How charities joined GivingTuesday 2020

2020 has been challenging and it’s vital to support charities who work towards important causes.

Giving Tuesday is the biggest day of giving inspiring millions of people to give. We are big advocates of the day and as it was on the 1st of December this year, it was the perfect opportunity to launch your end-of-year or Christmas campaign on the day.

Over the last few months, we’ve worked with hundreds of charities as part of our BRIDGE programme to help them improve their fundraising campaigns for the end of the year.

Through live sessions, recorded videos and one-to-one calls, we’ve helped them understand different elements that improve your digital success:

• learning your audience
• setting objectives
• mastering storytelling
• understanding internal and external comms
• bringing different channels together
• experimenting with different messages, channels, creatives
• creating a plan for your fundraising campaign

We were happy to see many of them joining #GivingTuesday yesterday so here are a few great examples to inspire you.

What’s next after #GivingTuesday?

Our brand new Fundraising Coach, Róisín McGovern, is sharing her tips on how to make the most of the new relationships you’re building during Giving Tuesday.

Just because Giving Tuesday is over doesn’t mean your fundraising should be too! For many of you, Giving Tuesday will be just the beginning of your end of the year campaign. Now is the perfect time to engage all those new donors and ensure your fundraising ends on a high.

1. Show appreciation – thank your donors via email and social media. Let them know how they are making an impact with their gift before you ask for another one.
2. Demonstrate success – donors love to hear your positive success stories. They are more likely to continue supporting your mission when they know what you can achieve – they will also be motivated to give again if they know their first gift made a valuable difference.
3. Regular giving – make it convenient for donors to give over and over again by encouraging them to sign up to become a regular giver to your organisation.
4. Offer alternative ways to show support – let donors know that there are plenty of non-financial ways they can show support too. Ask them to sign up to your newsletter, register for an upcoming event, read a blog post, or follow you on social media.

One of the most important things you can do after a campaign is to learn from your data. Find out what social media content performed the best, what email had the highest open and click rate, and what day generated the most donations. Measure your success using the free analytic tools on each social platform, or access the analytics reports on the Lightful Social Platform. Understanding your campaign data will not only help inform your future campaigns but also better understand your donors and their online behaviour.