A Reverse Advent Calendar: 24 Days of Tips to Inspire Giving this Season

You’re probably familiar with the idea of an Advent Calendar – those decorative standees that hold 24 small gifts, each hidden behind a door. It’s meant to mark the days before Christmas, beginning on December 1st, with a new door opened each day.

Advent calendars date back to the mid-19th century, used as a festive German tradition to count the days leading up to Christmas. However, what once began as a small tradition celebrated with chocolate has become more elaborate each year. You can find advent calendars now filled with hundreds of dollars of gifts, from fancy wine and cheeses, to tech toys for kids. The possibilities are endless. You don’t even need to celebrate Christmas to adopt your own version of the advent calendar.

So, why not reverse the idea of advent from gifting to giving?

To minimize the excess promoted by some of these lavish advent calendars, one UK-based company has done just that. Instead of getting a gift every day in December, the organization Advent of Change lets donors to give to a different charity every day.

It’s a simple idea: you purchase one of their calendars (prices range from £16.95 to £29.95) and every day of the season, you open a new box to see which organization you made a small donation to that day. All of the participating charities are visible on their website, working in fields like animal welfare, children in need, and healthcare. This year, there are four different Advent of Change calendars to choose from, including one just for children and even one in braille.

24 Days of Giving for Your Organization

We felt inspired by Advent of Change’s mission and it got us thinking of ways to give back each day in December. We love the idea of a new way to give to charity every day.

Want to try your own “reverse advent” calendar this season? Here are 24 tips – one for each day leading up to Christmas. Of course, feel free to adapt or reorganize this as necessary to suit the needs of your organization.

1. Use a GiveWP Countdown Timer to runs from December 1 to December 24 to countdown to Christmas, giving people a visual sense of urgency for the entire advent event.
2. Set up a “Days of Giving” event for your reverse advent calendar. You can do this with GiveWP by creating a donation form and enabling the Recurring Donations add-on. Make sure that you update your campaign every day to reflect the time left in the event.
3. Have a day where anyone that donates gets an eCard. An eCard is a great way to acknowledge your donors and send a bit of holiday cheer. To enable eCards, activate the Tributes addon first and create a form grid for the holidays.
4. Set up a peer-to-peer campaign to encourage donors to create their own holiday fundraisers. With Peer-to-Peer, donors can take control of their own donation form and share it with their peers. Let donors personalize their own forms for the entire advent season for their own take on the reverse advent calendar.
5. Set up a raffle. OK, while this one does result in a “gift,” it’ll pull in more donations, which is the goal of the reverse calendar! Early in the campaign, set up a raffle (use this post for a tutorial) and either set aside a raffle day, or a set period of time during the advent season for donations to be eligible.
6. Publish an End-of-Year recap series. Highlight something unique or impactful your nonprofit achieved this year and publish the story on your social media with a gentle ask. This one can be repeated on several days, highlighting a different story each day.
7. Highlight someone from your organization. Use this opportunity to not only show the good your organization has done, but also those behind the scenes who make it so! Take our recent Team Give Spotlight on marketing and content extraordinaire Taylor Waldon. Your donors will love this human aspect!
8. Highlight a partner charity and support their mission. Take a day to promote another organization you know and love. It could be one you’ve worked with in the past, or one you personally connect with. Take a day (or two!) during December to give them the spotlight, encouraging donors to give them some love, too.
9. Ask for “Why I Give” videos from donors. Using directions shared in our article about user-generated content, you can ask donors to share their story in a short video diary. This can make for a fun social media challenge and provides a unique ask from outside your organization.
10. Start a hashtag campaign on social media. This can be hit or miss, but if you’ve got a great catchphrase that you think will connect, go for it! Don’t spam or users will get annoyed – it’s all about the hashtag catching on and users adopting it on their own posts to spread some awareness on that day. We even have some advice on making the best of this type of fundraiser.
11. Go live on social media to interact with donors. This can be a fun casual video where you simply chat, go behind the scenes, or do an “Ask Me Anything” and let donors send in questions to address. Make it a challenge and tie donations to time – the more that come in, the longer you livestream!
12. Send out a poll question. This can be about anything, really. You can ask their favorite thing about the holidays, or ask them a question about your organization. Or, use a poll to gather intel, such as asking how many organizations someone typically donates to over the holiday season. This could help you early on in your reverse advent calendar to set expectations.
13. Create a day just for Tributes. Set aside one of your reverse advent days all for honoring loved ones. With your Tributes add-on, your donors can highlight a loved one with their donation.
14. Do a match day. Let your organization know that any amount they donate that day, you’ll in turn donate towards another cause, either of their choosing or yours.
15. Share other charity’s stories on your social media. Using Instagram’s Stories feature, reshare posts from your own Stories feed for your followers to see. Tag the charity and let them know they have the spotlight for the day.
16. Host an Ugly Sweater Christmas day. Encourage your staff to all wear their best ugly sweater one Friday and share a sweet group photo on social. Encourage donors to comment with a photo of their own ugly sweater!
17. Host Virtual Christmas Caroling. It sounds silly to sing into your computer, but hey, if it’s good enough for American Idol auditions, it can be good enough for your nonprofit! Gather a set list of some well-known carols, and to make sure no one is staring at their face while singing on Zoom, share a YouTube video of lyrics and sing as silly and happily as you want.
18. Pledge miles for money. Know a few runners? Pick a Saturday in December for donors to pledge miles to run. You could even take advantage of the Events Calendar plugin and create tickets for the run, too.
19. Let Donors Vote with their Dollars. Want to argue whether Die Hard is a Christmas Movie or not? Tie small donations (think $1) to votes and let the masses decide!
20.  Play Jackbox or other social games online one night with donors. Jackbox is a simple party game that only needs a digital copy of the game, Zoom screen sharing, and a cell phone. You can share a room code with donors and get to playing!
21. Stream games. Did you know it’s relatively straightforward to stream yourself playing games online? If you’ve got a webcam and simple streaming software (that we’ve outlined here), you can go live online for a few hours and play some games to raise a few dollars one day. Of course, make it “marathon style” and keep playing as long as donations are coming in!
22. Tell your story. Has it been awhile since you shared what inspired your nonprofit? Give donors a reminder of why your cause is so important by sharing a few “back in the day” photos or stories. It may help warm hearts.
23. Share a story from someone impacted by your nonprofit’s work. No better way to bring out the warm fuzzies for the holiday than to let donors see their efforts rewarded.
24. Host a virtual donor appreciation event. We mentioned this one before as a virtual fundraising idea for end of year giving, but it’s a great idea as a standalone event as well. Invite your donors to a donor awards ceremony, hosted on a live streaming platform of choice. You could even award those who chipped in the most during the Advent season, or use it as a chance to announce your raffle winners. Your donors will appreciate this recognition and connection, helping to promote a sense of giving over receiving this holiday season.

If you implement any of these, we’d love to hear about it! Drop us a comment or tag us on social media to share the ways you’re implementing a reverse advent calendar this year.