Are you Ready for your Giving Day?

4 tips to help you maximize your #givingtuesday, Jewish CampGivingDay, or other Giving Day success

In preparation for the pilot Midwest Jewish CampGivingDay, we prepared the following ideas to help participating camps maximize their success on that special giving day and in the future. Note that these tips can be useful for ANY giving day, such as #givingtuesday, so we are sharing them more broadly.

Here are a few tips to help your camp stand out and maximize your success on a Giving Day:
 
  1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!
Don’t worry about over-communicating on your Giving Day. With all of the other communications from nonprofits competing for your donors’ attention that day (think #givingtuesday), you want to be sure your message gets through.
Tell your audience about your camp’s participation in the Giving Day before the day. And send multiple messages throughout the actual Giving Day providing updates on your progress and reminders about how to help.

Ask for donations, but also be sure to ask your supporters to ask their camp friends to join them in supporting camp during the Giving Day.

If you aren’t sure what to say, check out the example emails and social media posts we created to share before and during the Jewish CampGivingDay in our companion document.
 
  1. Get Personal
Use your database – and your institutional knowledge of your camp community - to be as personal as possible in your communications, thank yous, social media shout outs and follow up.  Remember that Giving Days like #givingtuesday can be a crazy busy day in everyone’s inbox. If you can get an alum’s attention by using her name in a subject line, your chances of getting noticed – and clicked through – will skyrocket. And if you can send a social media shout out using a donor's camp nickname - Bibs or Buffy or Bootsy or Bubba - all the better.

How can your camp get more personal during your Giving Day?
 
  1. Make Your Thank You Remarkable
Again, remember: you’re in competition for attention with literally thousands of other organizations on a Giving Day like #givingtuesday. So when a donor shows that your camp is worth their attention and their gift, you need to show real appreciation.

Clearly, an auto-generated thank you is NOT enough to convey your gratitude. A quick personal email from a staff member or volunteer is always nice.  A phone call is even better. 

Get creative. Social media shares and shout outs - maybe including a picture of the donor when he was a counselor or a 10-second video shot on a phone from the office in real time - will stand out for sure.
For inspiration, read how URJ Camp George used social media to thank their donors by name on social media during their phone-a-thon.
 
  1. Mad Follow UP
When it strikes midnight on your Giving Day, you aren’t finished! Simply surviving the day can feel like an accomplishment.

But for the folks who give that day, it marks the beginning of a new or deeper relationship with camp. Do you have a special welcome message for first time donors or long-lost alums who resurfaced on the Giving Day? Do you have a plan to track and steward ALL of your Giving Day donors beyond your thank you, no matter who remarkable it might be?

Giving Days also provide an additional opportunity. They give you a reason to connect immediately with donors old and new to learn more about what motivated them to give, what their interests are, and what camp friends they keep in touch with. And their input about your communications and the ease of the donation process can prove helpful in your planning for future fundraising efforts.

Want specific tips on following up and creating long-term relationships with your Giving Day donors? If you provide your name and email address to Classy, you can download their Giving Tuesday toolkit, which includes a fantastic download: “8 Ways to Turn Giving Tuesday Buzz Into Lasting Support.”