Leveraging Social Media for Giving Tuesday

Are you a leader of a nonprofit organization looking for a way to encourage more people to make donations and volunteer at year’s end? Consider giving a social media boost to Giving Tuesday.

Giving Tuesday is a fairly recent tradition created in 2012 to encourage generosity worldwide. It is based on the concept of “radical generosity,” or the idea that the suffering of others should be as intolerable as the suffering of oneself. It has been embraced by nonprofit organizations, who urge individuals to ensure they get their charitable giving in before the end of the calendar year. 

Giving Tuesday has seen significant increases in giving each year since its inception. In 2022, $3.1 billion dollars was raised on Nov. 29 through the movement, according to the 2022 Impact Report. This was a 15% increase over the previous year. People want to give of their time, talent, and treasure, especially during the holiday season, and nonprofit organizations can use social media during the leadup to Giving Tuesday to encourage their target audience to give generously of monetary donations, volunteering, in-kind donations, and more. 

Giving Tuesday has been a fantastic boost for charity's online contributions because of social media and a focus on digital fundraising. 

Prominent companies have made it simpler than ever for users to pay their favorite organizations, with Facebook's simple donate buttons and internal fundraising sites joining Instagram's recently implemented donate button on stories. The success of nonprofits on Giving Tuesday depends on their ability to leverage the widespread use of social media. 

In this blog post, we will discuss how to effectively use social media for Giving Tuesday and provide real-life examples of effective social media postings and campaigns from previous Giving Tuesday years. 

How to Effectively Use Social Media for Giving Tuesday

Before you hit ‘post,’ you should have every step of your Giving Tuesday plan mapped out. Start with your goals and objectives. Are you simply hoping to earn more donations than the year before? Do you need more volunteers? Do you have a renovation project on your wishlist? Do you want to garner more followers on social media who will hopefully turn into donors and perhaps even champions for your cause? Keep these in mind as you craft a schedule for posting before and on Giving Tuesday. 

Once you have a strategy and a schedule, it’s time to think about the content of your social posts. 

Let your followers know early and often that your organization will be participating in Giving Tuesday so they don’t miss out on a great opportunity to donate. Remember that several popular social media sites arrange their timelines via algorithms, meaning posts are not served to users chronologically. That means your followers may miss posts, making it a safe bet to post more than once. You can also encourage users to click “see first” on Facebook pages or “notify me” on several sites so they will receive push notifications when you post to your social pages. This can help prevent your followers from missing important information. 

How to Engage With Your Audience on Social Media

First and foremost, you should regularly share informational posts about the mission of your organization. This can include information about how your organization got its start and the people your organization has helped or affected. Consider illustrated or animated videos to clarify the stakes and the real people at the center of your organization’s efforts. You can also feature interviews with clients aided by your organization. Show how their life has improved since receiving assistance from your organization. 

On these posts, you can encourage people to donate to your cause with a donation button or link. Ensure your links and buttons are going to a live web page so you’re not missing out on potential donations. Some social sites like Facebook even allow people to schedule monthly donations through the site to nonprofits. 

Share your successes with your audience so they know how they are helping, whether you reach your goal during a fundraising drive or have interesting findings from an impact report. Promote specific events, including fundraisers, so your ardent supporters can invite their friends and spread knowledge about the cause. 

Another way to connect with your audience is to ensure your chat options are enabled and your organization is responding in a timely manner to message requests. According to McKinsey, an increasing number of people prefer communicating via social media rather than email or telephone. It makes sense to meet your people where they are. 

You can use the holiday season to recruit new volunteers, too. People are often in a charitable spirit and want to get started volunteering around these months. Use social media to encourage people to sign up and volunteer. 

Finally, don’t discount the power of social media to make a difference when you’re in a pinch. Do you desperately need to replace the roof of your food pantry? Appealing to your supporters on social media can give them a sense of urgency, encouraging them to donate and share, garnering more attention. 

Best Practices for Social Media on Giving Tuesday

Givingtuesday.org has helpfully gathered some practical tips for making the most of Giving Tuesday on social media. They recommend the following ideas: 

• Pin your Giving Tuesday announcement post to the top of your social media page
• Change your cover images to show you’re participating in Giving Tuesday
• Include donation instructions or a link in every post
• Use related hashtags, including #givingtuesday
• Consider a user-generated content campaign for Giving Tuesday
• Use Live options on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram to garner buzz and attention 

Giving Tuesday also has sample campaign timelines and much more to assist nonprofits as they navigate their first Giving Tuesday event on social media. 

Examples of Innovative Social Media Campaigns from Previous Giving Tuesdays

Here are just a few examples of how other nonprofit organizations have leveraged social media to create impactful messages and raise money during Giving Tuesday. 

Future Business Leaders of America - Phi Beta Lambda 

Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda (FBLA-PBL) is a group that encourages and supports the development of the next generation of business leaders. In the weeks leading up to Giving Tuesday, they utilized social media to drum up excitement for the day of giving. 

They didn't do anything fancy but presented a clear message in various ways in order to keep Giving Tuesday front of mind for their social media followers.

Trees Forever

The #GivingTREEvia party, a combination of trivia and bingo, was the brainchild of Trees Forever. 

The rules were straightforward: each player would give a certain sum for every incorrect answer they gave. The host gathered all of the contributions at the conclusion of the evening. The players also documented their scorecards in images on social media.

What Made This Campaign So Successful? This is a typical use of gamification, which seeks to increase contributions by treating them like points in a game. Since the gathering didn't need any special facilities, the group could throw it wherever and for as many people as they liked. This is just what Trees Forever did, doing events like this all year long to solicit recurring contributions.

Room to Read

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a great way to get your community involved in your cause on Giving Tuesday. At the same time, many organizations choose to set up crowdfunding campaigns or specialized donation sites instead. Inspire people to care more about your cause and to tell others about it, as Room to Read has done. Room to Read is a nonprofit organization committed to children's reading and girls' education throughout Asia and Africa, launching a gorgeous, successful Giving Tuesday peer-to-peer campaign to start off their Christmas season.

Get Ready for #GivingTuesday Success

Since its 2012 inception, Giving Tuesday has grown considerably in its scope and its ability to raise awareness and donations for nonprofit organizations around the world.  It has been embraced by nonprofit organizations 

Giving Tuesday has been a fantastic boost for charity's online contributions due to social media and a focus on digital fundraising. Nonprofits can use social media during the lead-up to Giving Tuesday to encourage their target audience to give generously of monetary donations, volunteering, in-kind donations, and more. The more you plan ahead for Giving Tuesday and follow in the footsteps of other nonprofits that have seen great success, the more likely you are to see success yourself.