Giving Tuesday 2024 Guide: everything you need for a successful campaign

From understanding the importance of GivingTuesday for nonprofits, to building an engaging campaign site, we're here to support your journey. Let's dive in and explore how you can leverage Giving Tuesday 2024 to drive your fundraising efforts and make a lasting impact!

What is Giving Tuesday?

Created with the spirit of generosity in mind, Giving Tuesday is a global movement that encourages individuals, communities, and businesses to support and contribute to the charitable causes they care about most. It is celebrated annually on the Tuesday following the US Thanksgiving holiday, and works to contrasts the consumerism of Black Friday and Cyber Monday with a focus on giving back.

Founded in 2012, this day of charity has since grown into a significant event, powering countless philanthropic activities and promoting a sense of communal responsibility around the world. It serves as an excellent opportunity for non-profits to boost their fundraising efforts and for individuals to make a meaningful difference to the causes that resonate with them.

This year, Giving Tuesday is happening on December 3, 2024

As a globally recognised event, participating in Giving Tuesday has the potential to significantly boost your fundraising revenue. According to impact reports, $3.1 billion dollars was raised on Giving Tuesday in 2023, with the majority of donations coming from donors in the USA, Canada, and UK.

In addition to the high financial impact, Giving Tuesday is also an excellent platform to gain visibility and reach new audiences; many non-profits report that up to 35% of their supporters first engaged with them through Giving Tuesday initiatives.

With the right strategy and preparation, you can leverage this day of generosity to drive your cause even further. That's why we've assembled all our resources into this comprehensive guide - so that you have everything you need to make your GivingTuesday campaign successful!

Learn from the experts

We recommend kicking off your campaign planning by watching Raisely's Giving Tuesday Secret Ingredients webinar. This 1-hour webinar is packed with Giving Tuesday best practices from 4 digital fundraising experts:

• GivingTuesday - Kathleen Murphy, Director of Digital Strategy
• KPCC - NPR News for Southern California - Deanna Archetto and Danny Sway, Senior Membership Managers
• Amplifi - Amy Boroff, Development Strategist

This session is guaranteed to leave with you plenty of ideas and inspiration for your GivingTuesday fundraising campaign.

Watch and learn:

• How to incorporate giving days in your annual fundraising strategy and why peer-to-peer campaigns are an essential ingredient.
• How to stand out amongst the crowd on GivingTuesday.
• Best practises to building momentum and how far in advance to begin promotion.

Checklist for Preparing for GivingTuesday

This checklist gives you all the must-haves to make sure every important detail is covered before the event. By following these key steps, you'll be able to organise your approach, effectively manage your resources, and set the stage for a truly successful GivingTuesday campaign.

1. Set Clear Goals: Begin by clearly defining your objectives for your GivingTuesday campaign. Consider what you aim to accomplish - it could be something monetary like raising a specific amount of money or non-monetary like acquiring a targeted number of new donors. By setting concrete goals, you can better measure the success of your campaign and motivate your team to work towards achieving them.
2. Develop a Comprehensive Communications Plan: Create a well-thought-out marketing and communications plan that outlines the key messages, channels, and timings you'll strategically use to effectively spread the word about your campaign. Start by identifying your target audience, and carefully select the most appropriate communication channels to reach and engage that audience.
   Learn more here - How to create a nonprofit marketing plan that gets esults.
3. Build a Dedicated Team: Establish a team dedicated to planning, executing, and reviewing the GivingTuesday campaign; this may include team members from fundraising, marketing, finance, communications, and/or volunteer departments.
4. Engage Your Supporters: It is crucial to maintain a strong connection with your donors and supporters throughout the campaign. Take the time to prepare thoughtful and meaningful messages to express your gratitude and actively keep them engaged. By keeping supporters informed about the progress of the campaign and involving them in the journey, you can foster a sense of community and inspire continued support. Remember, the more you invest in building relationships with your supporters, the more likely they are to remain dedicated and enthusiastic about your cause.
   Learn more here - 3 strategies to build trust based relationships with your donors
5. Utilise Social Media: To maximise your reach, identify relevant hashtags and actively engage in online conversations related to your cause. By joining these conversations, you can establish your presence and connect with like-minded individuals who have a much higher probability of being converted into donors. Additionally, ensure that your content is coordinated and consistent across all social media platforms. This will help reinforce your messaging and create a strong and unified brand image.
   Learn more here - How to create a social media strategy for your nonprofit.
6. Collaborate: Form coalitions and partnerships with other like-minded nonprofits to increase reach and impact by combining resources, expertise, and networks. By working together, organisations can amplify efforts, share knowledge, and create a more significant and lasting impact in their communities.
7. Involve Corporate Partners: The active participation of your corporate partners can greatly enhance the promotion of your campaign. Engage with them to explore the potential of matched giving, where they can contribute funds that match the donations received. This not only increases the impact of your campaign but also strengthens the partnership between your organisation and its corporate partners.
8. Effective Content Marketing: Utilise various forms of engaging content, such as well-crafted blog posts, visually captivating videos, informative infographics, and compelling impact stories, to not only raise awareness but also inspire and motivate your audience to take meaningful action.
9. Implement Email Marketing: Personalise and segment your emails to keep your supporters well-informed about your campaign progress and its milestones. This will not only help you engage with them on a deeper level but also encourage donations or volunteering by highlighting the impact of their contributions and showcasing the various ways they can get involved.
10. Prepare for Post-Campaign Interaction: Take the time to strategise and plan how you'll engage and connect with your donors once the campaign comes to a close. Consider crafting compelling impact stories that showcase the impact their contributions have made, or sending thank you messages to   express your appreciation.

Tip: Organisations using Raisely Pro to create and send campaign emails raise 2x more than those without Raisely Pro.

One of the most important elements of any GivingTuesday campaign is creating an engaging donor experience. Consider investing in a tool like Raisely that can improve the overall user journey with a dedicated GivingTuesday landing page (more on that below!)

Building Your GivingTuesday Campaign Page

Getting started with building your campaign landing page may seem hard - but it doesn't have to be. Raisely's templates and easy-to-use page builder means you can create a visually appealing campaign page completely on your own - no code or web development experience required.

Raisely's Giving Day template allows you to choose from 3 different pre-built themes, so you have everything you need to create an engaging, donation-driven page tailored to your organisation and supporter network. Each theme comes with plenty of space to talk about your organisation and it's impact. We also have key GivingTuesday features like matched giving periods, progress bars, and donor leaderboards.

Even better, all templates come pre-loaded with Raisely's new data-driven donation form that focuses on simplicity and optimisation. The new form has a default 3 step flow with clear button amounts that only asks for necessary information by default. It also provides easy payment options through PayPal and digital wallets, while celebrating donations with confetti, thank you messages, and beautiful emails. On average, one in five visitors to a Raisely website makes a donation, and once an amount is selected, 85% of people complete their gift, making it one of the most effective tools to have on GivingTuesday.

Tip: Campaigns switching to Raisely's new donation form are seeing a 48% increase in fundraising

For a top-notch campaign site design, begin by watching our tutorial on designing Giving Tuesday campaigns. It's the perfect starting point!

In this tutorial, Raisely's Lead Educator James will guide you through the steps to get your GivingTuesday site up and running. Plus you'll discover how to make the most of our GivingTuesday templates, explore creative communication techniques to boost engagement and learn how to create quick lead-generating landing pages for pre/post campaign interaction.

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GivingTuesday is an incredible platform for organisations to drive donations, increase visibility and give back to their communities. With the right preparation, your organisation can leverage the day of generosity and generate transformative results.

Ready to launch your GivingTuesday campaign? Try Raisely's free new GivingTuesday template! A quick, high-converting template designed for GivingTuesday campaigns, with optional peer-to-peer functionality to boost your reach.