule your posts to keep things organized and make your life easier. Facebook already allows you to plan content in advance, but using software like Later or Hootsuite will organize all your social media posts in one platform.
Use Social Media Ads
Just because your post goes live doesn’t mean everyone will see it. The algorithms on Facebook only show your content to a portion of your followers. Paid posts increase your content’s chances of being seen online and targeting ad campaigns to reach those following your account to reach people who are already supporting you and more likely to give. Since Giving Tuesday happens only once a year it's worth supporting with an ad or two. For more info on social media ads you can listen to our interviews with social media experts Steven Aguiar and Julia Campbell on paid social media strategies. Hootsuite also has a ton of resources on paid advertising.
Remember to be clear in asking for a donation and include a link directly to your donation form. Use google analytic tags and even a Giving Tuesday specific donation form (easy to whip up in Donor Engine!) to track and account for donations that come in over the day. This will make reporting easier and allow you to measure year over year analytics.
Prepare an Email Strategy
In addition to posting on social media, promote your Giving Tuesday campaign through email. Let your donors know that you will be participating and how they can get involved. The best way to plan out your email campaign is to use your CRM. Within your donor database, you can quickly sort through your donors and send emails based on donor segments. If you’re using Donor Engine, insert your fundraising links directly into your email and track your campaigns’ success by seeing open rates, actions, interactions, and responses all from your dashboard.
Designate Staff Members to Manage Your Campaign
Especially the day of, make sure someone is monitoring your donation page and social media channels. Let them know of any troubleshooting issues that may occur and where to direct donors while fundraising.
Prepare Your Stakeholders
Enlist the help of your staff, board and volunteers to help spread your message to their friends and family. Make it as easy as possible by encouraging them to post on their own social media posts or reposting content from your organization’s page. You can even go a step further and craft posts or tweets that they just have to copy and paste onto their accounts or even plan a call-a-thon thanking everyone for their support on Giving Tuesday
Make Sure Your Website is Optimized
If you haven’t already, optimize your site for both web and mobile, but if it’s not, make sure that gets sorted before Giving Tuesday arrives. If you have a designated donation or webpage, test it out, so everything runs smoothly for its launch.
Giving Tuesday can drive a lot of traffic to your site, so look over your webpage and address any issues that would turn away potential donors like broken links or unclear messages. If you are looking for a stunning donation page design, Donor Engine has a ton of free templates within our software that make giving easy. Speak with us to learn more about creating an excellent donation page!
Prepare For What Happens Next
Engage with your Giving Tuesday participants after the event ends to stay top of mind. Have "thank-you” posts and emails ready to go and ask donors to follow you on social media to see the impact of their gift in action. You can also share other ways to give over the holidays by volunteering or send a donor survey to access how donors perceived your campaign.
