Whether you are an organization that wants to catalyze your peer-to-peer fundraising or a volunteer who wants to support a cause, we are here to help! There are opportunities for you to strengthen your community on the GivePulse platform during the GivingTuesday 2022 Campaign. GivePulse is a #GivingTuesday and #GivingTuesdayNow Platform Partner that supports organizations looking to fundraise, crowdfund, and scale the management of donations from donors, volunteers and advocates.
But this year is different - there are a variety of emerging challenges facing nonprofits, higher education institutions, municipalities, K-12 school districts, churches, and volunteers alike.
We are here to walk you through a few impactful steps you can take to get your group/cause noticed and leverage the power of technology to amplify your cause through giving. Besides seizing the opportunity for your organization to fortify its financial standing, why else should you participate in GivingTuesday with GivePulse?
Join Us & Expand Your Outreach
We are excited to invite you to join an exclusive GivePulse group for the GivingTuesday 2022 (GivingTuesday22) campaign. There are just three qualifications:
- Create a GivePulse account with images for your profile and banner to showcase your organization’s work
- Activate your “Donate” button
- Make a GivingTuesday fundraiser and share it with the GivePulse team by emailing specialevents@givepulse.com.
If your organization has already added your bank account, you are still eligible to win matching funds.
Plus, for every nonprofit organization that A) activates their fundraising feature; B) creates a fundraiser; and C) shares their fundraiser on social media while tagging @GivePulse - we will enter your organization into a drawing to receive a 100% matching gift of $100, $500, or $1,000 to match the funds you raise on the platform. Be sure to include great photos of your organization to boost the visibility of your fundraiser. Also, email us at specialevents@givepulse.com to be sure your organization is entered into the drawing. Entries are limited to one per nonprofit organization.
GivePulse “groups” provide a way to centralize active community members - those who have photos and create events, fundraisers, volunteer opportunities, etc. For the GivingTuesday22 campaign, joining the “group” will increase your efforts to promote your giving opportunities. Join us to boost your experiences and be a part of giving together, giving joy, and giving more across the U.S.
By featuring your GivingTuesday22 fundraiser and event in the GivePulse group, we also streamline the searching experience so potential donors and volunteers can easily learn about your organization. During the month of November, we will point to the GivingTuesday22 group page from our GivingTuesday landing page. Learn more about our GivingTuesday22 campaign.
Let’s Get Started
If you haven’t yet, check out the GivePulse GivingTuesday Resource Toolkit for all the basics to guide you in getting started. Click the link to see what’s included in the toolkit. And for even more information, check out the Giving articles and Support blogs at the end of this article.
Key considerations for your planning and messaging:
- Know your Audience & Be Sensitive
As you consider your ask, think intentionally about who your donor audience is in order to connect with people where they are versus spreading yourself too thin trying to reach everyone. Also, include language that addresses the difficulty of this current time of compounding crises. This intentional messaging will help you reach out to those who want to help without seeming oblivious to those who are unable to give financially. - Be Honest & Direct
Be honest about your organization’s needs. It can help potential donors or volunteers decide to support your organization to pair your ask for donations or volunteering with examples of direct impact. - Empower Others
Your work is all about making connections and we know it takes a village. The more help you can get, the better. Reach out to your volunteers and donor community to ask them to spread the word or even start their own peer-to-peer campaign from your GivePulse funding event page. It is proven that people are more likely to give when asked by someone they know. Also, the more personalized your outreach, the more likely it is to be successful. Make sure you are using images with people on your account profile photo and banner image to help differentiate your organization too. - Thank Your Community
Make sure to follow up with a thank you message to donors, volunteers and to those who helped spread the word. GivePulse automatically sends receipts for donations and you can customize the automatic email based on your organization. If you’re short-staffed, you can ask your volunteers to help thank others by writing emails or cards or recording videos. You can also thank donors collectively on a webinar and share more about the impact of their giving! - Generate as Many Points of Contact as You Can
GivingTuesday provides a sense of urgency by using one day to mobilize supporters, but you don’t need to limit your campaign to just one day. Consider planning a multi-day campaign leading up to or launching on GivingTuesday. You can also use what you learn and apply during GivingTuesday to plan a campaign for another special day, particularly one that is specific to your organization like an anniversary or locally significant day.
Fundraising Made Easy
Launching your GivingTuesday campaign is easy using the GivePulse software. It takes only a few minutes to create an account for your organization, add photos for your profile and banner images, then set up your donation button. We use Stripe for processing payments and our in-house security mechanisms protect your classified information including your bank account. Learn more about connecting your bank account.
Once you've connected your bank account and published a fundraising event, community members and volunteers can find your fundraiser. Set the privacy to "public" to allow the event or fundraiser to appear in searches and on your group page.
The “Donate” button will also appear on your general GivePulse group page and all active fundraisers will be included as options on the Donate button dropdown. Learn more about how you can direct constituents to make a donation - under “Start Accepting Donations.”
To receive recurring donations, set up an "open opportunity" fundraiser. Donors can select the amount and frequency of their gift, and their donations will automatically charge their credit card. (Please note, recurring donations are not currently available for time-limited fundraisers.)
Optimize Your Fundraising
Once your fundraiser launches, do a quick scan of your organization’s account profile from the lens of a potential donor or volunteer that hasn’t interacted with you and your team yet. Do you have good photos for your profile, banner and administrators? Photos with people’s faces help build human connection.
With your fundraising capabilities activated and photos displayed, you are now ready to create your GivingTuesday fundraiser or event (note: these could be virtual, remote, or in-person). Do you want to invite donors to contribute to your general cause? Or do you have a specific goal that they could support? We also encourage you to include prompts for multiple ways to give. If there are virtual, remote, or in-person volunteer experiences that can connect to GivingTuesday, we will also promote that in our GivingTuesday22 group campaign page. Please note: we will only promote a maximum of two activities per organization for this campaign.
GivingTuesday is only one day out of the year, yet it can help you prepare for launching additional giving days throughout the year. Using GivePulse allows you to harness the power of virtual fundraising and remote engagement.
“One of our big focuses was on crunching the data after the giving day was over. We have been able to export donor data and impacts easily which will help inform our strategies in the future. We can see how the more we use GivePulse, the more powerful it will become,” said Kaimana Brummel, Director of Advancement, Seabury Hall. Learn more about how Seabury Hall exceeded their Giving Day goal - and you can too!
You Are Ready!
Now that you have set up your GivingTuesday fundraiser, you are also ready to invite donors to contribute to your cause year-round.
As Kaimana said, “Do not try to do a giving day without GivePulse! While giving days are simple, they are not easy and you need the right tools to get the job done. We saved so much time using GivePulse because the platform is intuitive and flexible. We used it to host a giving day, sell products, and manage volunteers. Having everything in one place allowed for staff, volunteers, and donors to get everything quickly. We liked how the forward facing site and the back end user experience was configurable, easy to navigate, and all in one place. In a world where people are easily distracted, it was really important to have all aspects of the event in one place.”
Check out the blogs below and let us know what you think. What information is useful for your organization? What’s missing when it comes to advancing the fundraising of your organization? Are there more effective or streamlined ways to fundraise or navigate GivingTuesday resources?
We are a small but mighty team and always looking for ways to improve to better meet our community where it’s at. Let us know how we can improve our offerings at success@givepulse.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is my banking information safe to add to the GivePulse platform?
Yes, all bank information is secured through Stripe, a payment infrastructure used by many major corporations including Google, Amazon, and Zoom. Learn more about Stripe’s privacy policies and read GivePulse’s Privacy Policy.
Does it cost to activate my account or my fundraising capabilities?
No - you can start a GivePulse account for free and the fundraising features are included in this. Learn more about pricing.
Can we invite our donors to cover our processing fees?
Of course. We offer donors the opportunity to cover processing fees as they are finalizing their giving. Learn more about processing fees and our partnership with Stripe.
We are already fundraising on another platform; why would we use GivePulse?
It’s free! Also, if you’re using GivePulse for volunteer management, think about the benefits of converting your volunteers into donors who can help you fundraise. Using GivePulse for fundraising also provides donor management tools and even more insights, all in one place.
Support Blogs to Leverage Your Fundraising Capabilities:
Additional Giving Resources:
- GivePulse for Giving Days
- Blog - Your Guide to Setting Up a GivingTuesday Fundraiser
- Webinar - Crowdfunding Basics (Especially during COVID-19)
- Blog - Three Steps for Virtual Fundraising for GivingTuesday
- GivePulse for Donor Management
- GivingTuesday Toolkit
ABOUT USING GIVEPULSE FOR GIVINGTUESDAY:
GivingTuesday is an annual global day of giving when people across the world come together to celebrate giving and to give back to their communities. There are many reasons to give on GivingTuesday. For some, it is a day to give back to their favorite charities or causes. For others, it is a day to help those in need. Whatever the reason, GivingTuesday is a day to make a difference.
There are countless ways to get involved in GivingTuesday. People can volunteer their time, donate money, or simply spread the word to raise awareness about GivingTuesday.
GivePulse is an ideal platform to engage in GivingTuesday. We make it easy for people to find opportunities to give back, and we provide a variety of ways for people to get involved.
Getting started with GivePulse for GivingTuesday is easy. Simply create a free account and explore all of the ways you can get involved. You can also sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on all things Giving-related.
About GivePulse:
GivePulse's mission is to enable everyone in the world to participate and engage in lifting their community to new heights. We do so by providing a platform to list, find, organize and measure the impact of service-learning, community engagement, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility and volunteerism.
Founded in 2012 in Austin, Texas, GivePulse works with 650,000+ groups, including colleges and universities, nonprofits, businesses, K-12/school districts and cities and municipalities. Together, we connect millions of people in an effort to create positive social change.
Start making a difference today by visiting www.givepulse.com.
About GivingTuesday:
GivingTuesday began in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. GivingTuesday was born and incubated at the 92nd Street Y and its Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact in New York City. GivingTuesday is now an independent nonprofit and a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.
Learn more at www.givingtuesday.org.