Last year, fundraisers at the Sikh Coalition decided that matching gifts would get more of the group’s supporters to donate on Giving Tuesday.
The problem: They got this idea during Giving Tuesday.
This year, however, better planning paid off. The group, which advocates for and offers legal assistance to Americans who practice the Sikh religious faith, lined up $55,000 in matching pledges from a group of anonymous donors beginning in late September. It prepped its supporters with strategic email messages beginning two days before the event. And it touted its participation in a contest sponsored by the online gift processor Network for Good to create a sense of urgency and spur donor engagement.
The result: The Sikh Coalition, a tiny group with only three full-time staff fundraisers, brought in more dollars than any other charity through Network for Good on Giving Tuesday.
Its campaign for the 2015 philanthropy day raised more than $127,000, not including the match (or the $2,500 prize from Network for Good for winning the contest). The take bettered last year’s $37,000 haul, which was not enough to take full advantage of the $50,000 match — or what Sapreet Kaur, the coalition’s executive director, calls a hastily assembled “hail Mary.”
Last year’s scramble, she says, was a hard lesson for her organization in Giving Tuesday’s importance. The giving day, she decided, “was an incredible hook and an opportunity to create some urgency around giving. It wasn’t an isolated add-on. It was part of the 12-month strategy.”
So, with months of planning, it became the focal point of several elements of that strategy, such as the intention to arrange a matching gift at some point during the year. “We decided to have a strategy that would bring a lot of those funds into the first week of December, instead of the last week of December.”
Strategic Emails
The Sikh Coalition, with headquarters in New York, was formed in response to violence suffered by Sikh Americans in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11. Up to 80 percent of the group’s $1.6 million budget comes from individuals, with the rest largely coming from foundations, according to Satjeet Kaur, fund development and communications director (and no relation to her boss).
The community that supports the organization was generally not familiar with Giving Tuesday, but philanthropy is a central tenet of the Sikh faith. The appeal to religious principle proved a persuasive factor for many donors, who cited it in comments to the organization, according to Sapreet Kaur. “The Sikh community is very generous,” she says, and its members give toward a “whole host of charities.”
A series of emails prepared the coalition’s supporters to give, says Satjeet Kaur.
On the Sunday morning before Giving Tuesday, the group sent out what she calls a “primer,” an email that announced the matching gift and alerted readers to the coming event.
Early Tuesday morning, another email appeal underscored the group’s mission. The message from Inderjit Singh Mukker, an Illinois man who was attacked in September during a trip to a grocery store by an assailant who accused him of being a terrorist, thanked the Sikh Coalition for its legal help. It closed with a plea for donors to remember Giving Tuesday and the charity’s overall year-end fundraising goal: “They need your support today so they can continue to protect you tomorrow.”
A few hours later, Sapreet Kaur, addressed supporters in another email message, focusing on the act of giving. “It outlined the competition, the deadline,” says Satjeet Kaur. “It really roused people up: This is Giving Tuesday, let’s show our support, let’s make sure the coalition is No. 1.” The message showed Network for Good’s leaderboard, explained the contest rules, and was tailored to show people who had given previously the impact of the matching gift, says the fundraiser: “Let’s say I had given $100. It said, ‘If you donate $100, before brushing your teeth tonight, it will double to $200.’ "
And then, says Sapreet Kaur, the group followed up with phone calls to key supporters up until midnight Pacific time to coax them to give.
In effect, she says, the group duplicated and compressed its typical year-end fundraising system into the 24 hours of Giving Tuesday. “We were able to bring forward a number of donations that probably wouldn’t have come until the last couple of days of the year.”
A Month of Thanks
With the success of Giving Tuesday now behind them, the architects of the coalition’s campaign are now looking to capitalize on how they have front-loaded the year-end season with support.
In looking at the online-giving data, says Sapreet Kaur, “there are a lot of people who historically have given on December 28, and this year they gave on December 1. And we can spend the rest of the month thanking them. And they can choose to make another donation. Or they may not.”
But, she adds, “I do think the excitement and buzz and momentum of having these donations come in on the 1st shouldn’t be underestimated as we urge people who already gave to urge their family and friends to join them in supporting our work. They are stakeholders on a different level. And now we have more time with them to encourage them to put out the good word and encourage their networks to follow suit.”
And besides, she says with a laugh, “we’ll take it earlier than later any day.”
The Giving Tuesday experience, she says, has also shown the Sikh Coalition how engaged its supporters are in its fundraising success. As Sapreet Kaur and her staff prepared on Wednesday to send out thank-you emails, many donors beat them to it. “Many have reached out proactively during the day, starting from the morning they woke up, to ask us, ‘Did we win?’ Did we win — meaning them, too.”
Send an email to Heather Joslyn.
