If you’re a marketing consultant or PR/communications consultant working with charities and not-for-profits, the awareness day, Giving Tuesday, is an opportunity to generate individual giving or hit other objectives before the year-end.
On 16 September 2021, I attended a webinar hosted by Third Sector called ‘Using Giving Tuesday to amplify your fundraising efforts’ to hear and better understand:
- How Giving Tuesday works
- What stops not-for-profits from taking advantage of GT
- Using Giving Tuesday to amplify end-of-year campaigns
- Easy ways to engage support for GT
The event also spotlighted charities that use Giving Tuesday to amplify their message, increase donations and encourage volunteer support.
So, if you work with a charity or not-for-profit, Giving Tuesday could be a great way to raise awareness and boost your fundraising income.
What is Giving Tuesday?
Giving Tuesday is the biggest “giving day” of the year, with over 75 countries participating worldwide. It allows charities to attract new donors, amplify their message and raise more money.
And it takes place every year, with the 2021 event falling on 30 November.
Is it easy to get involved with Giving Tuesday?
In short: Yes!
You don’t need massive resources to get started as Giving Tuesday supplies toolkits and resources that you can make your own and tag your existing fundraising activities onto.
Got a Christmas appeal on the cards?
Then you can use GT to set the scene and warm up for your Christmas appeal. There’s no need to create a new campaign – just use GT to give your existing campaign an extra push.
Here are two successful case studies discussed on the webinar.
How Giving Tuesday helps charities and non-profits reach more people
Case study #1: The Wildlife Trusts
The Wildlife Trusts linked Giving Tuesday to their #30by30 campaign, which Stephen Fry amplified.
With a new CEO on board and ambitious new targets set, The Wildlife Trusts were keen to promote urgent action around climate change and the decline in wildlife as well as promote their 40+ charities across the UK.
To do this, The Wildlife Trusts created the ambitious ‘#30by30’ campaign that calls for at least 30% of land and sea to be connected and protected for nature’s recovery by 2030.
Having used Giving Tuesday for the past 4-5 years, they realised there was an opportunity to link the awareness day to #30by30. And after reaching out to ambassadors, old and new, they were excited when Stephen Fry agreed to record a short video.
The result? The Stephen Fry video, coupled with their Giving Tuesday campaign, received more traffic and media coverage, allowing The Wildlife Trusts to raise over £3k on their website alone.
Case study #2: Muscular Dystrophy
Muscular Dystrophy UK linked Giving Tuesday to The Big Give’s Christmas campaign.
In 2020, Muscular Dystrophy UK partnered with a week-long campaign where people can double their donations via match funding.
Historically, Muscular Dystrophy UK targets their warm supporters, but thanks to GT, they could reach out to ‘cooler’ audiences too and reach new supporters. Their campaign was also helped with a short video from president Gabby Logan on social channels.
This resulted in raising an incredible £93k, 10% of which came from individual donations.
How The Big Give’s match funding boosts donations
The Big Give is the UK’s biggest match funding platform where a small number of big donors match smaller donors. It brings together charities, philanthropists and the public to multiply their impact. In fact, following a survey of over 1k donors, Big Give’s director, Alex Day, explained that 84% of respondents said they were more likely to give if they knew their donations were being matched.
And they’ve been a Giving Tuesday partner since the early days, most notably for their week-long Christmas Challenge campaign – Giving Tuesday is the first day of the week-long Christmas Challenge.
How Giving Tuesday boosts your fundraising
Giving Tuesday is a vehicle for bringing people and charities together. And an opportunity for more people to discover your charity for the first time. GT can help you attract new donors and remind lapsed ones that you’re still doing great work by amplifying charities as a collective voice.
And GT’s stats speak for themselves:
- Giving Tuesday 2020 raised £20.2 million in donations, equivalent to around £14,000 a minute
- There was a 43% increase in donations compared to Giving Tuesday 2019
- The Giving Tuesday hashtag received 360 million impressions in 2020 and trended on Twitter all-day
- The 2020 event holds the world record for the most money raised online for charity within 24-hours
How to get started
If you’re already running campaigns, linking with Giving Tuesday is a no brainer – and the best way to get involved is by starting with the free resources on the Giving Tuesday website.
Need help planning your charity content?
If you’re a marketing or PR/communications consultant, I can help with planning and content support (including social media or emails) for your charity giving campaign.
Just send a quick email to ali@alisonhadley.co.uk and I’ll let you know the next step.
