How To Stand Out This Giving Tuesday
Bloomerang is a Nonprofit Connect Business Member. They are a cloud-based donor management tool focused on retention and engagement. You can learn more about their services here.
It’s hard to believe that yet another year-end giving season is upon us! Giving Tuesday can be a great way to kick off your year-end fundraising efforts.
Here are my top three recommendations to make this Giving Tuesday the most successful ever for your nonprofit:
1. Test Your Donation Pages and Forms
My number one recommendation is to test your donation pages and forms right now and leading up to the big day.
Since a majority of your Giving Tuesday gifts will be made online, you don’t want to run into a situation where a form or page is broken, not optimized, or otherwise creating friction for the donor. That’s why testing is so important.
But it’s not enough for your online giving pages to just convert as many visitors as possible. You also want to immediately steward donors after they make their gift.
Be sure to pay attention to the confirmation page (sometimes called the “thank you” page) that donors are immediately sent to after filling out the donation form. Does it say thank you? Does it give the donor something to do? If not, they will leave your website without taking any further action.
While they’re looking at your confirmation page, they will likely be receiving an email from your website, online giving software, or payment processor to confirm their transaction. This is also an excellent opportunity to say thank you, tell an impact story, and give the donor something to do. Don’t let it be just a boring, robotic receipt!
2. Stand Out As Much As Possible
With tens of thousands of nonprofits participating in Giving Tuesday, it’s understandable that you might feel like your emails and social media posts will just get lost in the shuffle.
One way you can make sure your message gets in front of the right people on Giving Tuesday is to segment your campaigns for specific audiences.
In my experience, I’ve found that campaigns that are segmented for specific audiences outperform one-size-fits-all campaigns. This is true on Giving Tuesday and during the rest of the year
Wondering how to segment your campaigns? Here are a few simple ideas for Giving Tuesday campaigns that you can try out:
Ask current monthly donors to upgrade their gifts. Asking a donor who gives $5 per month to upgrade to $7 or $10 per month may seem like peanuts, but over the lifetime of their giving, it can truly add up. Giving Tuesday is a great opportunity to ask for an upgrade. Just be sure to thank them for their previous gifts before you make this ask!
Ask lapsed donors to give again. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, about 55% of donors lapse every single year. But that doesn’t mean you should totally give up on these past supporters. A segmented campaign that outlines all the impact they made as a donor, while expressing the impact they could have in the future, might be able to bring some of those folks back into the fold. After all, Giving Tuesday is a day of remarkable generosity!
Ask volunteers who have never donated to donate! If the pandemic has limited opportunities for your volunteers to help out, asking them to make a donation is a great alternative way they can engage with your mission, not to mention one that drives revenue. Studies show that volunteers are much more likely to donate than non-volunteers because they already know and support you!. As with your monthly donors, be sure to thank them for previous volunteerism before making your ask.
3. Don’t Forget The Day After
Your real work begins on Wednesday, the day after Giving Tuesday. This is when you reach out, thank your donors, and take the crucial first step in retaining them.
Just as your appeals should be segmented, so should your acknowledgements. Be sure to acknowledge the uniqueness and significance of their gift. For example, if a monthly donor gave an extra one-time gift, let them know you noticed!
Here are some segments of donors to be on the lookout for:
- First-time donors
- Current monthly donors who gave an extra “13th” gift
- Current volunteers who made their first donation
- Lapsed donors who made a gift
- Board members, vendors, sponsors, or employees who made their first gifts
We’ve got a great collection of resources on our site for you to look at before the big day. Updated frequently, this is our list of 33 ideas for Giving Tuesday, with everything from how to optimize your donation page to how to analyze your campaign data. Learn more and see all our Giving Tuesday resources here.
Good luck and happy fundraising!
Steven
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