GivingTuesday: Two Months Out—What Should You Be Doing?

The final quarter of 2022 and GivingTuesday are just around the corner. Today, we’re less than two months away from one of the biggest giving days of the year.

While your organization has the choice to decide how large or small your GivingTuesday campaign is, the more you invest into planning, the better the return. So, whether you’ve just added GivingTuesday to your to-do list or you’re a bit farther along in your planning, check out the tips below on what you should be doing (or already have done!) at the two-month-out mark. Download our full GivingTuesday toolkit for even more ways to get your organization ready!

Plan Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Campaign

Most people donate as a result of being asked by a friend, family member, or peer. By involving your most loyal supporters in peer-to-peer fundraising, you’re more likely to increase brand awareness of your organization, securing new donors, and extending the reach of your campaign.

Now that we’ve chatted about the benefits of a direct ask from your most loyal supporters, let’s touch on how you can incorporate peer-to-peer fundraising into your GivingTuesday campaign.

1. Ensure you have the right technology in place. Take a look at your fundraising tech stack – do you have a peer-to-peer fundraising platform in place that allows for simple sign-up, easy fundraising page creation, and convenient fundraiser management, such as sending requests via email or social media? If not, look into a platform such as JustGiving® from Blackbaud®, which is free  and easy to publish a branded campaign to start raising money! Bonus – if you have Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®, you can integrate the two products.
   Want to learn more about the JustGiving from Blackbaud integration with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT? Check out this on-demand webinar!
2. Create a peer-to-peer fundraising toolkit for your supporters. To make it as easy as possible for supporters to fundraise on your behalf, include simple instructions, tip sheets, and pre-written messages that fundraisers can use for email and social in a toolkit or page on your website.
3. Solicit feedback on your peer-to-peer fundraising plan. Prior to rolling your plan out to a larger audience, ask those closest to your organization—like your GivingTuesday committee members and top fundraisers—to review your messaging and toolkit. These individuals can help provide feedback to ensure that your campaign is as successful as possible.

For more in-depth tips on how to successfully leverage peer-to-peer fundraising before, during and after GivingTuesday, check out pages 10 and 11 in Blackbaud’s GivingTuesday toolkit.

Develop a Strong Communications Plan

Once you’ve taken the time to plan your overall GivingTuesday campaign theme, develop your communications timeline and plan. Consider how your GivingTuesday communications strategy fits into your annual communications strategy and be sure to plan around three key elements of audience, channel, and timing.

1. When thinking about your audience, consider the following:
   • Who will read or view the communication and why?
   • How does the target audience interact with your organization?
   • What strategies can help you build upon existing connections with supporters and engage new donors?

Ensure that you’re planning to share interesting and engaging content both leading up to the event and the day-of, and segmenting your audience strategically based on their interests and how they interact with you. Include ways to continuously share how much you appreciate your donors’ support and connections to your organization.

2. When considering appropriate channels where you’ll share communications, consider how supporters already engage with you, whether that be through phone, email, social media, or physical mailings. Be sure that your communications are easy for your supporters to share within their network, encouraging both potential and existing donors to support your campaign.
3. Finally, consider the timing in sharing communications. In the days leading up to your campaign, plan to send emails and share social media posts to build excitement and prep additional communications in advance throughout the day on GivingTuesday. Create a content calendar for social media but leave room to leverage real-time numbers to highlight both urgency and excitement as the day progresses.

To dive into more communications strategy and planning, check out Blackbaud’s GivingTuesday toolkit, where you can also find additional campaign tips, worksheets, and planning ideas.

Stay tuned for more posts on what to do as GivingTuesday approaches, along with leveraging your post-campaign relationships and success.

Learn more about the history of the. campaign and how you can participate in this webinar.