Thursday Thoughts: Your GivingTuesday To-Do List for 2021
Welcome to another installment of Thursday Thoughts, a dedicated space for our friends in nonprofit sector leadership to reflect on reports, statistics, and other trends—because when our community shares knowledge, we can all do more good. Check out last month’s post here!
It’s hard to believe, but GivingTuesday is just around the corner. This day has grown exponentially since its inception in 2012, and now for many organizations this day functions as a kickoff for the whole year-end giving season.
This year, GivingTuesday falls on Tuesday, November 30, 2021. We asked our partners, which tasks should be on every nonprofit’s GivingTuesday To-Do list? Here’s what they said.
Datamize
Our friends at Datamize help nonprofits create great experiences and grow fundraising revenue with data intelligence, technology, and digital marketing and fundraising. The top item on their GivingTuesday To-Do list? Making sure your nonprofit takes advantage of the new free digital offering from the USPS.
If you do use this offering, when your direct mail donors go to check their USPS informed delivery email, they’ll see an extra message about your incoming mail piece—and “there are already over 31 million registered households [or about 25 percent of all households] in the US getting these informed delivery emails.”
With this tactic from the USPS, you can engage and convert more prospects and donors online who are getting your mail, which means a deeper connection and more donations for you. This isn’t just an investment for GivingTuesday, either: your nonprofit will continue to benefit beyond the big day, because you can coordinate these free digital campaigns with all your direct mail programs moving forward. (Yet another example of how coordinating your campaigns across channels can help you create better engagement and higher revenue.)
Put simply, this tactic means your direct mail pieces get an extra promotion and makes an even bigger impact. Read more from Datamize on this new free USPS digital offering.
Greater Good Strategy
This past year, we’ve been through it all — so our friends at Greater Good Strategy have two big things that should be on everyone’s GivingTuesday To-Do list:
Review your ask and make sure it’s personal. Centering the donor in the cause has proven to be effective time and time again.
You can’t save the world on your own! Make sure your team is supported and taken care of. Recruit board members, close stakeholders, or program volunteers who can take on a handful of asks or posts, and let your network support your team during this busy time. Consider having coffee and snacks delivered to your colleagues who are working longer hours to prep for GivingTuesday. Don’t forget to send thank you texts the night of and publicly thank your online fundraising team on your next all staff Zoom, too!
Want to learn more? Here are Greater Good Strategy’s 10 Ways to Make the Most of GivingTuesday.
CDR Fundraising Group
If there’s one thing our friends at CDR Digital would recommend all nonprofits put on their GivingTuesday To-Do list, it would be to participate! This movement encourages participants to do good in their communities and to make a difference; an initiative that blankets the entire nonprofit fundraising world.
GivingTuesday is worthy of its own standalone fundraising campaign. What that means is that nonprofits who promote participation passively, as a blurb in an e-Newsletter or organic Facebook post, are missing out in a big way. Use integrated campaigns dedicated solely to GivingTuesday in all available paid digital channels, including paid search (as a site link) and paid social (for instance, Facebook Ads and boosted posts.) Utilize website lightboxes on nonprofit homepages and emails to supporters. To sum up: communicate early and often.
Because GivingTuesday has gained strong momentum over the past few years, nonprofits should capitalize on existing brand awareness of the campaign. Supporters know what GivingTuesday is and why they should participate — nonprofits are here to show them how. Brevity is your friend: instead of taking valuable time in your fundraising messages to introduce the movement, you can safely utilize that space for critical fundraising “tools” like matches, deadlines, fundraising goals, social proof, etc.
GivingTuesday is the prime opportunity to throw every available conversion tactic at your prospects and supporters — it will pay off in spades!
Our Take
There’s no doubt that strong, multi-channel campaigns are essential to a successful GivingTuesday—but don’t forget to get even more out of your hard work with predictability! Predictive analytics can help you to segment your donors more efficiently, so your organizations can send asks that resonate with each donor.
EveryAction clients have already seen some pretty incredible fundraising results with predictive analytics: Habitat for Humanity of Omaha and SOME (So Others Might Eat) both increased their revenue with Optimized Ask Amounts — read their full case studies to learn more.
