Choosing a GivingTuesday goal or objective is the first step to a successful campaign. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Acquire new donors
- Drive incremental donations from new and/or current donors
- Strengthen relationships with existing donors and prime them for holiday/year end giving
- Recruit new volunteers or engage current volunteers
- Build awareness for your charity
Next, plan a specific activity or campaign.
Once you set your GivingTuesday goal, the next step is to plan a specific activity or campaign that helps you accomplish your goal. Whether that be finding a corporate matching partner, organizing a volunteer event, launching a petition, or simply creating a Thank You campaign, be sure it’s a tangible activity. This will prove far more effective than asking your supporters to donate to your cause just “because it’s GivingTuesday”.
Set a specific, tangible goal and underline the impact it will have.
Objective: Acquire New Donors
If your primary objective this GivingTuesday is to acquire new donors, there are several key tactics that you can consider using when launching your campaign. Donor acquisition doesn’t always have to be costly. If you focus your efforts on launching a campaign that your supporters can easily share with their friends and family, you can acquire new donors via word-of-mouth. For example, GivingTuesday is the perfect opportunity launch a peer-to-peer social fundraising campaign or ask your supporters to help spread the word about your mission by sharing a fundraising page.
Objective: Drive Incremental Donations from new and/or Current Donors
Drive incremental donations by identifying a specific need, objective, and describing the tangible impact of a donation amount. Here are some ideas on how to do it (and how not to do it):
- Help us provide goats for families in need overseas. A $50 donation will provide one goat for a family in need.
- Help us send 50 or more kids to summer camp. A $150 donation will send one child to camp for a week.
- Help us launch our new innovative cancer research project. Our goal is $50,000.
- AVOID: Donate to us because it’s GivingTuesday
Campaigns that perform well are those that highlight a specific fund. Perhaps you need a new kitchen or a new piece of equipment. The most successful GivingTuesday fundraising campaigns are those that used GivingTuesday as part of a longer campaign, as opposed to just focusing on the one day.
Objective: Strengthen Relationships with Existing Donors and Prime them for Holiday/Year End Giving
GivingTuesday is the perfect day to publicly and personally thank your volunteers, staff, donors and supporters for all of their hard work and support. In previous years, charities have created impactful storytelling and thank you campaigns that helped to strengthen their relationships and in some cases led to increased donations. Thank your supporters via:
- Social media
- Website
- Printed letter and/or phone (if resources permit)
Objective: Recruit New Volunteers or Engage Current Volunteers
Use #GivingTuesdayCa as an opportunity to shift the conversation away from giving funds and promote another important way to support your organization: volunteering.
- Team up with a local business to borrow some of their employees’ professional skills for a day.
- Ask volunteers to host a bake sale for your charity on GivingTuesday.
- Consider running a volunteer program that helps your local community and is aligned with your mission (i.e. clean-up day).
Objective: Build Awareness for Your Charity
Building awareness for your charity can come as a result of many different kinds of awareness-building initiatives. GivingTuesday is the perfect day to launch a new project, announce your planned capital campaign, do something demonstrable that press will want to cover as they report on GivingTuesday or literally get out in the community and meet people face-to-face.
- Organize a donation drive (food, socks, change, etc.)
- Host a community open house and invite your neighbours and local shop owners to get to know you.
- Team up with other local charities and organize a community party so that everyone can get to know each other.
- Invite your neighbourhood community, friends and family, etc.
What better way to build awareness than to launch a campaign that strengthens relationships between your community and the beneficiaries of your cause! In one example, Art à la Carte in partnership with Wellspring Calgary, launched a campaign where they asked their community to write Letters of Hope to acute care patients and their caregivers for the holidays. The results were inspirational. Their supporters become much more engaged in their mission and the story was featured by Global TV on local and national television, as well as in local publications.
No matter what you decide to do, make sure that you’re participating this GivingTuesday and that you’re maintaining your share of voice.
It’s the opening day of the giving season and it’s the perfect time to prime your donors for the holidays and cultivate relationships.
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