Giving Tuesday, which falls the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, started in 2012.
Officially, the day of global philanthropy is meant to mark the beginning of the year-end giving season. Unofficially, it acts as a sort of counterweight to the rampant commercialism of the holiday season—a guilt trip for some, a remedy for others.
At least that’s how American Jewish World Service sees it.
In its first Giving Tuesday email campaign, held in 2013, the organization headed straight for the capitalist heart of the holiday season—and then stuck a stake through it.
“As an AJWS supporter, you know that life has deeper meaning than fighting crowds on Black Friday or scouring the web for the best deals on Cyber Monday,” the email began. “That’s why AJWS is participating in Giving Tuesday—the antidote to frenzied consumerism that surrounds us this time of year.”
The rhetoric appealed to the organization’s donor base, says Stuart Schear, vice president for communications at AJWS.
“We spoke to their sensibilities and their values right in the opening,” he says.
AJWS also spoke to their pocketbooks with a matching campaign, supported by anonymous donors, for all money raised up to $36,000. The organization blew past that goal, in part, Mr. Schear believes, because the international nature of Giving Tuesday fit the organization’s mission and its donor profile.
“All of them are committed to a global sense of justice,” Mr. Schear says. “They focus on people in the developing world who have the least amount of money and least amount of power.”
Tripi Consulting worked with AJWS on the campaign and sold the organization on the idea of Giving Tuesday. They also tested a number of email subject lines in the 2013 effort to prepare for what they hope will be an even more robust sequel in 2014.
Susan Sena, a senior account manager at Tripi Consulting, says the key to Giving Tuesday is finding some aspect of it that complements what the organization does every day.
“I think that was one of the greatest things in this campaign,” says Ms. Sena. “For AJWS, it wasn’t giving for giving’s sake because this was a day to give. It was bigger than that. It appeals to what they do all year round.”
The Numbers:
Total income: $125,396
Response rate: 0.35%
Average gift: $233.27
Cost to raise $1: $0.008
New donors: 36
Income from new donors: $10,000