Although only four years old, #GivingTuesday has taken off. If you don’t know what it is (and you’re living under a rock), you can learn more about it on the official site at www.givingtuesday.org.
Much like “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday,” #GivingTuesday has now become mainstream. Started by the 92nd Street Y, it’s a brilliant campaign because it truly encompasses the sentiment of “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
The beauty of the concept is that ALL nonprofits can participate and benefit.
So my question is, do they?
Does #GivingTuesday Work For Your Nonprofit?
To answer this question, you’ll need to ask yourself a few more questions to evaluate your #GivingTuesday program.
First, did you participate in #GivingTuesday this year?
If not, why not?
If you did participate, what impact does it have?
If you have participated in past years, have you seen an improvement?
What are you measuring?
- How many first time donors did you get?
- How many total donors did you get to respond?
- What was the average gift? High gift? Low gift?
How were your results?
Compared with last year, how were your results this year?
How much effort did you put into your #GivingTuesday campaign?
- Did you craft a special story or theme for your campaign?
- Did you send an email to your list? More than one email?
- Did you hold a phone-a-thon (call your donors)?
- How many tweets, posts, and photos did you share?
- Did your board members participate? If so, how?
- What else did you do?
How will you follow up with donors?
How will you follow up with your #GivingTuesday donors to ensure they become regular donors, and not just one time donors?
What will you do next year?
What will you do differently? What’s been working that you’ll repeat next year?
Expanding the Impact of #GivingTuesday
For the first time this year, I noticed Amazon advertising “Cyber Monday week”, and I’m pretty sure Black Friday started on Wednesday this year — and stretched through Sunday. Retailers are pushing the boundaries, and you should too!
What did you do differently this year, and what can you do next year to take advantage of #GivingTuesday?
It’s not easy to create a movement, but that’s just what #GivingTuesday is. According to the #GivingTuesday website, over 30,000 organizations participate. And I’m glad they do. It’s a welcome relief from the normal consumer culture surrounding the holidays.
It appears that #GivingTuesday is here to stay. If you didn’t participate this year, you have a whole year to plan for next year, when #GivingTuesday will turn five years old. Don’t miss out!
Tell me about your experience with #GivingTuesday in the comments below.
This was our 3rd year participating in Giving Tuesday and we got the highest results to date. We raised over $100,000 this year, up from a little over $50,000 the past two years. We also had over 100 new donors. We measure success primarily by the total $$ raised so we are really excited. We sent 3 emails out throughout the day of Giving Tuesday. We had Facebook ads, posts, and tweets throughout the day as well. In fact, we believe some new donors came from social media.
We sent a thank you email to all donors who gave on Giving Tuesday which was over 700 donors. All new donors will be part of our Welcome Series for the next three months which will hopefully increase their likelihood to become repeat donors.
Hooray, Cari! Congratulations. Good lesson for Vicki (other comment) because it takes time to build a successful campaign. Great job!
Yes, we participated. This was our first year.
We had a goal to raise enough money to purchase 500 duffel bags, at a cost of $25.00 each (or 12,500)
We received funds to purchase 22. (or$550.00) and this was from all people we know.
We sent to folks on our email list – 3 times.
Did not hold phone-a-thon.
Number of tweets 7
Number of fb posts 10
Board members were asked but did not participate
What else?
1. local loyalty rewards advertisement – 4 weeks
2. personal request from President/CEO to board and staff
3. prominent position on website
4. LinkedIn post
5. boosted fb post
What did we do wrong…other than we did not get any board support?
Vicki – sorry to hear about the disappointing results. Clearly would be better if board members participated. Of course, I don’t know what your emails said, so it’s hard to know what happened. I would ask around to see what others did that worked. I would take the year to read up on successful fundraising appeals, and try again next year.