The global day of giving is approaching, and now that summer is over, it is time to start planning your Giving Tuesday campaign!
Giving Tuesday is a highly competitive day for nonprofits. A successful campaign relies on a well-thought-out messaging strategy. One that helps your nonprofit stand out amidst the competition, captures the interest of your target audience and inspires action.
Your messaging should also compellingly tell your nonprofit’s story and create a sense of urgency, encouraging people to donate on that specific day rather than postponing or forgetting.
Here are seven ways we found at Classy.org to create Giving Tuesday messaging that motivates your audience to support your cause:
1. Leverage the Power of Words
Choose the wording for your Giving Tuesday 2023 campaign thoughtfully. Select words and phrases that help donors quickly identify or empathize with an individual, place, or animal your campaign funds and establish a connection to it. Then, aim to be concise and consistent while still sharing enough to demonstrate how this beneficiary has been deeply affected by the problem you work to solve.
In addition, consider creating a short tagline for your campaign to feature on donation forms, email headers, Giving Tuesday social media posts, and your main donation website to remind donors of the “why” behind your efforts. You can use quotes or stories from board members and staff that encourage donors to give.
Check out this list of six words that can help increase donations to get started.
2. Tap Into Your Audience’s Emotions and Values
Use your Giving Tuesday messaging to reflect on what you’ve accomplished over the last year, thanks to your donors—because, after all, the holiday season can be a sentimental time for many and encourages a spirit of generosity. Note to donors how this campaign helps your community continue putting its values into action while supporting your larger mission.
Then, consider doing a soft launch of your Giving Tuesday campaign by sending a thank you email to last year’s donors and asking them to help ensure another successful effort. You can also tap into your audience’s generous spirit by asking them to consider peer-to-peer fundraising for Giving Tuesday. By doing so, they can communicate their values and support of your nonprofit to their wider network.
3. Create a Sense of Urgency and Encourage Immediate Action
Build momentum by sending campaign reminders to your supporters as you near Giving Tuesday. You may even ask them to be an early donor by making a gift on Black Friday or Cyber Monday before your big launch.
On the day of, use your Giving Tuesday email subject lines as a countdown. Let supporters know how much time they have left in the campaign and how far you have to go to reach your goal. You can also employ a fundraising thermometer to show that they can be the one to help you cross the finish line. Then, send a follow-up email to donors after they make a gift that shows how it directly impacted your progress.
4. Consider the Power of Storytelling
Include a collection of individual stories that ladder up to your larger mission in your Giving Tuesday messaging, from your email strategy to social media posts. You can use visuals to tell your stories, such as personal photos of people your work has supported or volunteers helping your cause. In addition, you can incorporate short videos and testimonials into your emails that show your work in action, like setting up an adoption event for your animal charity.
Consider incorporating a virtual fundraising event into your Giving Tuesday campaign as well. For example, you could host a live webinar where your staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries share how your nonprofit organization has made a life-changing impact on them—in a way your supporters can relate. This puts faces to your mission for your supporters.
5. Communicate the Impact and Importance of Your Cause
Use messaging to help supporters understand the impact of each dollar you raise and why your fundraising efforts are crucial on Giving Tuesday. One way to do this is through impact blocks. You can have separate blocks for different donation amounts and share specifically what each value will help you achieve.
For example, a food bank might say that $50 will feed 10 families for a week, $100 will fund school lunches for 50 kids for the month, and $500 will buy new storage shelving for its pantry.
6. Tailor Your Messaging to Different Platforms and Channels to Reach a Wider Audience
Create Giving Tuesday social media templates for each platform to simplify the content creation process, taking note of each social media platform’s specific messaging guidelines and best practices. On Threads, for example, posts can be up to 500 characters, while on Instagram, visuals are critical to drive engagement.
It’s also crucial to know which features, such as a campaign-specific hashtag, to use across channels. Consider which methods allow for more in-depth messaging, such as email marketing, and those where you’ll need to keep your outreach brief, such as text messages. By tailoring your Giving Tuesday messaging to align with timely trends on each channel, you’re more likely to pique a user’s attention and inspire action.
7. Measure the Effectiveness of Your Giving Tuesday Messaging
Review data in your CRM from last year’s Giving Tuesday campaign as a starting point for understanding what worked and where you can improve. A great place to begin is checking whether any software integrations helped distribute, track, or optimize your Giving Tuesday messaging more effectively.
Throughout your campaign, you can also review the open and click-through rates for different emails to identify which ones resulted in the most online donations. This analysis can help shape your subject lines, send times, visuals, and other messaging techniques to fuel stronger engagement.
