Giving Tuesday grows every single year.
Since its inception in 2012, this giving day has expanded to a world-wide event and become an integral part of the holiday season—a philanthropic rebound to the consumer-focused Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
But how do we make the most of Giving Tuesday when donor expectations are higher than ever?
This Giving Tuesday playbook is designed with two goals in mind:
- Acquiring new donors
- Activating your existing donors
With as much hype that Giving Tuesday receives, we want to be present in front of our donors and supporters when Giving Tuesday arrives.
This means we need to start early and get out ahead of it.
Giving Tuesday Trends That Impact Your Fundraising Strategy
Year-end giving on the whole is on a 5-year decline.
Now, it’s still a powerhouse season for giving. It could represent anywhere from 25-50% of your annual fundraising revenue.
But giving behaviors are shifting.
There are fewer active donors.
Acquisition is harder.
Offline giving is down.
Giving Tuesday, however, has lots of reasons for optimism.
First and foremost, Giving Tuesday continues to grow every single year. And it’s expanded to be a global phenomenon with 105 official national movements.
Giving Tuesday Acquisition is on the Rise
One of the biggest Giving Tuesday trends that should impact your strategy this year is what’s happening with acquisition.
Looking at the year-end season overall, new donor acquisition is on the decline.
But Giving Tuesday acquisition is surging.
Over the past 5 years, there has only been one year when acquisition took a dip. And that was after an anomaly year in 2021 where acquisition grew by 233%.
With overall year-end acquisition on the decline and Giving Tuesday acquisition on the rise, our year-end strategy should change.
Don’t throw donor acquisition away during year-end. But plan to center your new donor acquisition efforts around Giving Tuesday.
There is lots of natural giving activity, and benchmarks suggest this is a prime time for bringing new people in the door.
What Does Acquisition Look Like During Giving Tuesday?
Fundraisers have varying views of what acquisition looks like on Giving Tuesday.
For some, there is a notion that acquiring new donors on Giving Tuesday requires a massive social media presence.
Having millions of social followers certainly doesn’t hurt! But it’s not the only way to see success.
Part of acquisition on Giving Tuesday looks like activating your existing email subscribers who have yet to give.
You can directly ask them for donations when the excitement about Giving Tuesday is at its peak. But you can also activate them in other more sustainable ways.
3-steps to Turn Email Subscribers into Donors
1. Create a Free Content Offer
A content offer is any form of content that someone has to fill out a form in order to access.
Common examples include: an ebook, a video series, an online course. Even a quiz, survey, or petition can serve as a form of content offer.
For Giving Tuesday, share a free content offer with your email subscribers as a way to give back to them first.
Send them to a landing page to read more. They can fill out a simple form right there to get access to the offer.
2. Create an Instant Donation Page
After someone fills out your form, send them to an Instant Donation Page.
An Instant Donation Page is a type of confirmation page. But instead of saying ‘Thank You’ and asking them to share the offer on social media, you can ask them for a gift right away.
Use this format for your page:
- Thank them and let them know their offer is heading to their inbox
- Pivot to a Giving Tuesday donation appeal
- Include a form on the page for them to give instantly
Instant donation pages can have varying conversion rates, but they average about a 4% conversion rate.
3. Advertise Your Offer to Likely New Donors
Use your free content offer as an advertising offer.
It’s a primary way to activate your known email subscribers. But you can use this as an ongoing acquisition offer around Giving Tuesday, during year-end, and beyond.
- Pull together a list of your active donors from your CRM (or use Avid to power this fundraising automation.)
- Generate a Lookalike audience in Meta / Facebook ads manager.
- Create a few versions of ad creative.
- Deploy your campaign and optimize for donations.
Creating a Comprehensive Giving Tuesday Fundraising Plan
Giving Tuesday is a primary time for new donor acquisition.
And it can be a great day to activate and reactivate existing donors.
It’s also, however, a really noisy and busy day. Most every nonprofit is looking for your donors to give to them. So we have to find ways to stand out and win our donors’ attention.
A primary strategy to win our donors attention and donation is through an omni-channel approach.
Develop a holistic, omni-channel campaign. Even if your donors only ever give through one specific channel, they can be influenced by every other channel.
Email your direct mail donors.
Mail your email donors
Target any type of donor with online ads to ensure visibility.
The Giving Tuesday Playbook
What does a Giving Tuesday campaign actually look like?
The following playbook outlines Channels, Touch points, and Audiences.
We’ll give you an overview of which Channels we recommend. We’ll outline each key Touchpoint of the campaign. And we’ll recommend key Audiences to consider sending segmented messaging.
Keep in mind: this playbook is not designed to be simple.
It’s designed for fundraisers using an AI-powered system like Avid to help execute all the segmentation and required creative.
You can also download the full AI-powered year-end fundraising playbook here »
Donation Pages & Landing Pages
Donation Page | Primary Giving Tuesday Page
This is the primary donation page for your Giving Tuesday campaign. It highlights the urgency to give, but provides significant reasons why someone should give to make meaningful impact.
Free Content Offer Funnel
Landing Page | Free Content Offer
A landing page can be used for many purposes. For Giving Tuesday, use a dedicated landing page to promote a free offer—usually an eBook, a video series, or other content that a user must fill out a form to access.
This will become an important asset for activating both new and existing donors.
Automated Email | Free Content Offer Delivery
A small, but critical touch point. Make sure to create an automated email that sends instructions on how to access the free offer. This should be sent as soon as someone fills out the “Free Content Offer” landing page form.
Instant Donation Page | Give Before the Giving Tuesday Deadline
This is a modified version of a confirmation page for the free offer. Like a normal confirmation page, it should thank the user and confirm that the offer is on its way to their inbox.
Then, it should immediately pivot towards a Giving Tuesday donation ask. Give a strong appeal on the page, making connections between the value of the offer and the impact of a donation. Include a donation form on the page to give right away.
Advertising
Pop-up / Web Banner
Giving Tuesday is one of the best days of the year for converting website visitors into donations. Use Pop-Ups or other Web Banners to show website visitors the opportunity to give.
Your web banners and ads should count down to the Giving Tuesday deadline and give a clear call-to-action to donate now. These can run across your website starting as soon as the Sunday before and go all the way until the deadline.
Paid Social
Paid social advertising has many roles to play in a campaign. Around Giving Tuesday, we’ll use it for two purposes:
- To show our offer to potential new donors
- To remind existing supports to give before the deadline
Acquisition Advertising
Advertise your free content offer to known email subscribers and web traffic who are not yet donors. Consider targeting a “lookalike” audience of Meta users who have similar behaviors as your most valuable donors.
Direct-to-Donation Advertising
Additionally, use direct-to-donation ads to remind existing donors of the opportunity to participate in Giving Tuesday by donating to your organization. Focus these ads around the last 48 hours of the campaign.
Google Performance Max Ads
A Google Performance Max campaign that is focused on reminding donors, followers, and website traffic to give to you on Giving Tuesday. Start running this at least the day before, but it could run for the full week before as a primer.
Emails and Other Timely Outreach
Even though Giving Tuesday is just one day, we’ll use a variety of touchpoints to prepare donors beforehand and activate them on Giving Tuesday.
Email is the primary driver of conversions in any digital-centric campaign. But it needs support.
Organic social posts rarely convert donations directly, but they increase the visibility of your campaign. SMS reminders can both increase visibility and drive direct donations.
The Sunday Before Giving Tuesday
Email 1 | Giving Tuesday is Coming
Sent on the Sunday before Giving Tuesday to educate donors and build anticipation. Don’t ask recipients to mark their calendars—ask them to give right away to the campaign.
Organic Social | Giving Tuesday is Coming Soon
An organic social media post that reminds followers that Giving Tuesday is coming soon. Consider sharing more about what Giving Tuesday is about and any specific impact goals you have.
The Day Before Giving Tuesday
Organic Social | Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday
An organic social media post that reminds followers that Giving Tuesday is tomorrow. Consider sharing a story of impact or testimonial.
SMS | Giving Tuesday Reminder
An SMS message reminding donors of the opportunity to participate in Giving Tuesday. Give a clear call to action to donate and a URL.
The Day of Giving Tuesday
Email 2 | Free Content Offer
Sent on the morning of Giving Tuesday, focused on giving donors something of value before asking them to give. Ask them to get free access to a content offer like an eBook, video series, online course, or other content by filling out a form.
Organic Social | Giving Tuesday is Here
An organic social media post that highlights Giving Tuesday and the opportunity to give. Explain the impact a gift makes and call people to give right away.
SlyBroadcast | Voicemail Reminder
An automated voicemail message reminding donors of the opportunity to participate in Giving Tuesday. Send this out in the early afternoon. For larger lists, you may need to start it in the morning to ensure timely delivery.
Email 3 | Last Chance to Give for Giving Tuesday
Sent in the late afternoon of Giving Tuesday, focused on urgency and driving donations before the deadline. Use a clear call to action and be straight to the point.
Audience Segmentation Ideas
There are countless ways you can divide up your audiences and create targeted outreach around Giving Tuesday.
Here are a few audiences to consider unique messaging for across your channels in order to activate unique donor segments and drive greater giving.
Existing Donors
Existing donors are going to be the lifeblood of your year-end campaign as a whole. They should always be given the opportunity to give to your Giving Tuesday campaign—taking advantage of the natural excitement about giving.
Email Subscribers, Non-Donors
With Giving Tuesday being a primary time for donor acquisition, specifically talk to your email subscribers that have not yet given to you.
Use your Free Content Offer Funnel outlined above as a means of engaging these non-donors, and setting them on a path towards giving.
Consider offering unique incentives like a gift matching opportunity just for these supporters who are considering making their first ever donation.
Lookalike Audiences
Use Facebook/Meta ads to create a lookalike audience of your most valuable donors. Import a list of your high-value donors to Meta Ads, and it can create a modeled audience of Meta users who have similar online behaviors.
Target this list with your free content offer as a means of acquiring them as a new donor during the lead up to Giving Tuesday.
New Donors
Donors who have given for the first time this year are hard to retain. But if you can get them to give a second gift during this same year, their likelihood of retaining increases dramatically.
Create targeted messaging for these donors, incentivizing them to give again. Use urgency language, incentives like a match or unique content, and custom donation asks based on their original donation.
Frequent Donors (3 or More Donations in the Past 12 Months)
Donors who have given 3 or more times in the past 12 months may be a likely audience to upgrade to a recurring donation.
Consider targeting these donors with a specific recurring upgrade appeal on Giving Tuesday, asking them to give monthly in order to increase their impact.
Looking for more segmentation ideas?
Here are 15 unique segmentation ideas for your year-end fundraising.
Using AI to Run Your Giving Tuesday Campaign
A quick browse through this Giving Tuesday playbook outline may feel overwhelming.
And it should, unless you’re using AI to assist in your campaign creation.
No team can keep up with the demand and scale their organization needs for success. But an AI-powered fundraising operating system like Avid makes this possible.
Avid creates the play.
Build your segments.
Syncs your audiences.
It even shows your real-time, cross-channel performance with clear visuals and a simple interface.
See how Avid can give you the AI-assist you need to drive better results this Giving Tuesday.
Schedule a strategy call with an Avid expert »
