5 Ways Freshen Up Your #GivingTuesday Fundraising Efforts  

Giving Tuesday, the global movement for good, has transformed philanthropy as organizations participate together to amplify the power of giving. The power of a focus on this special day, right amidst the holiday buying season is undeniable. It’s also important to make sure that your own mission stands out from the crowd to your supporters and that your effort isn’t just an automatic repeat of last year’s campaign.

The RNL ScaleFunder team took a look at campaigns across hundreds of our partners, and collected some key tactics to make sure you achieve that goal this November. Here are five ways you can renew excitement to your #GivingTuesday efforts this year.

On #GivingTuesday, lean into what makes your organization different

A key goal is to focus on initiatives that make your organization unique, like student led projects. These might come on our crowdfunding or cause-driven giving platform, or as part of your giving day effort on #GivingTuesday. Here are just a few:

• UNC Charolette hosted a virtual food pantry drive by setting up an Amazon Wishlist and promoted it on their Giving Day site.
• The University of Maryland hosts a cohort of student led projects during Giving Tuesday.
• Or, make it a theme: Radford University’s Highlander 10 Challenge is in honor of their foundation year 1910, where they had 1 day, 9 hours and 10 minutes to focus on raising funds for student led projects.

Image: Radford’s Highlander 10 Challenge built excitement and urgency around student campaigns on #GivingTuesday.

Use Giving Tuesday as a Save the Date for your Giving Day

Giving Tuesday is a day highly saturated with cause marketing, and your constituents are hearing from many non-profit organizations. However, it’s still important for your organization to have a presence.

So, how do you participate, even if you have a separate, larger giving day effort later in the fiscal year on your own special day? Easy: Use #GivingTuesday as an opportunity where folks are thinking about philanthropy to start promoting your own Giving Day.

I particularly love this example from Duquesne University. While the primary focus is on promoting their Giving Day, they also gave their constituents an opportunity to give on Giving Tuesday.

Encourage recurring giving and sign donors up for a lifestyle monthly giving subscription

One way to make #GivingTuesday fresh is to change the way you’re asking donors to “buy in” to your cause. Ask them to subscribe: encourage recurring giving by offering an incentive for donors who make a recurring gift.

Image: Central Michigan University offers a great incentive for donors to sign up for giving monthly on #GivingTuesday.

Once donors sign up for recurring gifts, you will have more opportunities for communication touchpoints and stewardship. With these additional touchpoints you are more likely to retain these donors for longer.

Embrace digital wallets to allow #GivingTuesday gifts in less than a minute with PayPal, Venmo and Apple Pay

On busy days like Giving Tuesday, it is even more crucial to make giving as easy as possible for your donors. By using digital wallet options like Apple Pay, PayPal, and Venmo you can eliminate a barrier to giving for your donors. Based on RNL’s work with our Giving Day partners, an average of 1/3 of gifts will come in via digital wallet after adopting it as an option. If you haven’t already adopted Braintree as your payment processor with RNL ScaleFunder, reach out to us to learn more.

Incorporate new ScaleFunder Features during Giving Tuesday

We’ve added new features like the auto-completion of matches and challenges, the cloning of campaigns to help you set up a new giving day easily, and other great features. Contact the RNL team today to get a demo and hear all the ways we’ve made it easy for advancement teams to innovate, and create a better experience.

Here’s a neat one: Use the Joint Gift feature to allow your donor to include their spouse or partner on their gift. By using this feature a donor can make 1 gift but count as 2 donors by including their spouse or partner on the gift.

Image: RNL ScaleFunder allows for easy joint spouse or partner credit for gifts on #GivingTuesday, or any day

GivingTuesday is now a tradition but your donor engagement tactics can always use some innovation

These are just a few ways you can use technology to innovate on your giving day, and provide an exciting, fresh donor experience. Everyone will be giving in November, and it’s time to offer your donors an opportunity to celebrate your cause in a new way.

If you’re looking for ideas to make your #GivingTuesday – or any giving day campaign – a winner, drop us a line. The RNL has worked with hundreds of institutions surprise and excite donors. We’re ready to craft a fresh strategy with your team, using great tech, right away.