Courtesy Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
People purchase items for those in need at the opening of the Light the World Giving Machines at Crown Center in downtown Kansas City.
GivingTuesday is one of the two biggest fundraising days of the year for Welcome Baby USA, a small nonprofit that provides low-income mothers with care packages of infant necessities like a baby carrier, diapers, clothing, and a thermometer. The other big fundraising day, not surprisingly, is Mother’s Day.
The organization’s campaign to tell stories about its impact started at the beginning of November. Board members have put up $17,500 to match donations that come in on GivingTuesday. Fundraising this time of year has big implications for the organization.
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GivingTuesday is one of the two biggest fundraising days of the year for Welcome Baby USA, a small nonprofit that provides low-income mothers with care packages of infant necessities like a baby carrier, diapers, clothing, and a thermometer. The other big fundraising day, not surprisingly, is Mother’s Day.
The organization’s campaign to tell stories about its impact started at the beginning of November. Board members have put up $17,500 to match donations that come in for GivingTuesday. Fundraising this time of year has big implications for the organization.
“The only thing holding us back from expanding in a larger way is the funding,” says Juliet Fuisz, co-founder of the group. “Having a really strong GivingTuesday puts us in a great position to expand the way we want to in the next year.”
Welcome Baby USA is one of thousands of nonprofits that will participate in the day of giving this year. In 2022, nonprofits raised an estimated $3.1 billion from U.S. donors on GivingTuesday. Unfortunately, it may be tougher to raise money this year, acknowledges Asha Curran, CEO of GivingTuesday, the nonprofit that organizes the day.
“Donation participation is down quite significantly since last year,” Curran says. “We’re keeping a very close eye on that, and we’re trying to put all the tools and resources that we possibly can out into the nonprofit ecosystem to help nonprofits do the best they possibly can on GivingTuesday.”
As organizations prepare for GivingTuesday, they are using a variety of strategies to connect with donors including matching gifts, social-media appeals, and collaborations with other nonprofits.
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Sharing Stories
While GivingTuesday is a great time for fundraising, the dollars don’t just fall out of the sky. The best campaigns occur when donors feel connected to the cause over a long period, so some nonprofits have already started their campaigns sharing stories.
Tips for GivingTuesday
Start Now. Don’t wait until GivingTuesday to encourage supporters to contribute. Many charities are running campaigns throughout the month.
Share Stories. Testimonials from community members explaining how your organization has positively impacted their lives can spark connection with supporters.
Offer Multiple Ways to Give. Sometimes people don’t have money to give, so offer multiple ways they can support your organization: sharing their story, volunteering, or donating.
Engage Young Supporters. Nonprofits that don’t reach out to young people are missing an important opportunity, says Asha Curran, GivingTuesday CEO. “Be very intentional and mindful about engaging younger supporters, remembering that they become bigger givers later in life.”
Alzheimer’s Community Care in West Palm Beach, Florida, is doing GivingTuesday for the first time this year. The organization hopes for a strong first outing thanks to vice president of development Chris Harmon’s 30 years of experience.
Since mid-October, Harmon has been sending out “Testimonial Tuesday” emails that share stories from beneficiaries about how the organization has touched them. Examples include a wife who said Alzheimer’s Community Care allowed her to work part-time and know her husband was safe, and a daughter who said the organization was the only “real help” she could find for her mother.
“What it all comes down to is telling the impact story — that’s the heart of the organization,” Harmon says. “We thought it was a great opportunity to get the ball rolling as we move into GivingTuesday.” Each email includes a link to donate.
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The National Blood Clot Alliance, a group dedicated to preventing deaths from blood clots, asks its supporters to share stories, but also offers other opportunities to make a difference, like volunteering. As a national organization that doesn’t have local chapters, the organization had to think creatively to figure out good ways to volunteer.
“Establishing those meaningful volunteer opportunities was kind of challenging,” says Tarin Patrikis, deputy director at the alliance. “What we came up with is that individuals go through a half-day training and become certified to go out and talk about blood clots in their community and help spread awareness. They [receive] all of the tools to be empowered to help in their community.”
Collaborations Remain Popular
As they have in recent years, nonprofits are again joining forces to raise money this GivingTuesday. Just as the Avengers and the Justice League do better work together than as independent heroes, pooling resources can help nonprofits achieve more on GivingTuesday, Curran says. She remembers a group of zoos that campaigned together, sharing stories about the impact of zoos.
“The wonderful thing about that is it lifted all boats,” she says. “The zoos who participated all did well. That really proves that approaching this opportunity with a sense of abundance is not only more lucrative, it’s much more fun, and it leads to future partnerships.”
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The Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne partners with roughly 100 charities that have endowments at the foundation. Participating charities receive marketing materials, logos, a sample fundraising letter, and social-media guidelines and posts to help them encourage giving to their endowed fund. The foundation provides a 20 percent match for all gifts. To sweeten the pot, the foundation gives five charities an unrestricted $5,000 donation on GivingTuesday.
In New York City, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York is teaming up with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to provide essential items to New Yorkers in need. From GivingTuesday through January 2, donors can visit the Giving Machine — a retrofitted vending machine filled with humanitarian aid items for purchase — outside the Church of Our Saviour on 59 Park Avenue. Catholic Charities contributed 15 items to the machine, including a prepaid MetroCard for an unhoused person and a month’s supply of diapers for a single mother. The items vary in cost from about $10 to $200. The charity also participated in this collaboration last year.
ALSAC, the nonprofit that raises money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, will be participating in streaming platform Twitch’s weeklong Together for Good charity streaming event, which begins on GivingTuesday. “We want to meet people where they are,” says Rick Shadyac, president of ALSAC. Twitch, which has been a longtime supporter of St. Jude, will match $100,000 of those donations. ALSAC is also planning fundraising pushes on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. It also has secured advertising spots on television and a digital billboard in Times Square.
The National Blood Clot Alliance’s “support community is on Facebook,” says Patrikis, and it likes doing fundraisers there. The group’s plan is to stick with the platform’s fundraising tools this year to see how much of an impact the change has, and then decide whether to keep using them in 2024.
But the cost of the processing fees worried Shadyac, of ALSAC. “I’m always concerned about any expense increase,” he says. “Obviously, we have to spend those dollars, it doesn’t go toward the mission.”
Last year the nonprofit raised a total of just over $8 million on GivingTuesday, and it hopes to top that total this year. Shadyac says ALSAC told Meta their concerns about the cost of the processing fees on Facebook and Instagram, and “reached a nice partial resolution with Meta.” He declined, however, to share the details of that agreement.
Davina Jogi
Akashinga rangers receive unarmed-combat training at Phundundu Wildlife Park.
Akashinga, a nonprofit that trains women as rangers to prevent poaching and deforestation in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Botswana, plans to direct supporters to give through its website, rather than Meta platforms, this year.
“Beyond the processing fee, there’s also just the access to our donor information,” says Melody Westen, executive director of Akashinga. “We don’t get a chance to really thank the people who supported us when they give through the Meta platforms.”
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Formerly the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, the organization launched its new name — which means “the brave ones” in Shona, a language spoken in Zimbabwe — on October 23 and will introduce more people to its new brand on GivingTuesday through short videos and stories of its women rangers on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
The group is in the home stretch of a $10 million matching campaign, looking to raise the last $1.5 million before the match expires on December 31. While monthly contributions and other small gifts make up roughly $1 million of Akashinga’s annual revenue, Westen expects the remainder of the matching gift will mostly be met through major gifts. GivingTuesday will start fundraisers’ final push to win those big gifts, Westen says.
The San Leandro Community Food Pantry got an unexpected boost to their GivingTuesday: A man with a Daffy donor-advised fund offered to create an online campaign on the site and provide a $10,000 match to encourage others to donate. Daffy, a company that offers donor-advised funds, recently created a matching-campaign feature allowing users to help nonprofits raise money and send matching gifts directly from their fund.
The food pantry, which is run by a volunteer board and one staff member, jumped at the opportunity, says board member Jessi Cutter-Kim. It required minimal effort — just promoting the campaign to their donors. Daffy covers credit-card transaction fees for most first-time campaign donors. The matching-campaign kit from Daffy included suggested social posts and some image assets. Cutter-Kim hopes the drive will give the small nonprofit some online fundraising momentum.
“We’re using this as an opportunity to grow our online presence so people can find us more easily and then also have easier access to donate,” she says.
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Even with compelling matching gifts and persuasive appeals, nonprofits will have to fight for donors’ attention this holiday season, as people worry about their household budgets, war in the Middle East, and the coming presidential primary election. Curran, with GivingTuesday, encourages nonprofits to let donors know they understand how much is on their minds this GivingTuesday.
“Take advantage of that collective giving moment,” Curran says. “The world is always difficult, but it is especially difficult right now. I think we all acknowledge that. Really use this as a moment to give people an antidote to that. Not an escape, but an acknowledgment of it and a place to heal.”
Correction (Nov. 16, 2023, 10:02 a.m.): A previous version of this article referred to the Church of Our Savior on 59th Avenue. It should have said the Church of Our Saviour at 59 Park Avenue and 38th Street.