Every year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, millions of people around the world come together to give back to the causes they care about by making donations and volunteering their time for Giving Tuesday, a global day of generosity. Giving Tuesday is an engagement opportunity that no organization, institution or community engagement program should miss out on, especially this year.
While COVID-19 has affected nearly everyone’s lives and operations, studies show that your community still wants to make a difference by donating and engaging in virtual volunteer opportunities, and combining those two efforts can have long lasting positive outcomes. This Giving Tuesday, on December 1st, 2020, bring your community together by offering virtual volunteer and donation opportunities, or combine the two by engaging volunteers in peer to peer fundraising or other campaign related activities.
Leverage our Giving Tuesday Toolkit as shown below to turn your Giving Tuesday into a virtual day of generosity that will engage donors and volunteers alike.
Step 1: Create a Giving Tuesday Fundraising Campaign
Creating a fundraising campaign ensures that your community members who want to give back have the opportunity to do so. We recommend setting a goal you think you can hit, enabling peer to peer fundraising, and incorporating a story with examples of impact, including a featured photo or video. If you have volunteer opportunities related to the fundraising campaign, include those on your page so people know they can make a difference in multiple ways.
For more tips on running a successful fundraising campaign, see our Crowdfunding Goal Calculator, Campaign Communications Calendar Template, our previous blog post 7 Steps to Crowdfunding Success or watch our Crowdfunding Basics webinar.
Step 2: Recruit Peer to Peer Fundraisers
Peer to peer (P2P) fundraisers are volunteers who will advocate for your cause and ask for donations from their network of friends, family and colleagues through a personal fundraising page connected to your campaign. P2P solicitations are usually more personal and more effective, allowing your organization to reach new donors.
Here are some tips to help you successfully manage P2P fundraisers:
- Enable P2P fundraising when creating your campaign, which will reveal the “Help Fundraise” button on your page.
- Send messages to your volunteers, event attendees or members directing them to create a campaign through the “Help Fundraise” button on your page. Treat this as another volunteer opportunity and communicate how their help will be essential to accomplish your organization’s goals.
- Incentivize them by providing P2P fundraiser prizes as this group did on GivePulse! The leaderboard feature makes it easy to see who your top ranking group and individual P2P fundraisers are.
- When thanking donors for their gift, customize your campaign’s thank you message with a link to sign up to be a P2P fundraiser so they can amplify the impact of their donation.
Visit our support page for more information on how to set up and manage P2P fundraising and tips for P2P fundraisers to create and manage their own campaigns.
Step 3: Create Giving Tuesday Volunteer Opportunities
For volunteers who may not want to peer to peer fundraise, you can still include them in your Giving Tuesday campaign by asking them to help with campaign elements like making a video, doing graphic design, writing emails, sharing on social media or helping your organization write thank you cards. Having volunteers contribute their time and skills to fundraising campaigns makes them more likely to be a donor in the future just by coming in contact with your campaign.
To get started, set up a GivePulse volunteer opportunity with different campaign activities as shifts. You can use shift settings to specify how many people you need and timeframes for each activity. You can also set up multi-step volunteer opportunities by using GivePulse’s new Project-Based Events feature.
Other Giving Tuesday Virtual Engagement Opportunities:
- Promote Virtual Volunteer Opportunities
Looking to set up a virtual volunteer event for Giving Tuesday separate from a fundraising campaign? Here are some tips for setting your event as virtual and tagging it for COVID-19.
- Find a Volunteer Fiscal Sponsor
GivePulse enables companies and organizations to match volunteer hours with dollar amounts. If your organization works with volunteers from a particular company or corporation, this could be a great opportunity for them to make their employee’s volunteer contributions go further. Contact us to learn more.
- Incorporate a Virtual Event
Incorporate a virtual event into your Giving Tuesday to celebrate your campaign, announce prize winners and drum up extra support! While creating your event, mark it as virtual and include the conference or livestream link to join.
We know that there is an overlap between volunteers and donors and that your most engaged community members will give back in multiple ways, but it’s up to you to ask. Promoting virtual volunteer experiences and online fundraising opportunities this Giving Tuesday will keep supporters engaged from a distance, give your community the opportunity to contribute in new ways, and offer much needed support for your organization during this challenging time.
List your Giving Tuesday event on GivePulse today!
This blog was a summary of a recent webinar, Fall Fundraising & the Second Wave of COVID-19. Watch the full webinar here.
Interested in learning more about GivePulse’s donations features? Set up a fundraising overview meeting.