GivingTuesday Best Practices to Align Fundraising & Finances

Monday, November 4, 2024

GivingTuesday is a peak fundraising day for charitable organizations around the world. As a nonprofit professional, you’ve likely worked on campaigns for this giving day—and if so, you know that a successful GivingTuesday depends on developing a solid strategy beforehand and careful analysis afterward.

While you might initially consider these factors in the context of engaging donors or generating revenue, developing an effective financial strategy and analysis process is also essential for making the most of GivingTuesday for your nonprofit.

In this guide, you’ll learn all you need to know about aligning your organization’s fundraising and financial management efforts for GivingTuesday. We’ll cover:

• What is GivingTuesday?
• Why is GivingTuesday important for nonprofits?
• Financially Savvy GivingTuesday Best Practices

Before we dive into our GivingTuesday best practices, let’s learn a bit more about the origin of this celebration of generosity.

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What is GivingTuesday?

GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement in which hundreds of millions of people give to organizations and causes that matter to them. While some people start their own community movements on this day, many individuals and businesses instead choose to contribute to established nonprofits that are running campaigns.

Since its inception in 2012, GivingTuesday has been celebrated on the Tuesday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, so it either happens the last week of November or the first week of December. This makes it a great way to kick off your organization’s critical year-end giving season!

Why is GivingTuesday important for nonprofits?

If your nonprofit hasn’t previously had a GivingTuesday campaign, the data speaks for itself on why now is the perfect time to start! Check out these statistics from GivingTuesday 2023:

• GivingTuesday donations in the U.S. alone totaled $3.1 billion.
• 34 million U.S. adults participated in GivingTuesday in some way (donating, volunteering, spreading awareness of causes, etc.)
• Nearly 100 countries host official GivingTuesday movements.

Plus, since GivingTuesday marks the beginning of the year-end fundraising season, it’s worth noting that 30% of annual nonprofit giving occurs in December. A good GivingTuesday performance can set you up for a strong year-end campaign as well!

Financially Savvy GivingTuesday Best Practices

Now that you understand the importance and impact of GivingTuesday, it’s time to dive into some tips for launching your nonprofit’s campaign. These best practices will help you not only maximize your fundraising revenue but also properly allocate that revenue to further your mission into the upcoming year.

Set Clear Goals

Every successful fundraiser (and financial plan, for that matter) starts with clear objectives. Your GivingTuesday goals might center around:

• Raising a certain amount of money
• Spreading awareness of your mission
• Attracting new supporters to your organization
• Retaining existing donors year-over-year (especially since donor retention is cost-effective and builds a stable support base!)

Once you generally know what you want to accomplish, make your goals more practical using the SMART method, meaning that they’re:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

For example, you might set a goal to “raise $20,000 to support our upcoming programmatic needs by the end of the day on GivingTuesday.” This goal is specific about what it wants to accomplish, includes a metric and deadline, and is relevant to your organization’s work.

To determine if your goal is attainable, review data from your previous GivingTuesday campaigns and assess your nonprofit’s current performance and capacity. If your nonprofit raised $17,000 last GivingTuesday and is in a better position with its resources and support this year, a $20,000 fundraising goal will push your team but likely won’t be out of reach.

After setting your goals, determine the more specific strategies you’ll use to achieve them. For example, you might break your revenue goal down based on how much you plan to raise from different funding sources (more on this later!). Then, make sure your ideas are aligned with your organization’s budget so you can stay on track financially throughout the campaign.

Develop a Marketing Plan

Of the various fundraising campaigns your nonprofit runs throughout the year, marketing for GivingTuesday is arguably the most critical. Since thousands of organizations will fundraise on the same day as you, your nonprofit needs to stand out from the crowd and convince donors to direct their charitable efforts toward your mission through effective promotion.

The earlier you can create your GivingTuesday marketing plan, the easier it’ll be to get the word out efficiently. As you develop your strategy, make sure to:

• Incorporate multiple marketing methods. The more channels you use to promote your GivingTuesday campaign, the more touchpoints you’ll create for supporters to hear about and contribute to your fundraisers. While you’ll likely prioritize digital marketing channels like your organization’s website, email, text messaging, online ads, and social media, don’t neglect print communications such as flyers and direct mail.
• Segment your supporters. Consider which supporter groups are most likely to prefer each communication channel, and tailor your messaging to that audience so it resonates with them. For instance, you might target your direct mail appeals at older, wealthy donors, your social media posts at young volunteers, and your online ads at individuals interacting with your nonprofit for the first time.
• Consistently brand your communications. Include your nonprofit’s logo, colors, and fonts in all of your GivingTuesday marketing materials to instill trust in your audience and make your promotions look more professional. Additionally, using the GivingTuesday heart logo and #GivingTuesday in your content will tie the campaign together and increase its visibility.

Keep in mind that marketing is one of the biggest upfront expenses for any fundraising campaign, so you’ll need to balance creating lots of high-quality content with staying within your budget. Fortunately, there are plenty of free marketing tools you can use to reduce your spending, and your nonprofit’s corporate partners may be willing to go in on co-marketing opportunities for GivingTuesday to help you save money as well.

Invest in the Right Software

In addition to marketing, software may be another upfront investment for your GivingTuesday campaign, depending on how your organization’s existing tech stack looks. Make sure you have the following solutions in your toolkit before you get started:

• A robust donor database to track supporters’ donations, volunteer hours, event attendance, responses to marketing materials, and other participation in your campaign.
• An online form builder so you can create and share mobile-optimized digital registration forms and a GivingTuesday-specific donation page.
• A secure payment processor that accepts various payment methods—credit cards, ACH transfers, and mobile payments—while protecting donors’ information.
• Tools to manage various campaign elements, such as peer-to-peer fundraising solutions, crowdfunding platforms, corporate giving databases, or mobile bidding software for auctions.
• Accounting software to record and categorize all of the funding you bring in on GivingTuesday.

Diversify Your GivingTuesday Revenue

You’ve probably heard that you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket when it comes to nonprofit revenue generation as a whole, since having a variety of funding sources leads to greater financial stability and growth potential. The same is true for major fundraising initiatives like GivingTuesday—by generating revenue in multiple ways, you’ll be more likely to reach your goal. You’ll engage more supporters with different giving preferences and have a stronger safety net in case one source falls short of expectations.

To help with your budgeting and recordkeeping, we’ve organized our favorite ways to bring in funds on GivingTuesday according to the five major categories of nonprofit revenue—let’s look at each one in more detail.

Individual Donations

Individual donations make up the bulk of most nonprofits’ funding year-round, but they’ll likely comprise an especially large share of your GivingTuesday revenue. Some ways you can collect individual donations on GivingTuesday include:

• Launching crowdfunding campaigns to raise money for specific needs at your nonprofit.
• Creating a special text-to-give keyword to encourage mobile donations.
• Mailing fundraising letters to previous donors, ensuring they’ll arrive at least a week before the day so supporters can contribute online or postmark their gifts by GivingTuesday.
• Running a peer-to-peer fundraiser so loyal supporters can collect contributions from their family and friends on your behalf.
• Hosting an event like a gala, auction, walkathon, or benefit concert (your choice will depend on your available budget and target audience).
• Holding an in-kind donation drive to gather supplies for your organization or its beneficiaries going into the new year.

Keep in mind that some of these fundraising methods have unique considerations when it comes to accounting for them. For example, your records of in-kind donations should show a net zero gain in cash, and you’ll need to split your event revenue based on whether donors received something in return for their contribution (like admission to the event or an auction item) or not. Ask your accountant if you have any questions, and ensure you’re ready to properly record all types of individual donations before GivingTuesday for efficiency.

Corporate Philanthropy

Many businesses of all sizes are just as eager to participate in GivingTuesday as individuals because they get to give back to their communities while boosting their reputations as socially responsible companies. By partnering with businesses in your area, you can take advantage of these corporate philanthropy revenue opportunities:

• Matching gifts—some companies may offer special match rates for GivingTuesday (for example, they might match employees’ donations at a 2:1 ratio when they usually match 1:1), so ask around and encourage all eligible donors to submit match requests.
• Volunteer grants to turn your campaign volunteers’ time into money.
• Event sponsorships where a business contributes money, goods like auction items, or services like catering to offset your events’ upfront costs.
• Internal employee giving campaigns—both financial and in-kind—that benefit your nonprofit.

Especially for sponsorships and internal fundraisers, work out the terms of your partnership with each company in advance so you know how you’ll both benefit from working together. For example, a business may get a mention in your auction catalog and on social media for donating a prize. Noting this reciprocation is also important for accounting because, like with event revenue, you’ll need to record transactions in which corporate supporters directly received something in return separately from ones where they didn’t.

Earned Income

The most straightforward way to generate earned income on GivingTuesday is to design and sell branded merchandise. Include the official GivingTuesday branding alongside your nonprofit’s on these products, and release them in advance so supporters can spread the word about your campaign as they wear or use their new clothing, drinkware, and other merchandise in public.

If your nonprofit charges fees for services, you could offer some type of GivingTuesday special on those services to encourage more supporters to use them and secure earned income that way. For instance, an animal shelter could reduce adoption fees for the day to help send more pets to their forever homes. Or, they could host a one-day clinic where pet owners can bring their dogs and cats for vaccines, microchipping, and basic grooming services like nail trims.

Investments

Since investments are a long-term method of revenue generation, they likely won’t be a priority for GivingTuesday fundraising. However, you might use GivingTuesday as a reminder to check on your investments before the end of the year, and consider setting aside some of the revenue you bring in from other sources to invest for the future.

Grants

Most government and foundation grants also require long-term management efforts to secure, so they likely won’t be a major part of your GivingTuesday fundraising strategy. There are two unique types of grants you can leverage for this campaign, though:

• Challenge grants: These donations are contingent upon your organization reaching a specific fundraising goal. For example, a challenge grant donor might pledge to donate $2,000 once your nonprofit raises $4,000 in individual online donations on GivingTuesday or match your crowdfunding campaign total once it reaches its goal. Challenge grants can come from foundations, businesses, or individual major donors.
• Marketing grants: Applying for these before GivingTuesday can help you offset some of your marketing expenses. For example, the Google Ad Grant gives eligible nonprofits $10,000 per month in free advertising credits, which you can use to drive more search traffic to your website in the lead-up to GivingTuesday.

Since most traditional grants are restricted to certain projects and programs, remember not to use that funding for any upfront GivingTuesday costs. Instead, start by covering as much as you can with corporate sponsorships and marketing grants since those are campaign-specific, then use unrestricted funding from individual donations and earned income streams to pay for the rest.

Learn more about GivingTuesday preparation with our comprehensive checklist.

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Collect Data on Your Efforts

Ensure you have systems in place to collect data on your GivingTuesday campaign before you launch it. This will make it easier for you to accomplish three key purposes for your nonprofit—let’s look at each one in more detail.

1. Enhance Internal Decision-Making

When you launch a major fundraising initiative, the data you collect will help you with several internal functions at your organization, including:

• Evaluating your campaign performance to determine whether you reached your goal and why or why not.
• Planning future GivingTuesdays, especially allowing you to set attainable goals and continue pushing your team to fundraise more efficiently and effectively over time.
• Finalizing next year’s operating budget by factoring in the influx of resources you received at the end of the year.

After your campaign, sit down with your nonprofit’s leadership, fundraising team, and financial professionals to review the data and collaboratively plan your next steps, both short-term and long-term.

2. Demonstrate Impact

Your GivingTuesday data also has important external functions, one of which is to demonstrate to supporters that they played an integral role in your campaign’s success. Share information on participation rates, fundraising totals, and plans for the money you raised in your nonprofit’s:

• Thank-you notes. While including campaign-wide data can be impactful, you should also tailor these messages to each supporter’s unique involvement in your GivingTuesday efforts. For example, auction participants will likely be interested to know the event’s fundraising and attendance totals in addition to your overall revenue raised.
• Annual report. In the financial section of your report, highlight how much of your revenue came from GivingTuesday using charts and graphs. You might also include testimonials from staff members or volunteers about how the campaign made a difference for your mission and include pictures to encourage others to participate next year.
• Marketing materials for upcoming GivingTuesdays. If you let supporters know how much you’ve raised during this campaign in the past, they’ll be more motivated to help you exceed those numbers in the future.

Communicating the impact of key fundraising efforts like GivingTuesday demonstrates your organization’s credibility by showing that your team are effective fundraisers and that you actually use the contributions you receive to further your mission. This instills confidence in supporters, making them want to continue their involvement for the long haul.

3. Report Your Finances

Supporters aren’t the only external audience who expect to see your nonprofit’s GivingTuesday data. In fact, you need to report the financial information you collect to comply with legal requirements for nonprofits and cross-industry accounting standards like the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

The first set of reports you’ll include your GivingTuesday data in are your annual financial statements. Record the funds you raise under:

• Revenue on your statement of activities.
• Assets on your statement of financial position.
• Cash inflows from operating activities on your statement of cash flows.

The money you spend upfront on GivingTuesday should go under the fundraising section of your statement of functional expenses, the expenses section of your statement of activities, and cash outflows from operating activities on your statement of cash flows.

Each of these statements summarizes your nonprofit’s financial data in a different way for more effective analysis. Consider attaching them as appendices to your annual report in case supporters want to dig deeper into your financial activities as they decide whether to continue their involvement. Your financial statements will also play an essential role in your next independent audit and help you file your organization’s annual tax return via IRS Form 990.

An effective GivingTuesday campaign requires managing many moving parts—fundraising, supporter engagement, and financial considerations. Use the tips above to get started, and don’t hesitate to reach out to both fundraising consultants and financial professionals (like our accounting team at Jitasa) to answer any questions or help you in any way you need to make your efforts successful.

For more information on nonprofit financial management, check out these resources:

• Nonprofit Revenue Recognition: What It Is & Why It Matters. Dive deeper into the unique factors that affect how your organization recognizes its GivingTuesday revenue in its accounting system.
• Nonprofit Bookkeeper vs. Accountant: What’s the Difference? Learn what distinguishes these two key nonprofit roles and how both professionals can help you with GivingTuesday financial management.
• Free Nonprofit Assessments by Jitasa. Test your nonprofit financial knowledge and evaluate your organizational health to see where you stand and determine how to plan GivingTuesday accordingly.

Partner with Jitasa’s expert nonprofit accountants to develop a financially sound GivingTuesday strategy.

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