GivingTuesday Campaign Ideas

Giving Tuesday has come to mark the kick-off day for the end of year giving season. While December 31st is still the largest single giving day of the year, Giving Tuesday represents an important "giving holiday" that you should use to launch your seasonal year end campaigns.

Whether you are a GivingTuesday pro or novice, it may be useful to freshen your approach or consider new alternatives for a new generation of givers. Here's some campaign ideas to consider and thoughts to tailor your message.

Campaign Ideas

• Your GivingTuesday campaign focus can be about more than just donations. Your community's voice supporting your cause is a powerful tool. Your GivingTuesday "ask" might include

  -- signing a pledge

  -- writing letters to government representatives

  -- sharing your post on a supporter's own social feed

• Social influence is a great way to expand your circle of support. Create a graphic that says, "I supported [your charity name] on GivingTuesday." Include this graphic in the thank you email that your donors receive when they donate to you on GivingTuesday. Ask them to be your Giving Ambassador by posting the graphic to their social media feeds.

  We've created a graphic template for you to use. Download this template and use any graphics program or Canva to include your nonprofit's name.

  
  Download this template

• Emphasize Employer Match - GivingTuesday is an excellent time to emphasize employer matching gifts as a campaign focus. If a supporter works for a company that doesn't have a permanent matching gift benefit program, they can still ask their company to match their GivingTuesday donation with a corporate gift. This is a great way to encourage companies to think about this employee benefit and their own corporate generosity. It might also provide an entry point to be able to ask that company to sponsor future events or become a matching donation campaign partner.

Related article: Maximizing Employer Match Opportunities

• Focus on Monthly Giving or Subscription Giving - Offering a monthly giving or a subscription based campaign is an extremely efficient way to get your regular supporters more engaged and potentially elevate them into a higher level of giving. Because the donation is made automatically, the nonprofit can enjoy a steady and reliable source of revenue. Other benefits include:

  -- Donor Retention rates over 80% after the first year.

  -- Donors feel more invested in your cause and stay engaged longer.

  -- Recurring donations are a great way for donor to incorporate giving into their budget.

Related article: Case Study: How Shanti Project Leveled Up Their GivingTuesday Campaign Page With GiveDirect Fundraising Tools

• Find ways to collaborate with other nonprofits, perhaps by co-sponsoring a local GivingTuesday event. Our community is bigger than just one organization and we are not competitors. Find local GivingTuesday events in your area here.

• Host 24 hours of gratitude. Post about things your organization is grateful for.

• Include Text2Give as part of your campaign. Create unique keywords, send and receive unlimited texts, and empower donors to give directly from their phones by using a shortcode, (i.e."give" "GTgive" or "1128.")

  Learn more: GiveDirect Text2Give

• Team up with local news or radio to advertise your event or perhaps broadcast from your location.

• Get creative. In 2017, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints created a unique fundraising idea - a "giving machine." The machine was placed in a location where people could purchase items (like from any vending machine) to be donated to people in need. Among the gifts available for purchase included meals, clothes, shoes, glasses and chickens.

  This church converted an actual vending machine for their project. Could a vending machine company in your area partner with you on a similar project?

  

  Don't have access to a vending machine? How about building a virtual vending machine campaign instead? Building Futures for Women and Children worked with GiveDirect to create a custom form with a Shopping List format. Contact us for more information on how we can build a custom form for you.

  

Tailoring Your Message

• Use humor in your social media. This clever comic by Nomadic Critters is funny and memorable. The cartoon humor effectively conveys the importance of giving on GivingTuesday rather than using sentiment or guilt.

• Use strong visual branding. There are numerous GivingTuesday graphics out there in the movement's standard red and blue. To be sure, they are great graphics, but do they instantly identify with your branding and message? Here's a couple of effective GivingTuesday graphics that adopted the charity's branding colors.

• Use visuals and clear language to inspire action. Telling your donors HOW to help will heighten the desire to participate or learn more. And remember, the call to action need not just be financial - how can someone get involved? Volunteer, spread the word, sign a petition, adopt a pet?

Need more ideas?

You can find more great GivingTuesday campaign ideas in the Nonprofit Toolkit on givingtuesday.org.