Make Giving Tuesday Work for You
As November descends upon us, here in the United States and across the globe, nonprofits and NGOs are gearing up for one of the biggest donation days of the year: Giving Tuesday. But what, exactly, is this Giving Tuesday and why can’t you find it on a standard calendar?
GivingTuesday, or as it seen around social media #GivingTuesday, is a movement started by a non-profit of the same name in 2012. Co-founded by the United Nations Foundation and supported by BLK SHP (Black Sheep), it is meant to be a “global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world,” as their website states.
Here in the United States, the final quarter of the year is filled with holidays and the spirit of give and take. GivingTuesday itself is situated as the the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, an american holiday popularly publicized as a time of reflection on what one has and giving thanks for it. It would naturally seem to follow that after taking a survey of how much one has, a little reminder to give back pops up just five days later.
There are many reasons why people give, but there is one concrete reason why companies and individuals with higher incomes seem to drop more money in the last three months of the year. That reason defies logic, physics, and the spacetime continuum: taxes.
In the U.S. tax breaks come to those who give and give generously. In fact, in some cases it costs someone less to donate a few thousand dollars to a notable charity than to pay the tax on their annual income. Taxpayers can deduct charitable contributions in an amount up to 50 percent of their income. This trick of accounting has money scattered all around as holiday lights twinkle and the world sings the same songs it did last year.
So how can Giving Tuesday work for your non profit? From November 27 to December 3, many Americans will be making their donations to whatever cause they wish. Here are some ways to make it work for you:
Use the popular hashtag and keyword GivingTuesday to get your message out to a wider audience
Create a GivingTuesday campaign to encourage donations
Engage with your community about GivingTuesday and encourage them to invite friends to learn about /donate to your organization
Use it as a time to find volunteers as well as monetary donations, encouraging people to donate time for a specific project or program
Change the thank you page on your online donation platform, if you can, so that it shows a #GivingTuesday message, which donors are invited to share. For example:
“I gave to [nonprofit] to help [children, animals, the environment] on #GivingTuesday. You can too: [link].”
Want more help on Giving Tuesday? Libero International is offering special GivingTuesday work packages to help you strategize, communicate, and implement your fundraising plan—even at the last minute. Email amanda.daly@liberointl.com for more information.
