Last minute preparation tips for #GivingTuesday Donations
Giving Tuesday is just around the corner, taking place this year on November 28 just after the Thanksgiving holiday. Rooted in online donations, the basis of the hashtag holiday is essentially Black Friday for non-profits. Because Giving Tuesday is so significant in the non-profit industry, it’s crucial that your organization is prepared for the global day of donating.
If you haven’t spent the last few months prepping your non-profit for Giving Tuesday, don’t panic. There are still a few ways you can pull together a marketing effort that encourages donations. Whether a Giving Tuesday campaign is planned eight months or eight days in advance, you can still build a campaign that is strong enough to support your non-profit’s goals.
Test your website’s online forms for Giving Tuesday donations
Giving Tuesday is primarily a web-based fundraising holiday, so it’s essential that your website is operating up to its maximum potential. To ensure this, run user tests on your website before Giving Tuesday and test your online donation forms to make sure your donors won’t run into any problems when making donations. Ask your team a few website functionality questions before Giving Tuesday to learn more about the process of making a donation on your website.
Alert your donors
If you haven’t started ramping up your social media or email blast efforts, start as soon as possible. Your donors may not have Giving Tuesday on their calendars with as much significance as you do, and any alert about Giving Tuesday can increase possible donations. It’s your job to get your donors excited for Giving Tuesday and to remind them the importance of their donations to your cause; donors who know you’re involved with Giving Tuesday will be more inclined to donate.
Giving Tuesday alerts can be sent out in short email blasts, social media posts, or in post scripts at the end of your regular newsletter. Reminders should be sent before Thanksgiving, and again on Black Friday and Cyber Monday; reminders during these times are great opportunities to break up the commercial advertising everyone will receive in their inboxes.
Draft your day-of social media posts
Planning your social media posts before the big day will help cut through the online craziness. Drafting your posts will give you more time on actual Giving Tuesday to focus on building your donations and engaging with donors.
Plan Facebook status updates in advance and draft 180-character tweets before Giving Tuesday begins, and remember to include the hashtag #GivingTuesday in all of your social media posts. Giving Tuesday created a thorough social media toolkit for non-profits to use for their campaigns.
After your content is drafted, plug it into an organized sheet with columns labeling posting times, captions, images, etc. This will help you keep track of your archives and see what is getting posted when.
Add visuals to your campaign
A picture says a thousand words. Ideally, photos and possible campaign video would be taken long before Giving Tuesday to help plan social media posts. However; if there isn’t any time left for you to snap authentic photos to support your Giving Tuesday campaign, original graphics, infographics, and images created on sites like Canva will serve as great boosters to your social media strategy.
Thank your donors for their support
The success of Giving Tuesday wouldn’t be possible without the support of dedicated donors. Be sure to schedule communications to your donors after they make a donation so they feel appreciated through thank-you emails. (And follow up with a link to see if their employer does a match!) Another good idea is to plan several social media posts in between Giving Tuesday promotional posts thanking donors for their support and showing exactly how their donations will be used. These actions will take the pressure off fundraising for a moment and let the donors see exactly how their donations made an impact to your cause.
Giving Tuesday is a fantastic chance for your non-profit to raise awareness and build funds for your cause. To ensure you’re maximizing your potential for success this Giving Tuesday, employ these last minute preparations and make sure your website is in tip-top shape. Does your non-profit website need last minute help preparing for Giving Tuesday? Contact us today.