Ep. 121: Win Giving Tuesday: 10 Ways to Create Record Breaking Campaigns
EPISODE 121
Win Giving Tuesday: 10 Ways to Create Record Breaking Campaigns
About the Episode:
We're digging into Giving Tuesday today. Last year, Giving Tuesday had a record breaking year. It broke all the years passed, raising $3.1 billion in the US alone. That was a 15% revenue increase over the previous year. Beyond that, research shows that 24% of Giving Tuesday donors are actually first time donors to the organization. So, today I'm going to share the 10 strategies that will help you have a record breaking campaign, and this is something you can apply to any campaign so even if you’re listening to this when Giving Tuesday has already passed, don’t skip this episode! We’re covering everything from leveraging your current audience while also growing it to leaning into repetition and honing your follow up strategy and so much more. By implementing these strategies, you can achieve great success, whether it's for Giving Tuesday, year-end fundraising, or beyond.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Be unapologetically present: Commit to showing up with power, authenticity, and purpose
Extend your campaign: Reasons why you should extend your Giving Tuesday campaign to last a full week for maximum donations
Leverage influencers and advocates: Do not rely on your organization’s own social networks, database, and newsletter, work on expanding your reach and break through the noise
Nail your narrative: How to brand your fundraiser to create more engagement with your campaign
Highlight your stats: Lift up the communities that have been impacted by your cause and share social proof
Repetition, repetition, repetition: Don’t assume your audience has already seen your campaign and how to get comfortable with extra outreach
Maximize your match: Stand out from other organizations in the nonprofit sector by getting creative with your donor matches
Create a BTS for your donors: Send out real time updates to your givers and leave room for some magic
Go beyond the follow up: Invite your donors to become engaged advocates with your organization and grow your recurring donor database
Highlight what’s possible: Show donors what’s possible beyond Giving Tuesday
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“This year will be the first time that some people have ever heard of giving Tuesday… in fact, it’s a great time to tap into millennials and Gen Z.”
“Be unapologetically present, do not set this year’s Giving Tuesday out.”
“The name of your Giving Tuesday campaign should have a brand, should have heart, should have life in it.”
“It doesn't feel great to follow up on that phone call or to send another outreach for that sponsor. And yet, that is the tipping point from the organizations who will achieve their goal and experience record breaking growth.”
“You’ve got to be all in on the follow up process, it’s so essential.”
“Do not do your Giving Tuesday campaign without securing a donor match.”
“Step into your most bold self when you're fundraising this year end, whether it's for this campaign or a different campaign, make sure that your donor feels seen, heard, and it's not so transactional.”
Episode Resources:
Email Welcome Series: Roll Out the Red Carpet for New Donors!
Crafting Meaningful Events: Neuroscience, Storytelling, and Fundraising with Joey Goone
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 00:00
All before I dig into today's episode, I want to make from the top. We're digging into giving Tuesday today. But here's the thing, if you're listening to this episode after giving Tuesday has already happened, do not stop listening, because today I'm going to share the 10 strategies that will help you have a record breaking campaign, and this is something you can apply to Giving Tuesday year end or even next year. So to entice you to give you a little bit of an appetizer of why I am just an evangelist for giving Tuesday. Here's the thing. Last year, Giving Tuesday had a record breaking year. It broke all the years passed, raising $3.1 billion in the US alone, $3.1 billion in funding. That was a 15% revenue increase over the previous year. So here's the thing about giving Tuesday. You may be something that you feel like you're tired of. You've heard a lot about your donors are fatigued about, but the truth is, we're seeing an increase of givers year over year. That means there are people. And this fascinates me. So this is true for me. This is true for you who have never heard of Giving Tuesday, they've never heard of Giving Tuesday, and this will be their first Giving Tuesday they join. Okay? The second piece is that this is such a great way to tap into millennials and Gen Z. In fact, 63% of millennial donors participate in Giving Tuesday. 63% okay, so this is a great way to tap into an emerging market, an emerging audience for your organization. Okay? And remember, research shows that 24% of Giving Tuesday donors are actually first time donors to the organization. So this is a perfect way to acquire and welcome in roll out the red carpet for new donors this year. All right. All right, so here is your first step to success. Number one, be unapologetically present. We're not sitting this one out. Whether or not you've had a great Giving Tuesday, a med Giving Tuesday, or maybe your giving Tuesdays are always like, not great, okay, not this year. This year, you're starting fresh, and you are not sitting on the sidelines. So I want to urge you to join this movement with intention. This is the time to rally your staff, to rally your team, to rally your board for this global day of giving. Commit to showing up with power, authenticity and purpose. Okay, you can start teasing out that this day is coming to your audience in advance of it happening. Right? Step two, double down with a campaign that extends beyond the day. This is what I teach my clients in my program, the purpose and profit Club. We're talking about extending the Giving Tuesday day to a week. I highly suggest you do this. Why? Because Giving Tuesday is a noisy day online. Now I want that to be part of your strategy, but you can start it a few days in advance. You can use Giving Tuesday as the kickoff day, but don't say it was 24 hours and then I'm done. No, you want to do beyond that one day push. Okay? This is how you can if you extend the campaign for a few days or even a week, this is how you're going to garner more attention, more urgency, more donations. Okay, so your action step here is sharing, maybe a behind the scenes stories as you prep for getting Giving Tuesday, bringing your audience in, getting some momentum, some excitement, some buzz, of giving Tuesday before it actually begins. Okay, keeping that momentum during the actual day. Very, very important. If you think of giving Tuesday within a longer campaign, say a five day campaign, the actual Giving Tuesday can be the inflection point of it, yeah, if you're watching a movie, that's when you find out something. That's the twist, that's the story arc, that's giving Tuesday for you. But that doesn't mean we roll credits after the twist in the movie or the story arc, the inflection point, the couple gets together, right? No, we want to close the loop. Keep going, okay, third action step, don't rely on your own channels alone. You need to leverage influencers and advocates. What do I mean here? I mean that you cannot just rely on your nonprofits, social media networks, email list and donor Desk. Base. Those are really core foundational strategies. Of course, that's going to be a part of it. But remember, this is a social Day of Giving. This is a very noisy media time. This is a noisy online time. So what can you do to break through that noise? Some people would tell you, throw a bunch of ad money on it. That's a way to do it, but that doesn't have a strong ROI unless you've been running ads for years and years and years. I know your audience really well, right? So that takes a big upfront investment to see a good return. Ads are great, but it is a more advanced piece. So what do I want you to do? I actually want you to partner with influencers, because they have a stronger conversion, a stronger they have a stronger success for your organization when you partner with them, because The value of working with an influencer is 5x okay. So for every dollar, every dollar you spend working on with an influencer, it's 5x except the way that I teach it, you're actually not putting $1 in. This is not a paid partnership. This is Mission aligned partnership. Okay, so this is free. It's just the time it takes to get the influencer to a yes, we teach the entire process, from pitch scripts to mobilizing your influencer street team in the club, you're welcome to reach out to me for more information on how that works. In the meantime, start with your ambassador. Start with the people who already know like and trust your organization. Bring them in. Now is the time for them to lift up and talk about your organization. They can become pure fundraisers. They can drive traffic just to your main fundraising page. Okay, so the the point here is you're not doing this alone. You want to have your influencers and ambassadors who resonate with your values, your mission, your the connection to their mission. Lift you up, share it all week long. Okay? Step four, nail your narrative. Don't just call it Giving Tuesday. Don't call it Giving Tuesday fundraiser, okay, your narrative, the name of your Giving Tuesday campaign, should have a brand. It should have a story. It should have life. It should have heart in it. Okay, do not call it your Giving Tuesday fundraiser. Okay, I want to make sure that your Giving Tuesday fundraiser does not sound like 12 others who serve your sector. So take it some time to figure out these story details and give it a name. Make it compelling. Make it captivating. Make it urgent, right? Make it time sensitive. So for example, if your organization, organization serves environmental space, you want to make sure that your Giving Tuesday fundraiser is not called raise $10,000 for our for XYZ nonprofit. Instead, you want to riff off of the values, the programs, the services, and weave that into the name of your fundraiser. Step five. Have I been calling him steps the whole time? I'm having a day Haley, we're just gonna call him steps. Step five. Let the stats do the talking. They're powerful. What do I mean here? Proof, social proof that what you do works. This could be program stats, service stats, impact stats. How many people have experience? Maybe even just the stats of the people or communities you serve. Stats are really, really important. Don't tell yourself, Oh, they've seen it before. They've heard it before. It's already on my website. They already know. No, you want to lift up the communities that have been impacted by your cause and show social proof here, think about this idea of the investor mindset. So if I'm going to give a gift to your organization for $1,000 do I know that? Do I believe you? What's that $1,000 able to accomplish? One of the organizations in the club, they have really amazing stats. So they food, if they feed food insecure communities, and they are able to say $1,000 equals this number of meals, and it is very compelling. So your stats may be that way. Your stats may be on the impact side of what you've already accomplished. Another organization I work with, I told them, Go pull your stats for your wash program. Year to date, let's see where we're at now. They have a friction point. They're out of filters for the. Program. Now we have a story developing, right? We have an urgent need, because we have excess demand and no supply, right? We got the we got the beginnings of a great Giving Tuesday fundraiser. Okay, so make sure you let the stats do the talking. Step six, this is the big one, and this is going to expand you. This is going to feel uncomfortable. So ready for this one, repetition, repetition, repetition. Don't assume they've already seen it. This is something that I am practicing in my own business, that my clients are practicing in theirs, and it works and it doesn't feel great all the time. It doesn't feel great to send another email when you've already sent six, right? It doesn't feel great to follow up on that phone call or to send another outreach for that sponsor. And yet, that is the tipping point from the organizations who will achieve their goal experience record breaking growth, and the ones that don't, the ones that don't, are going quiet and soft on frequency. Okay, quiet and soft on frequency. So it's really important right now that you are committed to repetition. And I like to decide ahead of time, how many emails am I going to send for this campaign? How many social posts are we doing? How many outreaches am I doing? How many sponsors Am I soliciting? So that's top line. Then how many times am I following up with those people? Right? So if you find yourself in a loop of Christina, I already did that. Christina, I've already tried that. That won't work. I would bet. I would bet your follow up process has some major holes. I'm picturing Swiss cheese right now, right? You've got to be all in on the follow up process. It is so essential. This could be with major and mid donors. This could be with lapse donors. This could be with your individuals, with your mass emails, your email campaigns, your social you've got to be heavy on repetition. Why are you repeating? You're not just repeating for you for your cause, so you get the funding you're repeating for them. Okay, remember top of the hour or top of the podcast, I talked about giving Tuesday being so important for millennials and Gen Z. Y'all, we're all distracted. So think about somebody in Gen Z, or a millennial who has philanthropic goals, they're like, Yeah, I want this. I want to I want to turn around climate change. I want to be a part of a movement in my community. I want it better than I left it. So if you're not giving them another invitation, another chance to support your organization, you're doing their goals a disservice. Okay, it's for them as much as it is for you, repetition, repetition, repetition. And if you say to yourself, Christina, they have already seen it. Seen it because they replied and said they would support. But if they haven't yet, you're gonna want to give them another nudge. Hey, it's for their goals as much as yours. So plan your touch points. Plan what that looks like. Get support schedule out ahead of time, so you're not doing it during the campaign. That's really important. Step seven, sometimes overlook this one, maximize the match and get creative. So sometimes it's like we're all in the pool, US nonprofit folks, we're all in the pool, and here's what everybody in the pool is nodding along. And we're like, yeah, yeah, totally donor matches are so tired, donor matches don't work anymore. I don't think anyone cares about donor matches. That's what everybody is saying to each other. And everybody's like, Yep, totally agree, right? It's very group think, but everybody who's agreeing with that is in the nonprofit sector. If you ask the average donor who is not in the nonprofit sector, you will see time and time again that donor matches are very successful. So do not do your Giving Tuesday campaign, or your year end campaign or next year's campaign without securing a donor match. And it's not too late. Call one donor, call two donors. You they can go in on a match. Call a board member. You absolutely can secure a donor match. And should? There are people like me who find that very motivating, and I'm even in the sector, I still am like I you know what I love? I love a three one match or a four one match. Those really get my attention. But I think the average donor double your double your gift is very, very compelling. And think about how you want to say it, and what are some ways speaking to the repetition point, what are some ways you can repeat it? So, for example, sometimes I see organizations describe the donor match in a very industry speak way. So it's a little unclear to the average person. What does this mean? Right? What is two? Colon one mean double your you want to spell it out. Your donations will be doubled today thanks to a match up to x. Spell it out, and then in the next email, the next social post, the next phone call, the next. Outreach, say it differently. Say the same thing differently. That's really important with repetition. Let me go back to that one really quickly. Repetition does not mean you send 10 of the same sort of arc emails again, right? Think about it like what's another angle? I can tell this from what's another way. So sometimes we do through social proof, through testimonials, through the EDS, point of view, through somebody in programs, there are hundreds of ways you can tell the story for your Giving Tuesday campaign. Just pick 10 right? Just pick 10 ways. So make sure you're not just repeating it the exact same verbiage again and again and again. Same thing with your donor match. Step eight, bring them behind the scenes with real time updates. Okay, this is what this looks like in the wild. Remember, I just said. Schedule out your posts, schedule out your post, schedule out your email, schedule out social, schedule out what you can and leave room for some magic. Leave room for an on the fly midday email. That's like, oh my gosh, here's where we're at. We just had 50 donors give this. We're halfway to our goal. We've had 30 donors join our monthly giving campaign. Like anything you want, give me a real time update. If anything, you could draft the shell of that and then just fill in the details. Then I want real time updates. So same thing, you could do this on stories. You could just do it talking head style of letting your people know where you're at, whether you're far away from your goal, whether you're almost there, whether you've hit your goal. We love real time updates. Now, I've said this a lot to my clients before, but there is a certain group of people who are very motivated. This is me about getting you over the finish line. So if you're like, 90% to your goal, carve that out and say that. And say, if we just had 10 more donors give $100 well, that we're there. Like, really break it down. That's a real time update. Put that on email, put that on stories, and oh, my god, call 10 people and make it happen. People are so motivated to get you past the finish line. Why we want to see you win? What's the other motivation there? We want to be a part of your success. It's so fun to celebrate that success with you. So leave room for some behind the scenes, real time updates. You may even want to delegate to somebody who's very comfortable on Instagram or your preferred network to be that spokesperson, Day of or week of, where you're like, all right? Josephine, you're taking the lead here. You're in charge of real time updates. You could do a daily post. You can do daily stories of just like feeling that hype, feeling that energy around giving Tuesday, because you don't want to lose steam. Okay. Step nine, don't just follow up. Invite your donors to become advocates. Okay. The latest stat that I've seen, and I think it's pretty common, is about eight out of 10 donors give one time. Okay, so we see between 20 to 30% of donors churn, meaning they give once, they never give again. And that is part of the reason why it feels like you're always fundraising, because you are right. It's like a leaky bucket and you claw and you you seal up one hole, and then another one right, another one starts. So what you want to do here is think about, I'm doing all of this work. I've got a great campaign, I've got my street team, I've got my board on board. We're hitting our goal. It's happening. And retention, retention is a key part to any campaign. So I want you to think about, how am I going to ensure that my Giving Tuesday donors aren't one time givers but ripple makers? Okay? This may be personalized follow ups, social media shout outs. I love those. This may be phone calls, texts. Highly recommend having an email welcome series. We love automation. We love automation. If you do not have an email, welcome series, reach out to me. I have a workshop, five pre written templates, very affordable. You can get that. We can actually link to it in the show notes too. Okay, have an email, welcome series, an email, welcome series, what it does is it really does roll out the red carpet for your donors. So think about this. Think about the donor who gives on Giving Tuesday because their neighbor shared it on Facebook. Maybe their neighbor is somebody who is one of your social street teamers. Their neighbor posted about on Facebook and says, you know, I'm a board member. I am a follower. I just am a passionate supporter of this. Or. Organization, you decide, yep, I'm going to get 50 bucks. There we go. And the next time you hear from that organization is a tax letter you receive in the mail, and then next month, they send you an email newsletter, y'all you will forget about that organization. That is not enough, that is not the rare the red carpet that is the bare minimum. So what can you do instead that is low lift, high impact? I would love to see an email welcome series that actually welcomes the new donor and tells them about your organization, that sets you apart, that starts to have that stickiness, that like, damn, I didn't even know that. Or, Wow, I want to get involved. Or, how can I help? It educates them. It has a sickiness. It has an awareness to it. It has a call to action for support or to get involved. You need an email welcome series. This is very simple. This is something you set up one time and then you move on. So that's one aspect of it. Social media is a great way too. Maybe you're just popping in the DMS if, if you know them and have their handle, pop in the DMS, record them a voice message and say thank you. Maybe you're doing a series of video. Thank you. So we can link to vid, ask me double check that. Haley, there's one on my website. I we will link to the Tools page on my website, there is a tool called vid, ask, video ask, and this is something that you can take an hour and record personalized videos to your new donors. Think about that stickiness. If I've received a video from you the day I donated, I would remember it. I would remember you. I would remember your organization and your mission. That would be a retention strategy. Carve an hour out. I'm thinking back to when we had Utopia experience on the podcast, and they talked about, is it Dave, oh, my God, I'm struggling. I'm going to redo that. Haley, I'm thinking back to when we had Joey goon on the podcast, and he talked about in person events, and the really, really important time for in person events to take advantage of the celebration of the stickiness of the amazing part of an event is actually the day after, and the days after that's a retention strategy. Do the same thing here. Write a list of like, What are the five ways we're going to retain our donors so we are actually keeping our donors, and not saying that high churn so prevalent in the business, in the industry. So maybe it's email welcome series. We're going to bulk do some video, video, thank yous and you could ask your board to help you with this. You could do text message thank yous. You could do an individual outreach. There's so many different ways you could do it that's very, very quick and scalable. The point is, decide ahead of time, block time, do it all right. Step 10, show the vigor vision of what's possible, what's possible beyond giving Tuesday, this is really, really important again, for that retention piece and also motivation. So you really want to show donors that Giving Tuesday is just the beginning. So for example, this organization, I said that they they knew they were very low on supplies for their wash program. So they're giving Tuesday fundraiser is going to be around that, raising more funds for that, right? But then, what? What's what? What is the outcome of that? What's possible, not if we just fill this one gap of wash supplies for X amount of days or months or years, right? What's possible if we were to accomplish and be able to fund the program further, bigger, right? And really outlining your vision for the months ahead, and inviting your audience to be a part of that bigger journey is really key here. Think about giving Tuesday as the entry point, but the movement is ongoing. You may have people who give on Giving Tuesday at the $25 level or at the $2,500 level, who are your perfect fit social street teamers, your perfect fit influencers, they may be perfect. So do not discount people because you know their aunt is affiliated with your organization and and posted about it on Facebook, and you're telling yourself, Oh, that was just a donation of 25 bucks. No. Oh, these could be your perfect fit advocates and champions. So it's really important to think about the broader picture of what's possible for your Giving Tuesday donors. Okay, so take some time, even if it's just today, carve out an hour and say, All right, what do I need to do with the actual story and the brand of Giving Tuesday is the name of our Giving Tuesday fundraiser. Giving Tuesday fundraiser, or something else equally as boring. What can I come up with right now and change the name of that? I want you to have a dedicated Giving Tuesday page for this that you're sending people to with a dedicated goal. If you are planning on doing it for one day only. Now you know we're going to stretch it out. You can stretch it out. So Giving Tuesday is in the middle. You can stretch it out. So it kicks off with giving Tuesday totally up to you. Okay? You are going to mobilize your dream team of board members, ambassadors, superstar volunteers, advocates and influencers. Even if you just do a handful of those, it is essential, essential to ensure your success. Fundraising should not be a solo operation. So don't make it a solo operation. Do not replicate what you did last year. We are in a different year. We are in a wild time this year. So do not replicate what you did last year. And sure I want you to say, I'm going to hit the gas, I'm going to turn the volume up, I'm going to be more bold, tell stronger stories. So show more social proof and commit to repetition. I'm going to say it more often on multiple platforms and from different ways and angles. Okay, do those simple steps, I promise you, it can be simple if you go through this process, if you are decisive, and even if you pick half of the steps that I've mentioned Today, you will see an increase year over year so uh, remember that Giving Tuesday is more about one remember that Giving Tuesday is more than just one day of donations. This is the beginning of your organization, creating a movement, standing out, making a statement. Step into your most bold self when you're fundraising this year end, whether it's for this campaign or a different campaign, make sure that your donor feels seen, heard, and it's not so transactional, so one and done. Invite, ask unapologetically often and invite your street team to support you. If you need help with any of this, I want to recommend that you join the purpose and profit club wait list so you can get notified when the coaching program opens again and reach out to me. I am here in the DMS if there is a workshop or done for you resource like the email welcome series. We will link to that here. If you have something that you want to workshop with me and you're like, all right, I feel a little stuck here. Reach out to me, send me a message on Instagram or on on LinkedIn. I love meeting so many of you in person, and maybe I'll end with that, which is, I did meet so many of you in person on this last launch, and it was so fun. Many of you said, I've been listening to the podcast. You're in my ear, and I just want to say thank you. If you've been enjoying the podcast and I've been in your ear and you're back, I would love it if you would leave us a review. Take a moment on your podcast app, leave us a review so other listeners can know that this is out here, you can share it on social and tag me in it. I'm cheering you on. I'll see you next time you.