3 tips to help you prep for Giving Tuesday

Last week’s Thanksgiving festivities mark the beginning of the holiday season, and odds are the holiday your fundraising team is most excited for this year is Giving Tuesday. As you prep, remember, marketing and social media savvy are not the only tools you have available to you. Relationships–and how you leverage them–can go a long way to helping you meet and exceed your fundraising goals. To that end, we’ve put together three key strategies to help you make the most of this special nonprofit holiday.

1. Leverage your board members.
Your board members are one of your greatest resources, so don’t forget to include them (and their networks) in your Giving Tuesday strategy. Ask board members to reach out to their social and professional networks on behalf of your organization—and encourage them to ask for more than just dollars. The people your board members know may have deep pockets, but they also have valuable skill sets and expansive networks of their own. By crafting a message that your board members can easily send to their contact list—and that can be easily forwarded and shared to second- and third-degree connections—you may be able to secure free publicity and in-kind donations that can exponentially increase your reach, year-round.

2. Look internally.
Your employees are already helping you gear up for the big day, but have you thought about asking them to open up their contacts to you and to the organization as a whole? Employee networks provide an opportunity not only to reach more potential donors, but to access corporations and foundations offering matching grant opportunities. That’s right: your employees’ relationship capital may be an opportunity to double your Giving Tuesday donations.

Asking for access to connections is no small thing, and it requires your employees trust you. In your conversations with them, emphasize each individual’s importance in achieving specific organizational goals and encourage them to think creatively about how to bring your nonprofit’s message to their networks.

3. Existing donors.
Whether or not current donors give on Tuesday, theirs are relationships you need to continue to nurture, so be transparent about your fundraising strategy in November and going forward. Send them the results of your big day as soon as you have them (have your donor emails ready to go prior to the big event). Fundraising—especially one-day events—are a great learning experience for your nonprofit. Take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your organization’s integrity by including an honest assessment of your Giving Tuesday performance and a note on lessons learned for the coming year.


RelSci helps create competitive advantage for leading corporate, financial and nonprofit organizations through a crucial yet vastly underutilized asset: relationship capital with influential decision makers.

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