Giving Tuesday is one of the most community-driven giving days of the year. Though many would say it’s hard to vie for the attention of donors on the same day, we know that designated giving holidays actually increase generosity.
It’s up to your organization to implement a campaign that speaks to the core reason supporters give – because they feel passionately about your mission.
It only makes sense to harness the power of community, social proof, and advocacy by implementing peer-to-peer fundraising for Giving Tuesday. Here’s how and why peer-to-peer can help you reach your Giving Tuesday goals.
Why Use Peer-to-Peer Fundraising on Giving Tuesday?
Simply put, Giving Tuesday is a peer-to-peer fundraiser. It’s all about reaching out to folks and spreading the word about your cause.
The word-of-mouth chain effect of a peer-to-peer campaign can provide exposure to those you may have never reached before. The vocal, public support of a peer campaign creates a sense of immediacy and awareness for your nonprofit – two things that are essential on Giving Tuesday.
Don’t just take our word for it. Compare these two fundraising efforts – one using a single marketing strategy, and one using peer-to-peer:
Here are some of the features of peer-to-peer that work well for Giving Tuesday:
- Individual and team fundraising pages
- Gamification features like progress bars and leaderboards to increase engagement
- Tools for fundraisers to customize their campaigns within unique branding
- The ability to add campaign sponsors
- Integration with popular GiveWP add-ons like recurring donations, fee recovery, tributes, and more
Let’s walk through a quick step-by-step guide to getting your Giving Tuesday peer-to-peer campaign set up. We’ll also cover some ideas on how to customize your campaigns and increase social engagement.
How to set up your Giving Tuesday Peer-to-Peer campaign
To get started, go to your WordPress admin and find Donations > P2P Campaigns in the menu.
Choose “Create a Campaign,” and name it however you would like for this campaign. Instead of linking to an existing form, choose to create a new GiveWP donation form just for this Giving Tuesday campaign. To keep everything organized, it’s important for folks to use a form specific to the peer-to-peer campaign.
Fill in your campaign details, upload imagery, and choose your settings for teams, fundraisers, and sponsors. Use these sections to express how donors can help you on Giving Tuesday, specifically. Your short description will be a few sentences to explain how to get involved, while the long description will be your bigger call to action. Your call to action will incentivize others to donate, but also to create a team.
For a more in-depth look at how to set up a peer-to-peer campaign with GiveWP, visit this tutorial.
Giving Tuesday tips for your peer-to-peer fundraiser
Create specific branding
Let your Giving Tuesday campaign look different from your year-round peer-to-peer or general fundraising efforts. A new look can help this specific campaign stand out among folks familiar with your imaging already.
When thinking of images, consider showing off the impact of a past campaign. These images should show supporters what a successful Giving Tuesday means for your nonprofit and its beneficiaries. Powerful imagery that tell an impactful story compelsl folks to give.
Use incentives
Give fundraisers and team leads incentives to raise more money, such as prizes for the most raised. When fundraisers join a team or make an individual donation, you can award merch like stickers and shirts as a thank you. If you are looking for ideas, the GiveWP store can lend some inspiration.
Lean into gamification
When thinking of social pressure, there’s nothing like adding a bit of friendly competition. The best way to do this is by embracing elements of gamification. When creating a gamified challenge for your peer-to-peer, you can make it amount-centered (first team or fundraiser to hit a certain amount), or time-based (most raised in 24 hours, for example). Use a progress bar to help the challenge along. Donors love seeing a piece of that bar filled as they race to hit the goal before Giving Tuesday ends!
Use automated emails
Keep your organizational goals on the top of fundraisers’ minds as they share and rally around your campaign. Providing these fundraisers with updates and encouragement via automated emails increases engagement and improves the likelihood that your fundraisers will raise more money.
Keep the message short and snappy and think of empowering donors to be successful little by little. It may be helpful to think about the four areas of their journey with your peer-to-peer campaign:
- Recruiting
- Activation
- Optimization
- Retention.
For each area of the journey, think about what you want your audience to do and what the call-to-action in your email should be.
Learn more about how automation can help your peer-to-peer campaign.
Use your Facebook contacts
The nature of Facebook is word-of-mouth, peer-to-peer social interaction. This is exactly what Giving Tuesday is all about. Whether or not you want to be fundraising on Facebook, the growing use of Facebook Donations for Giving Tuesday has made these questions necessary to consider. The good news is that you own your Facebook donor data and you should definitely use it.
After all, these donors have shown interest in the social aspect of fundraising, so contact your past Facebook fundraisers and ask them to join your new campaign.
Spend a little to raise a lot
Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users. Even if your cause is local, the chances are your audience is already on Facebook. Advertising on Facebook is still a big driver in awareness for nonprofit campaigns. Here are a few reasons to use Facebook ads for your Giving Tuesday Campaign:
- helps you find other people like your supporters with targeting
- allows you to use small budgets
- multiple ad formats can fit all kinds of needs
- can set specific campaign goals, like joining a peer-to-peer team
Make sure mobile giving is easy
Mobile giving allows potential donors to give in the moment and helps donors to connect anywhere at any time. Here’s some research on how mobile giving is used:
- 1 in 4 donors use mobile devices to discover nonprofits they were previously unaware of
- 25% of donors complete their donations on mobile devices
- Mobile giving donations have increased 205% in the past year
- 51% of people who visit a nonprofit’s website do so on a mobile device
- A mobile-responsive design can help nonprofits can increase donations by 126% on average
Make sure there aren’t any hiccups in your mobile site and that it’s easy for users to join or give to your Giving Tuesday campaign. Not only are GiveWP donation forms already optimized for mobile, they look and function just as well as your website version.
Recognize donors publicly
It’s important to not focus solely on recruiting donors and spreading the word. Forgetting to take time to show gratitude for the funds that actively come in during the campaign can actually have a negative impact on future fundraising campaigns as donors feel divested from your mission due to a lack of appreciation
Take a few moments throughout your campaign to recognize and feature your high performers or other inspiring individuals. With their permission, share a photo or story of a high-performing Giving Tuesday donors or volunteers. The public recognition across your social brands will motivate them to keep going.
Give donors a task to complete
We can’t say it enough: Giving Tuesday is a social campaign. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, consider adding a fun social challenge or tagging requirement to your campaign.
The task can be simple, like a share of the campaign or joining a team. Or, think bigger, like a photo upload doing a certain activity (though, we encourage you to think beyond ice buckets). Videos are everywhere nowadays, and users love the chance to film themselves completing a challenge, or even talking about why they love your charity so much. The possibilities are endless!
How Are You Preparing for Giving Tuesday?
Giving Tuesday is a huge day, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. By incorporating peer-to-peer into your strategy, you’re embracing the social aspect of the day and using it to your advantage.
Be sure to read Why You Should Participate in Giving Tuesday 2022 for important data from last year’s Giving Tuesday results, which features important takeaways and engagement opportunities for 2022.
Planning now for Giving Tuesday? Download our Giving Tuesday Workbook to help you get started.
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