Prepping For Giving Tuesday

October 4, 2018 | Nonprofits

We can hardly believe that the holiday season is around the corner. In a month’s time, we will be sitting down to eat Thanksgiving Dinner, then some of us will be heading out to scour the Black Friday Sales! However, for non-profits, the focus will be on Giving Tuesday, celebrated the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving fueled by social media and collaboration.

Across the world, communities come together to support their favorite organizations in any way they can. That could mean raising their voice and spreading the word about an organization, volunteering for a cause, or donating. GivingTuesday kicks off the start of the charitable season, and is a time for non-profits to focus on making the greatest impact they can with end-of-year giving.

So, how should you prep for Giving Tuesday? We’ve come up with a few steps you can put into action now:

Set a goal. Whether you’re looking to make a large dent into your end-of-year donations on Giving Tuesday, or just want to participate to raise awareness, it’s important to create goals around the day. You’ll also want to consider how you will track, measure and share your campaign goal. Create a special link or landing page that allows you to measure click throughs and donations.
Create a social media campaign. You will want to establish a well thought-out social media campaign at least 3 weeks out from Giving Tuesday to prepare your audience for the day. On the day of Giving Tuesday, it’s good to update your audience throughout the day on where you are at on meeting your goal, to entice more people to donate.
Send out email campaigns. Throughout the month of November and on the day of Giving Tuesday, you want to include information about Giving Tuesday on your e-newsletter. You may want to increase the frequency of how many newsletters you’re sending out, and highlight Giving Tuesday and the ways your audience can participate as a main article on it.
Employee participation. Advocate for employees and staff to spread the word about Giving Tuesday to their network. It’s amazing how simple it can be to quadruple your impact when your employees pitch in to spread the word! Seventy one percent of organizations use Employee Advocacy on social media per Sprout Social.

Find resources. The great thing is, there is so many great resources out there if you’re feeling stuck or out of ideas for ways to engage your community on Giving Tuesday. In fact, GivingTuesday.org has so many free tools and resources for organizations looking to participate. Check it out!