4 Creative Fundraisers to Drive Up #GivingTuesday Donations

Your #GivingTuesday campaign calendar is carefully planned with the release of online content and branded promotional items; now it’s time to make sure your event for #GivingTuesday itself stands out among the rest.

Amidst the wide sea of creative ideas, here are four that we think will give your event the extra punch you’re looking for.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraiser

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a savvy way for nonprofits to garner a hefty load of extra cash. It can come in a variety of forms, but in a nutshell, it’s a process by which the nonprofit encourages its supporters to donate, share online, and motivate others to donate as well.

For instance, urge your supporters to donate a small amount of money, share their donation on social media, and tag friends as a way to encourage them to donate, too. The number of friends tagged should equal the number of dollars donated. So, if they donate $10, they would tag 10 friends.

This is a great way not only to help reach your goal, but also to help grow your donor list.

Work-a-Thon

Get some visibility for your #GivingTuesday campaign by rallying volunteers to address a community need on November 28. This will require some advanced coordination and planning, as well as some strategic advertisement. The best ideas would align your work-a-thon with your nonprofit’s mission, but if the two don’t marry perfectly, any project that gets your campaign some good publicity and that is in the sincere spirit of philanthropy will do just fine.

For example, if your nonprofit focuses on environmental issues, perhaps you could organize a “neighborhood clean-sweep,” in which you and your volunteers, dressed in bright and branded t-shirts, fan out through your community, picking up litter and debris on the sidewalks and in parks. Hold a central gathering point, with music and refreshments, and invite the local media to cover your event and plug your campaign. Mobilizing volunteers to serve the community on #GivingTuesday itself is a great way to inspire the community at large to give to your nonprofit.

Virtual + Live = Power!

Leverage the potential of both online and in-person fundraisers to optimize your #GivingTuesday event’s energy and maximize donations. This works especially well for campaigns that have a goal of raising particular items as well as funds. For example, if your campaign goal is to raise money to purchase toys for underprivileged children, tell supporters that they can donate in one of two ways: they can donate funds online, or they can bring new toys in person to your live fundraiser on #GivingTuesday itself.

Make the event fun by offering free coffee and donuts and enlisting volunteers to provide music. Leveraging the tools of online and live events harnesses the convenience of the digital world and the community spirit of the old-fashioned fundraiser, and it combines them into one big, powerful – and beneficial – event.

Make Participation More Exciting

Champion your cause and encourage donors to help you reach your goal by adding a Givelithon to your #GivingTuesday event. This Givelify feature enables you to create a custom #GivingTuesday event envelope in your Givelify app, input your fundraising goal, and track a running total of all donations.

You can project a live feed of donations at your event headquarters, which can even be recorded periodically on Facebook Live. This is a great way to urge more donations to come in and to keep your supporters energized throughout the day.

Want to see how mobile and online giving can enhance your #GivingTuesday event? We’ll show you how.