#Giving Tuesday… Then What?! Maximizing your relationship with Giving Tuesday Donors

The vast majority of organizations now understand the significant and unprecedented impact of #GivingTuesday. So you dedicated the time and resources into planning your campaign, your communication plan, and scheduling your social media posts, but have you thought about what will happen to all these new donors in December?

If your organization invested in #GivingTuesday, don’t let that investment be for one gift. Take the extra effort to be deliberate about how these donors will be integrated into your ongoing fundraising program.

Here are a few simple tips to ensuring your #GivingTuesday supporters become long-term investors in your organization’s success!

Say thank you!

A personal thank-you to each and every donor who supported your campaign is mandatory! The more personal and detailed you can be, the stronger your relationship with your donor will be. Highlight where the gift will be going and how much your organization values the contribution.

Stewardship can be a low-risk opportunity for creativity and testing! If your volume is large enough, consider testing three different images on personalized postcards or two different messages in an SMS thank-you outreach. The learning you can take away should provide valuable insight into your end-of-year appeal.

Report Mission-Based Impact

This is the step so often missed by fundraising professionals, but it can be the most effective in creating long-term engagement. Report back to your #GivingTuesday donors within a month of the gift to let them know exactly the impact their gift made. What program did the gift get attributed to? Who benefited? What was your organization able to purchase or invest in? If you can answer these questions for your donors, you are on your way to converting a one-time donor into a long-term investor in your organization.

Integration into End-of-Year Giving

While your direct mail appeal may be already in the mail, it’s not too late to be thoughtful in how you integrate your new #GivingTuesday donors into your end-of-year giving strategy. Whether it be through a new donor digital outreach journey or a telephone conversation campaign, ensuring you have a clear plan to reach out to your new donors over the holiday giving season can ensure a second gift or a new monthly donor.

Timely Conversion

To maximize your opportunity to convert a one-time donor to a monthly donor act quickly and strategically! The easiest mistake to make when converting your digital donors is to treat them as direct mail donors. Unlike your direct mail donors, your digital donors will not remember who you are or that they gave to you three months after they made a gift. Test a channel like SMS for converting your digital donors, it connects with them where they are (on their phones) and can be rolled out quickly and at a low cost

Don’t lose a lifetime donor due to lack of engagement, get in touch with Fundraising Direct today to ensure your #GivingTuesday donors become your long-term supporters.

Fundraising Direct has been working with organizations to develop channel-specific #GivingTuesday conversion strategies to ensure those donors who support you one day of the year can go on to support your organization for the long term. We have applied data insights to develop the ideal timing and messaging to maximize conversion of your online and text donors.