Set The Foundation For Giving Tuesday In 7 Steps

Giving Tuesday, a global day of giving fueled by social media and collaboration, is an essential opportunity for all nonprofits. Whether your main goal is to raise awareness or to raise funds, strategically participating in Giving Tuesday will widen your audience and increase engagement.

Scheduled annually for the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday invites people to dedicate their day of giving. On Giving Tuesday in 2024, more than $3.6 billion was raised.

Too many nonprofits don’t take advantage of joining the movement of Giving Tuesday or participate as an after-thought, with little planning or strategy. Yet an effective Giving Tuesday plan can increase the involvement of your existing donors, elicit new participants, and kick start your year-end giving.

Money raised by Bloomerang clients grew 32% from 2023, double the industry average, reinforcing nonprofits using Bloomerang’s Giving Platform are better equipped to raise more. In total, Bloomerang Clients raised a record $56M on GivingTuesday in 2024.

see giving tuesday 2019 results

1. Check Out GivingTuesday Tools and Materials

Use the resources provided by GivingTuesday to get ideas on giving back, rallying your networks, and inspiring others.

2. Set Your Goals

Giving Tuesday doesn’t just have to be about fundraising. In fact, many successful campaigns are focused on raising awareness or gathering volunteers to take offline action.

Think about what’s most important and what will be most effective for your organization. If you need a larger pool of consistent donors, perhaps acquiring new followers and new email addresses is your biggest Giving Tuesday goal. Perhaps, like the Humble Project in Long Beach, California, you want to recruit volunteers—in 2017, they gathered supporters to assemble hygiene products and created over 600 packages to help those in need.

3. Determine Your Call-To-Action

The collaboration of so many nonprofits is what makes Giving Tuesday such a powerful movement. Yet, it can also mean prospects are inundated with options of worthy organizations who need help.

Giving Tuesday is not a time to simply tell people about your work. You need to tell people why they need to get involved now and why they should choose you. Why is your cause urgent? What’s the impact of their gift? Use storytelling as a tool for communicating your work.

Create one priority ask and design your entire campaign around it. Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wisconsin, set a goal of raising $20,000 to bring an endangered tiger to their zoo. Building up to Giving Tuesday, they dropped hints and built anticipation, and their asks had a clear goal and a clear urgency for prospects.

4. Brainstorm Creative Ideas

The ice bucket challenge, the twizzler challenge, and others like them, all sparked outsized engagement because they were unique and engaging. What makes your organization, your cause, your beneficiaries special? How can you harness that to invite others to join your movement?

Giving Tuesday is a great chance to take some risks and try new ideas to help raise awareness of your cause.

5. Recruit Social Media Ambassadors

The internet is a crowded place on Giving Tuesday so a few tweets from your main account won’t cut it. Recruit and train social media ambassadors to share your campaign, tell their story, and invite their friends to participate. Ask your loyal donors and volunteers to help spread your campaign with Giving Tuesday social media posts—educating them with guidelines, information, and sample posts and emails.

6. Find Matching Donors

Donors who will match gifts or who will donate a certain amount for every online or offline action are great ways to increase involvement from new donors. People are more likely to post a picture of themselves with your hashtag or donate $5 when they feel that its impact will be even greater. Matching is also a great opportunity to activate a major donor.

Take a look in your donor database or wealth screening tool to identify some donors that could be a good fit to provide a Giving Tuesday matching donation to help motivate your supporters.

7. Get Started Early

Giving Tuesday may fall on one day, but you can, and should, be talking about it long before.  Tell your existing audience about your plans ASAP and give them updates and more information as you get closer to the day.

Get people trained to participate as effectively as possible while building excitement and anticipation for the big day.

Bonus: Find Giving Tuesday Resources

Regardless of your experience, Giving Tuesday resources can help you stay up-to-date with the best practices for running a successful campaign.

With thoughtful preparation, Giving Tuesday can be a great day for your organization and start your end-of-year giving with a huge boost. Gather your team today to ensure everything is in place to create an awesome Giving Tuesday campaign.