5 Ways to Build Community for GivingTuesday Success
From our friends at GiveGab: a division of EveryAction
GivingTuesday is one of the biggest and most well-known Giving Days in the world, and it’s the prime opportunity to kick off your Year-End Fundraising.
As vaccination rates rise and people begin to gather together again, community will be an important theme for 2021 year-end fundraising. Bringing people together, virtually or in-person, and bridging the gaps of 2020’s social isolation will be key to fundraising success in 2021.
The team at EveryAction’s GiveGab Giving Days platform are experts in running successful Giving Days for nonprofits large and small. Here are the 5 most important strategies you can use for a successful GivingTuesday this year, and how to use those results to fuel a record-breaking Year-End.
Align Your GivingTuesday Campaign with a Region or Network
Organizations can choose to run individual GivingTuesday campaigns or participate in a collaborative Giving Day event. Some examples include statewide Giving Days like #ILGive in Illinois, and region-based Giving Days like #GiveBigPittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA.
By keeping a Giving Day focused within a specific region, you can appeal to a group of supporters with close ties and connections to the participating nonprofits. This means your supporters will be more likely to rally behind specific causes and become more involved with the success of your day. With a region-based Giving Day on GiveGab, you can create a branded website that will be recognizable to your donors and nonprofits and represents the community that you all love.
For example, Cattaraugus Gives is a regional Giving Day hosted by the Cattaraugus Community Foundation serving nonprofits operating in Cattaraugus, NY. On GivingTuesday 2019, they celebrated their first Giving Day raising $110,996 for 57 organizations – but in 2020, their results more than doubled, bringing in $252,942 for their community in just 24 hours. Hear more about their success from Kirk Windus, Communications and Fund Development Manager of the Cattaraugus Community Foundation, and learn about his experience running his first Community-Based Giving Day on GiveGab.
For national organizations with affiliates or chapters in different states, coordinating your efforts for a nonprofit network Giving Day can be just as powerful. This type of Giving Day was designed to support organizations that operate on a national scale with affiliates or chapters providing services in local communities. Typically, these affiliate organizations are widely spread and vary in needs, size, and capacity, but still work towards a common goal or mission. As a nonprofit network, coordinating a Giving Day for your affiliates means you’re providing the means for them to come together and use the momentum of a large campaign to raise awareness for their cause within the local communities they serve.
Family Promise is a national organization serving people experiencing homelessness and low-income families with over 200 affiliates nationwide. They use GiveGab as their unifying platform to allow them all to take part in online fundraising initiatives securely and effectively. In 2020, Family Promise launched four large campaigns for their affiliates, including Family Promise Week and a Coronavirus Emergency Response campaign. Through their giving site, affiliate organizations are able to share their stories, post matching opportunities, engage in peer-to-peer fundraising, and more.
Listen to Episode 10 of the Giving & Gabbing podcast to learn how Family Promise, a network with over 200 affiliates, saw a 68 percent increase in donors in 2020—83 percent of those being new donors—and how they reached that success by partnering with GiveGab.
Recruit Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers to Spread Your Campaign
Peer-to-Peer fundraising is a proven way to raise awareness for your organization and grow your donor file, so take this opportunity to call on your staff and your biggest supporters to reach out to their own networks and boost your fundraising initiatives on GivingTuesday. GivingTuesday is the one day every year that donors are actively seeking organizations to give to, and if they see that their friend or family member is involved and advocating for your organization, they’ll be much more likely to give.
Through the EveryAction Giving Day Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Suite, nonprofit supporters can sign up to fundraise on behalf of an organization by creating a “mini-campaign,” and you can also send out personal invites to top supporters. Each volunteer fundraiser will have their own toolkit and profile, but the donations will come straight to your nonprofit. By empowering your volunteer fundraisers with the tools to set their own goals, tell their own stories, and get their family and friends involved in a cause they care about, you’ll be giving them a fun and easy way for to support your organization and broaden the reach of your message at the same time.
Promote Friendly Competition
Playing a game is a great way to make fundraising fun and bring people together into a sense of community and shared vision. For organizations using GiveGab’s Fundraising Suite, their peer-to-peer fundraisers can come together to form fundraising teams. These teams then compete to raise the most money toward the campaign. This is an effective — and fun — way to get people more motivated to collect donations and spread the word about the campaign.
Pro Tip: Ask your board members sign up to become peer-to-peer fundraisers to create some fun competition amongst them.
Use Matches and Challenges
You can use matching funds to generate more excitement around your GivingTuesday campaign. Businesses, board members, and even major donors can pledge to match donations up to a specified amount based on donations received during your campaign. This encourages your donors to give more because they are able to see that their gift can make a much larger impact for the organization. To further amplify your fundraising results this GivingTuesday, enable corporate matching on donations with the EveryAction Giving Day 360MatchPro integration through Double the Donation.
Set up similarly to matching funds, a “Challenge” is a gift that can be unlocked by meeting a goal. This goal can be measured by total dollars given or total donors engaged. Once the specified goal has been set, funds will be released to your overall total once the goal has been met. This creates a sense of teamwork amongst donors to “unlock” those extra funds for your organization.
Use GivingTuesday To Kick Off Your Year-End Fundraising
Even if donors gave to you during GivingTuesday, don’t be afraid to ask them to give again later on in December. Instead, use the momentum and what you learned from your GivingTuesday results as a natural segue into your year-end fundraising efforts. When thanking your supporters, remind them that the new year is soon approaching and that there’s still time to make a final donation to help your nonprofit reach its goals for the year (and for donors to use as charitable tax deduction.) The M+R 2020 Benchmarks tell us that December 31 specifically continues to be a “powerful moment for donors to give,” so don’t be surprised by last-minute gifts—seek them out and be prepared to receive them!
Make sure to promote your year-end fundraising efforts when thanking your supporters for their GivingTuesday contributions. Let them know in your messaging that the success of your GivingTuesday campaign has contributed greatly to your annual fundraising goals.
Provide your supporters with a campaign link that contains information about your year-end goals or a specific need you’re looking to fill with these end-of-year donations. Just as with your GivingTuesday campaign, make sure this one is also customized and branded to your cause and includes a compelling story that inspires action.
