The holiday season is here! What’s not to love? Bring on the pumpkin spiced lattes, cozy sweaters and a bounty of days to spend time with loved ones. Plus, let’s not forget to mention all the great shopping from Black Friday and all the neat gadgets we’ll own thanks to Cyber Monday. It’s officially the beginning of the holiday season and positivity is everywhere, which is why it’s also the perfect time to enjoy another special day, GivingTuesday.
A Refresher on GivingTuesday
GivingTuesday was started in the United States in 2012 and quickly began in Canada the following year. GivingTuesday is more than just a day, it’s a movement that can span multiple weeks and involves people from all areas, nonprofits, and charities, small businesses, large companies, community groups, and individuals. The actual day, which lands on December 3, 2019 this year, kicks off the giving season and serves as a reminder that giving to those in need should occur throughout the year, not just on that specific day.
Ensure Success for your nonprofit or charity
Participating in GivingTuesday involves a lot of moving parts. There are lots of people invested in making the movement a success, so for that reason, you need to make sure that you jump into action with enough time and a good plan in hand.
Register to be an official partner – Anyone can participate in GivingTuesday, but to be an official partner, you must be a registered charity or nonprofit, and you must have a GivingTuesday initiative. Are you a school, business or community group? No problem! You just need to commit to participating in a project that will directly benefit a registered charity or nonprofit. If you’re registering in the US, visit this website. If you’re in Canada, this is where you register.
Plan early – Start doing research in the community to see if you can recruit any groups that share the same passion for giving as you do. Having people by your side to champion the cause with you will make your GivingTuesday campaign that much more successful. For instance, is there an advertising agency that is willing to do pro bono work in return for charity exposure? Promoting GivingTuesday to your community months in advance may inspire new participants to reach out to you for collaboration.
Set goals – Knowing if your campaign was successful is crucial in planning for future years; however, success measurements need to be clearly outlined before you launch your campaign. You can measure success through both quantitative (number of meals donated, an increase in volunteer participation, dollars raised) and qualitative means (obtaining great success stories, a boost in media exposure.)
Be proactive – Launch your campaign weeks before the actual day to build anticipation and excitement. Put together a work back schedule that outlines activities 6 months before GivingTuesday and then get more specific with plans that are 60 days out, 30 days out, 2 weeks out, one week out and 24 hours before the day.
"We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest."
Orison Swett Marden
Engage your community – Educate your community on who you are and what your goals are. Give clear examples of what charities you help and why you help them so that participants are more likely to want to partner with you. If you have great stats on goals that were met the previous year, now’s the time to share them. This is also the perfect occasion to recruit volunteers. Invite past volunteers in your database to participate and encourage them to bring their families, friends, and colleagues along for the fun.
Engage local businesses – Participating in GivingTuesday is a great teambuilding activity for companies that are looking to engage their employees and make their time at work more meaningful and diverse. Reach out to different businesses, both small and large, and highlight how participating in GivingTuesday will be a benefit to them, both from a company-wide brand image perspective as well as for the individual employees. Another great way to involve local businesses is by asking if they’ll match your daily donations. If the business is small, they can cap their donation total, for example, Company XYZ will match GivingTuesday donations up to $12,000.
Engage the media – Is there a celebrity that will support your cause and organization? Do you have a local news channel that’s willing to take exclusive coverage of your campaign both leading up to the day and throughout the day? Having a known person cover your campaign will add momentum to your cause because they’ll have enormous influencing powers to give your campaign exposure to their circle of followers and fans.
Get creative – GivingTuesday involves all forms of acts of kindness, and there are no limits to how creative you can get. A restaurant could donate half its wait staff’s tips and match the amount to double it. A bank can give a dollar for every customer transaction made that day. An art gallery or museum can host an open house where entry is granted in exchange for a food donation.
Give thanks – Show how grateful you are for all the support your community gives you. Share pics of your nonprofit or charity organization in action on social media and post case studies on your website. Be sure to use the hashtags #GivingTuesday (in the US) and #GivingTuesdayCA (in Canada.) Another great idea is to make a quick video of your staff members thanking supporters. There’s no need to make it a big production, it’s the message that counts.
Ready, Set, Go!
Never miss the opportunity to express how much you care for your community by giving and volunteering. There are lots of resources out there to help inspire and organize your GivingTuesday participation. One easy way to start is by setting up a Click and Give page using Andar/360. Click on the link below to get step by step instructions on how to do this, or feel free to reach out to us for help. Good luck and make sure to share your GivingTuesday success stories with us!
Set Up a Click and Give Page
It’s easy to set up as many Click to Give type pages as you like.
Follow these simple steps to create and prepare a webpage that is specific to #GivingTuesday.
I have Andar/360, give me the steps! I don’t have Andar/360, tell me more!