Two months from now, community foundations and nonprofits will send out a slew of emails urging donors to give what they can on GivingTuesday.
Some campaigns will be sophisticated and include multiple partners. Others will be more of a one-off message to drum up contributions.
Regardless of the type of GivingTuesday campaign, chances are those organizations started thinking about their campaigns right around now.
A successful GivingTuesday campaign starts in September, or earlier.
GivingTuesday, the widely recognized global day of giving, presents a unique opportunity for community foundations to engage donors and support their communities.
Yet deciding whether to participate and how to participate is a big question. And it’s one that depends a lot on the size of your community foundation and your annual fundraising goals.
First things first – the planning.
Starting at least two months in advance allows ample opportunity to develop a comprehensive strategy, create compelling content, and build anticipation among your donor base.
Starting early also provides a buffer for unexpected challenges and allows for thoughtful collaboration with community partners.
But before you get the development and communications teams together to start planning, you first need to decide what you want to get out of GivingTuesday. These are conversations that will inevitably generate a lot of opinions.
We’ve been in rooms where everyone wants to go hard into GivingTuesday and we’ve been in rooms where community foundation leaders prefer to take a backseat and let local nonprofits shine on GivingTuesday.
A lot depends on where you are and what you want to fundraise for.
So you should first ask yourself which category your organization fits into – should you fundraise for your own organization, spotlight local nonprofits, or pursue a combination of both?
While there is a lot of nuance that goes into the decision, one quick way to answer this is to gauge the size of your community foundation.
Smaller foundations may find much more value and reason to participate in GivingTuesday. Whereas larger community foundations have a larger infrastructure and the contributions that come in from GivingTuesday will be so much smaller than other annual giving channels that there is not a huge benefit to building a campaign for just a few hundred or thousand dollars in gifts.
Community foundations often use their position in the community to uplift their brand and the mission of others.
For example, a hybrid approach to GivingTuesday might involve creating a community fund that supports multiple nonprofits, with your foundation acting as the administrator. Whatever you decide, ensure that your strategy aligns with your long-term goals and resonates with your donor base.
Build a timeline.
And remember, engagement is key. Here’s a good timeline to model:
- Begin building anticipation approximately six to eight weeks before the event with subtle hints on social media and in your newsletters.
- As you move closer to GivingTuesday, gradually increase the frequency and intensity of your communications.
- Once you are about one month out, launch your campaign page and initiate email outreach to your donors. This is an excellent time to share stories of impact and explain how donations will be used.
- Two weeks before the event, ramp up your social media presence and send reminder emails.
- In the final week, consider daily countdown posts and a final push in your communications.
When appropriate, loop in the stories and messages of your nonprofit partners and those individuals who benefit from donors’ generosity.
Engagement isn’t solely about soliciting donations. It’s about creating a narrative that resonates with your donors and makes them feel integral to your foundation’s mission.
What’s your plan?
So what are your GivingTuesday plans?
We’d love to hear what you have planned and we are always here to answer questions about whether or not your organization should participate.
Stay tuned as well for more year-end giving strategies and tips.
