{"id":8450,"date":"2018-08-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/?p=8450"},"modified":"2025-10-30T18:35:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T18:35:24","slug":"giving-tuesday-year-end-fundraising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/giving-tuesday-year-end-fundraising\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Incorporate GivingTuesday Into Your Year-End Fundraising Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When everyone else looks at their December calendars to pencil in parties and family events, fundraising professionals may as well just scrawl \u201cThe End is Nigh\u201d across the entire month. Year-end fundraising. It\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Get ready! The end of the calendar year and its corresponding tax deduction potential collides with winter holidays and celebrating generosity, creating one of the most important fundraising opportunities of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s all just breathe for a second, okay?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All right, now let\u2019s make a year-end fundraising plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">GivingTuesday Is Your Year-End Launch Pad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Think of GivingTuesday as the launch pad for your larger year-end fundraising campaign. It\u2019s the day you start telling the story you\u2019ll tell for the rest of the season. It\u2019s the first hard ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Participate in GivingTuesday with a clear fundraising goal for the day, but keep talking about how that figures into your larger year-end goal. Make it clear that while the first step is definitely launching your fundraising rocket, your goal is to get it to the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ways To Launch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Challenge Gifts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>GivingTuesday and challenge gifts are a perfect pair. A sponsor or donor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/communicate-matching-grant\/\">pledges to match<\/a> donations up to a certain amount for a specific amount of time. For instance, a board member may pledge to match all gifts up to $4000 on GivingTuesday. Participating in the challenge and the opportunity to \u201cdouble the impact\u201d of their donation may spur your supporters to make a gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To use GivingTuesday as a launchpad for the rest of your campaign, be sure to connect the two in all your communications. \u201cOn GivingTuesday we raised $8,000 of our $20,000 goal! We\u2019re almost halfway there!\u201d This stops donors from thinking of your campaign as something confined to GivingTuesday, that is already over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Make Your Campaign An Event<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Brand your year-end fundraising campaign as an event, with GivingTuesday as its kick-off. Think about \u201c30 Days of Generosity\u201d or \u201cThe Year-End Quest\u201d or the \u201cBefore the Ball Drops\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This sends the message, starting with GivingTuesday, that the campaign is about a month long, that you have a big goal, and that rather than a single donation to make, the campaign is a journey to participate in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Download the Ultimate 2025 GivingTuesday &amp; Year-End Fundraising Toolkit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"_form_287\"><\/div><script src=\"https:\/\/causevox.activehosted.com\/f\/embed.php?id=287\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Best Practices And Important Details<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Communication And Updates<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep your supporters in the loop. Let them know how it\u2019s going, what you\u2019ve raised, and most importantly, what that means. \u201cWe\u2019ve raised $500,\u201d is okay, but \u201cThe $500 we\u2019ve raised so far will provide X school supplies for X students, which is almost half of our goal,\u201d is better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Start those updates almost as soon as you\u2019ve started your campaign. In fact, put, \u201cSend GivingTuesday Update\u201d on your calendar for December 4th, right now. Better yet, start promoting your upcoming campaign a couple of weeks out, so donors can prepare to give.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After GivingTuesday, continue to update your supporters throughout the month. The season is busy for everyone, so keep your updates brief, engaging, and very clear. Remember to show your impact every time you make an ask\u2014every good cause is asking for money during this time, so you must demonstrate the value of what you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tell A Story<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When you\u2019re explaining your cause, you\u2019re telling a story. Using dramatic storytelling can increase the impact, memorability, and shareability of your story. Your story may be an epic battle against a terrible monster like poverty or disease, or the exciting tale of building something that never existed before, or maybe a new story, entirely unique to you. Whatever your story, make sure it has:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Strong characters\u2014someone or a group of people that the audience can connect to, generally the people you serve.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A clear problem\u2014what is stopping those strong characters from getting what they need?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A hero\u2014the donors who make your work possible.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A solid solution\u2014the work you do, and how it helps.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Coordinate Channels<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>From mid-November on, make sure all your channels of communication point to your year-end fundraising campaign. Prepare your audience for the campaign by sharing information about it via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/giving-tuesday-social-media-tips\/\">social media<\/a>, your website, your print newsletter, your direct mail campaigns, everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Make it virtually impossible for any of your supporters do not know that you have a year-end campaign, and it starts on GivingTuesday. The holiday season is crowded with messaging, so you must be everywhere in order not to be missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Plan For The Very End<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>GivingTuesday is the launch pad, but don\u2019t discount the importance of December 30 and 31. Many people wait until the very last minute to make a donation and receive the potential tax benefits of charitable giving. A whopping 12% of annual giving occurs in the last three days of the year, so keep your year-end fundraising campaign going until January 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><em>This post was originally published in November&nbsp;2017 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When everyone else looks at their December calendars to pencil in parties and family events, fundraising professionals may as well just scrawl \u201cThe End is Nigh\u201d across the entire month. Year-end fundraising. It\u2019s coming. Get ready! The end of the calendar year and its corresponding tax deduction potential collides with winter holidays and celebrating generosity, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":50478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Untitled-design-10-600x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Untitled-design-10-600x600.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Olivia Hosey","author_link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/author\/ohosey\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}