Giving Tuesday Campaign Inspiration for Charities

Giving Tuesday – a day designed to encourage people to do good. A day that has grown since it’s inception in 2012, to a day that has become critical for charities. A day that now holds the world record for the most donations in 24 hours. (That was a whopping £20.2m raised on Giving Tuesday in 2021 in case you were wondering).

Always held on the day after cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday helps non profits to garner the support they need before the year ends. Charities big and small, use the day to run campaigns to encourage supporters to give in whatever way they choose.

Purposefully positioned hot on the heels of Black Friday, Giving Tuesday counters everything that is wrong with Black Friday, replacing consumerism with generosity, purchases with donations.

But with so many charities campaigning for the attention of the Nation’s limited altruistic wallets, how can you as a charity create a successful campaign – a campaign that stands out from the rest?

I’ve rounded up ten examples from years gone by of some of my favourite Giving Tuesday campaigns. I’ve taken the thing I love most about each example and turned it into a tip to help you to make your Giving Tuesday campaign a success.

The key is in the preparation

Let’s start with the preparation. As with all marketing, a key component of good preparation is to get really clear about who it is that you want to talk to. Know who they are, know what they’re motivated by, know what’s likely to make them tick – and ensure your messaging reflects that.

Tip 1: Know your audience

I was super impressed by the approach taken by Treehouse for kids in 2020. The American foster-care charity used audience insights to determine the language and messaging in their 2020 Giving Tuesday campaign. This led to them creating a variety of messages for their different audience groups from an interactive bingo game to testimonials from the young people who have benefitted from their services. The result was a 113% increase in funds from the previous year.

Knowing who your donors are and how to appeal to them helps you to develop effective creative which when targeted appropriately, translates into donations.

Tip number 2: Warm up your audience

We already know that your supporters are going to be inundated with ‘Please Give’ messages on Giving Tuesday. So why not start the conversation with them before Giving Tuesday?

I love this example from Charity: Water. They sent this email a few days before Giving Tuesday with the subject line “This Giving Tuesday, make history with us”. The subject line was intriguing so open rates were high. Then the email itself focusses on the impact of previous donations. This both reaffirms to the donor that when they give to this charity, their donation will be used wisely, and gives the audience a timebound reason to support this year’s campaign.

Create cut-through

Next, your creative should focus on a hard hitting truth if you want it to create cut-through, and it should translate that truth in a way that surprises your audience.

Tip 3: Be creative

Strictly speaking this was a Black Friday campaign rather than a Giving Tuesday campaign but as it’s one of my all time favourites, I’m using it anyway. “Why’s a charity advertising on Black Friday?” I hear you cry! Exactly. In 2019, WWF used video to attract the attention of Black Friday shoppers, enticing them with images of “limited stock” items such as handbags, blusher, and games consoles. As the film zoomed out, it revealed the item in “limited stock” was actually an animal in need of protection.

Not only was it awesome creative, the campaign encouraged people to adopt animals that are in “limited supply” including pandas, penguins, leopards and polar bears. Whilst other charities were launching their donation asks on Giving Tuesday, WWF were not only ahead of the game, but also cut through the Black Friday noise, pulling on the conscience of consumers.

Tip 4: Use humour

I know what you’re thinking, global charities like WWF have big budgets compared to small charities so it’s easier for them to be creative. Wrong. You don’t need a big budget to be creative. I love this example from Walters art museum last year. They created puns related to sculptures in their museum collections to encourage giving.

Injecting a little humour into your Giving Tuesday campaigns can go a long way.

Tip 5: Make it timely

This year, giving Tuesday falls on 1 December – which also happens to mark the start of the festive season for many of us in the UK.

Last year the National Trust did a nice campaign called ‘Trees up’, where people were encouraged to put their Christmas tree up, donate £5 to plant a sapling (to help in the Trust’s target to plant 20m trees in 10 years) and post a pic of  their decorated Christmas tree on social media nominating 5 friends to do the same.

Linking a campaign to something your audience are likely to be doing anyway (like putting up their Christmas tree) makes it easier for them to get involved.

So consider how you might bring some festive sparkle to your Giving Tuesday campaign.  

Amplify your voice

Ensuring that your campaign is seen by a large number of people can be hard, particularly on Giving Tuesday, a day when your audiences will be saturated with charity messages.

Tip 6: Jump on a trend

You can boost your campaign’s visibility by tapping into an existing social media trend. For example, the Michael J Fox foundation tapped into the #Unselfie campaign. This is a campaign that encourages followers to post unselfish selfies. For the Michael J Fox Foundation, 107 unselfies were posted. These generated 5,000 word of mouth endorsements and donations totalling $400,000.

This demonstrates that when you tap into an existing hashtag or community, you have a captive audience.

Tip 7: Get celebrity endorsement

Convincing a celebrity or social influencer to back your campaign can really help you to increase your reach. Stephen Fry recorded a supportive message for The Wildlife Trusts backing their campaign to restore 30% of UK land and sea by 2030. The short film released on Giving Tuesday saw Stephen Fry asking people to repay nature for all the support it’s given them in tough times.

Not only did it mean that The Wildlife Trust’s campaign reached Stephen’s followers as well as their own, using a celebrity made the message more shareable on social media, whilst the story was also picked up by the press, giving them an edge over other charities on a day when it’s easy to get lost amongst the noise.

Tip 8: Collaborate

Not everyone has Stephen Fry in their back pocket. I get it.

Another way that charities can amplify their voice is by collaborating with like-minded causes. This shows your audiences that the cause it’s what’s important to you (as opposed to making it specifically about your own charity). People respond well to seeing like-minded charities working together. And it enables you to get your collective messages out to a greater number of people. A great example comes from The National Trust in 2020 openly asking their audiences to donate to nature rather than to donate specifically to the National Trust.

I know, I know, that’s two examples from the National Trust in this article. I’ll admit it – I’m biased. I used to work for them.

Flip this on it’s head and actually another way to amplify your voice might be to have a bit of friendly competition with a like-minded charity. With a bit of wit, you could really get a conversation going on social media with this approach (in a similar way to how we see Aldi & M&S playing it off against each other on the socials). Get it right and there’s potential to amplify the voice of both charities, and get people involved in donating to their favourite and convincing their friends to do the same. I can’t see any examples of this one in action. So that idea’s on me. You’re welcome.

Nudge people over the line

Once you’ve engaged your audience, you need to convince them to part with their cash. This part’s hard. But demonstrating how their money will be spent in a really tangible way will go a long way to nudging them over that line to donate.

Tip 9 : Make your ask specific

There’s something about the clarity that specificity brings that makes it really hard to say no to a specific ask. Tiny Tickers nailed this in their Giving Tuesday campaign which used really clear messaging. Tiny Tickers asked supporters to help raise money for 6 pulse oximetry machines to be placed in 6 UK hospitals to save the lives of babies born with unknown serious heart conditions. Their messaging read: 12 babies, 6 machines, one day. It was incredibly persuasive resulting in them smashing their targets.

Maximise income

If you’re successful in reaching the right audiences, you want to make the most of that opportunity, and maximise the amount that they give.

Tip 10: Find a match funder

One way of maximizing income is to find a match funder ( a person or organization who will match the donations you get within a set time period). If you can find a partner to match fund your appeal, the response rate to your appeal is likely to be 71% higher. It works because supporters feel like they’re giving more than they actually are, meaning they can have a greater impact than if they gave at a different time.

Key here is translating the impact that a doubling of donations provides. Feeding San Diego did this really well in their email communications by clearly stating how many meals each gift would provide once it had been doubled.

So there you have it, ten examples of organisations who have smashed Giving Tuesday in the past. I hope these examples have provided you with some inspiration for your own Giving Tuesday campaigns. If you’d like any further help with your campaign planning, feel free to get in touch with us here at The Marketing Den.

Bonus tip: Don’t forget to say thank you to your donors. Obviously.