#GivingTuesday

Where to Begin

Whether you’ve participated in #GivingTuesday in the past or you’re managing a campaign for the very first time, we’re here to help you manage your December to-do list. With a bit of planning and the support of your team, you can catapult your year-end giving with strategic messaging and outcomes reporting. Ahead of the big day, there are a few concrete tasks you’ll want to achieve:

• Kick things off by developing your communication plan. Long before putting pen to paper, you’ll want to begin thinking about your messaging. If you participated in previous years, think about where you want to take your campaign this year. Do you have a big initiative or a strategic goal that you can wrap into your message? Are there specific statistics about your impact that you can leverage? With these components in mind, you’ll get farther along in crafting a core theme.

• Plan out your emails and social posts. Most organizations produce a series of emails as a part of their campaign. For example, some strategies involve an email before Thanksgiving, two day-of emails to kick off #GivingTuesday, a countdown to day’s end, and a thank you follow-up. In line with best practices, take a multichannel approach to build in thematic social posts or publicity with local news outlets.

• Rally your ambassadors. Think about your board of directors, influencers in your community, and local media outlets. Reach out to these individuals and explore whether they have an interest in your mission and in supporting you for big events like a giving day. These individuals can be identified and stewarded all year long, helping you build momentum well ahead of the big day.

Plan Throughout the Year

It’s easy for a single giving day to creep up on you while you move through the day-to-day rhythm of your organization. A few tasks here and there can help you prepare for #GivingTuesday across the calendar year.

• Keep solidifying your brand. Make sure that your regular communications and public relations express your values, vision, and impact.

• Poll your supporters to identify and segment for personas. Developing these donor groups will allow you to target your messaging on #GivingTuesday and all year long.

• It’s never too early to start gathering stories, statistics, videos, and pictures that you can mark for use on #GivingTuesday.

• Continue building your social media strategy throughout the year to have a ready audience on the big day.

• Ensure that your technology stack is running smoothly and equipped to process the large volume of donations that occur on #GivingTuesday. Be prepared to process matches, issue receipts, and input data into your constituent records management (CRM) platform.