GivingTuesday is just around the corner. This global day of generosity largely takes place online, so it is important for nonprofits to get active on social media. If your nonprofit is looking for ideas to get started, you are in the right place!
This year GivingTuesday will fall on November 28, 2023 so now is the time to start planning your social media strategy.
While there are many ways your nonprofit can participate in GivingTuesday, social media works well to share updates throughout the day. It is also a great way to expand your reach and connect with new supporters.
We have put together a list of ideas for your nonprofit to get the most out of social media on GivingTuesday.
Plan Social Media Content Ahead of GivingTuesday
On GivingTuesday you will be busy sharing your content and engaging with your supporters. It will be a challenge to create all your content on the spot. Also, your messages and content will be more polished and cohesive if you plan ahead.
To organize and plan your day of content, start by looking at your overall campaign message, and begin creating bite-sized pieces of content to support your message. Create content like stories, statistics, quotes, images, etc. to share throughout the day.
Assemble all of your content in a content library so everything is in one place and ready to go the day of. Your content should be shared in a way that tells a story and makes sense. You can use helpful scheduling tools like Buffer or Later to schedule all of your content to go out the day of.
Understand Your Different Social Media Channels
It is important to have a good understanding of your social media channels before GivingTuesday. Each channel supports a different medium of content. When planning you will want to tailor your content to each channel accordingly.
For example, Twitter is best for sharing the highest volume of short messages throughout the day. Also, Twitter and Instagram are the best channels for reaching more people with hashtags. Facebook is a great option for going “live’ and sharing video content or events.
Social Channels and Supported Content
Facebook: Images, Videos, Text, Stories, Live, Links, Events, Groups
Instagram: Photos, Videos, Stories, Live, Links (only in bio and stories), NEW: Threads
Twitter: Text, Photos, Links
LinkedIn: Images, Videos, Text, Groups
TikTok: Short videos (60 seconds max)
YouTube: Long-form videos, but support videos of any length, YouTube Shorts (similar to reels on Instagram)
As you organize your content, decide which pieces will perform best on each channel.
Consider Potential Partnerships
GivingTuesday is all about coming together for the greater good. This year, consider if you can collaborate with other organizations (both for-profit and nonprofit) in your area. This can be a mutually beneficial exchange in which you help promote each other’s content. Try to think about GivingTuesday with an abundance mindset. Although there are other nonprofits competing for potential supporters’ attention, the potential to cross-promote your causes is greater.
Recruit a Social Media ‘Street Team’ for GivingTuesday
There are many people who want to help out on GivingTuesday in non-monetary ways. Prior to GivingTuesday, start recruiting a social media ‘street team’. This is a great volunteer opportunity that people can do from home.
On GivingTuesday, your Street Team’s job is to like, comment, and share your content. The more engagement your posts get the more people will see them. Be clear about expectations for the day by sharing when you will be posting and how they can engage with your content.
Also, make sure your staff and board members are engaging with your content for an added boost of engagement!
Set a Realistic Fundraising Goal for GivingTuesday
GivingTuesday is a huge giving day but it is important to set realistic goals. It might not be your biggest giving day of the season. In fact, DonorSnap users on average see about a 9x increase in donations on GivingTuesday compared to the average day. However, on average DonorSnap users saw almost a 13x increase in donations compared to the average day. So even though GivingTuesday is a great day, December 31st still gets about 35% more donations.
If you have participated in GivingTuesday in the past, look at your numbers from previous years as a benchmark. If you haven’t participated before, think about your audience. Do you get a big response from social media and email? Also, look at your total year-end projections and use those to factor out a number.
Donors want to feel a sense of accomplishment for giving to you. The closer you get to meeting your goal the greater the impact. For that reason, choose a goal that you are likely to reach so you and your donors have something to celebrate.
Create Micro Targets to Hit Throughout GivingTuesday
Once you have created your goal for the day, break it out into micro targets. This helps add a sense of urgency and makes the day more interactive and fun. Examples of micro targets are getting your first 10 donations prior to 10 AM or hitting 50% of your daily goal by 2 PM. As you meet each target, share your excitement with your audience. This helps build momentum on a giving day.
If you are able to secure matching donors for the day, align the matches with your micro targets. Use this to create a sense of urgency with your audience. Donors love to know they can double their impact by securing a matching gift. This could be something like all donations made between 10-2 PM will receive a match.
Pro Tip – Create templates ahead of time for sharing updates.
Leverage Creative Imagery and Videos
If your goal for GivingTuesday is to reach more people with your message, social media is the perfect vehicle. Creative content that is inspiring is most likely to be shared. Prior to GivingTuesday work on designing creative visuals and gathering stories to share throughout the day.
Tools like Canva can help you create beautiful shareable content without much design experience. If you don’t have the resources to film videos, you can create videos in Canva by stringing together a series of images and adding sound to them.
Pro tip: Create Branded Content for the Day! GivingTuesday has free templates available on Canva for nonprofits to edit and use. Create a custom GivingTuesday header image and profile photos to show you are participating in the day. You can also download GivingTuesday logos and add them to the content you create for the day in addition to your own branding and logos.
Use GivingTuesday Hashtags
GivingTuesday has both generic and cause-specific hashtags. When you share posts, include GivingTuesday hashtags along with the ones you already use. Also, do some research and find out if there are cause specific hashtags for your niche. You can find a list of hashtags for GivingTuesday caused based collations here. (Scroll down to see them)
The use of hashtags will help you connect with other nonprofits in your area of service. Consider working together and sharing each other’s messages to further expand your reach. You can also connect with other related causes to get inspiration for your own!
Go Live on Facebook or Instagram
Both Facebook and Instagram give you the option to “go live” on your account. If you have staff members or board members who aren’t camera shy this is a great way to get personal with your audience. Just hopping on for a quick update and hello at lunch is a great place to start.
Other ideas for going live could include a behind-the-scenes at your nonprofit. Depending on what you do and who you serve this could be really fun. For example, if you are an animal shelter you could go live with some puppies as they get their daily exercise
If you don’t have exciting behind the scenes options you could always opt for an interview. Interviews make great content whether it be with a member of your team, someone you serve, or a volunteer.
Optimize Your Donation Page for GivingTuesday
Your social media content should always direct viewers to your donation page on your website. On the day of GivingTuesday update your existing donation page or create a new one to reflect GivingTuesday. You don’t need to do anything crazy as you want your donation pages to be simple. Adding a header that states ‘today is GivingTuesday’ should be sufficient. You can also use some of the branded content you created and update your photo with GivingTuesday content.
If you want to easily report on GivingTuesday gifts, create a hidden field in your donation form that links all donations on that day to GivingTuesday. This can be easily done with DonorSnap’s responsive forms. On the day of GivingTuesday add an appeal field to your donation form and make it hidden. Set it to GivingTuesday 2022 and all donations that come in on that day will automatically be added to that appeal. Use the Fundraising by Appeal report to easily see a snapshot of those donations.
Let Social Media be Part of Your Multichannel Approach
When you plan out your GivingTuesday social media content, make sure it aligns with other methods of communication. GivingTuesday, along with your year end campaign, should take on a multichannel fundraising approach. Multichannel fundraising is when you reach out to people with the same message through multiple channels.
It is okay to share the same message a number of times. In fact, this approach increases response rate. While you focus on your social media strategy, don’t forget to incorporate email and/or SMS campaigns as well. If you are worried about over-sharing just remember your audience will not see every message you send out.
Final Thoughts
There are countless ways your nonprofit can participate in GivingTuesday. Because this global day of giving mostly takes place online it is worthwhile to get active on social media the day of. Nonprofit organizations can get creative as they want throughout this day and leverage social media to enhance their fundraising efforts. Social media can also be a great way to reach new supporters or connect with similar causes.
Nonprofits should plan ahead and create engaging content ahead of time so it is easy to share day of. Also, it is important to set realistic goals for GivingTuesday and then share your progress throughout the day. This will be motivating and inspiring to donors.
A quick visit to the GivingTuesday website will provide nonprofits with many resources to create branded content for the day. There are also many local and global groups to connect with via social media on the day of giving.
For more tips on utilizing social media read Social Media Best Practices for Nonprofits.
