If you’re like us, 2022 flew by. The fall giving season has a way of sneaking up when we’re not looking. If your #GivingTuesday plans were always on your mind, but never actually planned, you’re not alone. And we’ve got your back.
So, if you find yourself putting together your #GivingTuesday campaign a little last minute, Mightycause is here to help. These five steps will get your campaign ready for the biggest giving day of the year.
1. Register for #GivingTuesday
Step number one is perhaps the easiest step! Just register for #GivingTuesday. It only takes a few moments. What does registration do? Registration:
- Grants you administrative access to your nonprofit’s Mightycause profile
- Adds your nonprofit to our #GivingTuesday event
- Tells us on which leaderboard to place your organization
- Adds your nonprofit to the #GivingTuesday search
- Makes your nonprofit eligible to win $7,000 in cash prizes and more than $8,000 in free Advanced subscriptions
Registration is totally free! And if you’re a current Mightycause user, our form will even pre-fill your information for you. So, register now, and cross it off your list!
2. Customize your Mightycause profile
On #GivingTuesday, your organization profile on Mightycause will represent your organization in searches, and it’ll be the main link you share with your supporters. Since it’s the face of your organization, it may be last minute, but you still want to show it some love.
Depending on how much time you are able to devote, there is a lot to customize. (Check out the details in this support article!) If you don’t have much time, get your profile ready for #GivingTuesday by focusing on the most high-impact features.
Add a logo
Your logo is going to carry through Mightycause and the #GivingTuesday site. So uploading your nonprofit’s logo should be the first thing you do to customize your profile.
We require that the logo be square, and if you need to do some image editing, 800 x 800 pixels is a good size for your logo.
Add a background image
Adding a background or banner image is a quick, easy way to make your Mightycause profile reflect your brand. You can upload an image of your building, your community, or even the people your nonprofit serves. Don’t have a photo you think will work, or just running short on time? No problem! You can choose a stock image from our gallery.
Tell your story in the About section
The About section of your profile is where you’ll talk about your campaign for #GivingTuesday, your nonprofit’s mission, the impact you have on your community, and your appeal to donors to give. You can also create a multimedia experience for visitors to your page with images, videos, and more. Our inline text editor makes it easy for you to jazz up this section.
Check out our Nonprofit Toolkit and Resource Center for tips about #GivingTuesday storytelling. In short, here are some general best practices:
- Images and videos help keep people on the page longer.
- Break up walls of text with headers and lists.
- Make sure there is no outdated information or references to prior campaigns.
- Stay away from jargon and inside nonprofit talk!
If you’re really pressed for time and not sure what to put in your About section, using your nonprofit’s mission statement will do the trick! Just take a moment to read it over. Make sure your average supporters can easily understand your cause just in case they don’t have prior knowledge.
Create or edit your Thank You Page & Message
It goes without saying, but we’re going to say it anyway- Thanking your donors is extremely important. Your Mightycause profile gives you a few ways to automate the Thank You process. This saves time before, during and after the #GivingTuesday rush. It only takes a few minutes to set up a Thank You page and message; but it leaves a big impact.
If you need a walkthrough of editing your Checkout Flow and Thank You page and message, take a look at our article, Editing Your Nonprofits Checkout Flow.
Thank You page
After a donor checks out, they will be taken to a Thank You page that confirms their donation was completed successfully. Here you have an opportunity to customize that thank you and make it reflect your #GivingTuesday message. Prepare the Thank You page through the Checkout > Thank-you Page tabs on your dashboard. Again, you can use a simple inline text editor to create an engaging Thank You page.
If you have a Thank You video or image, this is the perfect place for it! But don’t think you have to go out and produce a piece of art. If you simply want to add a quick thank you text, that can have just as much impact. With your Thank You page, you’re ensuring that each and every donor gets a fast and official message of gratitude from your nonprofit.
Thank You message
On Mightycause, once a donor completes a donation, they’ll receive a pretty simple and standard tax receipt via email. Like the Thank You page, you can also spruce up the email by adding a custom Thank You message from your nonprofit. With these automated tools built in, you don’t have to worry about the receipts or the thank you message- talk about a time saver on your end!
Head over to Checkout > Donation Receipt on your organization profile and add your “Thank You.” Keep in mind, a simple message of thanks works best. If you want to punch it up a bit, you can include a thank you message from your Executive Director or a hyperlink to your website site.
3. Use Mightycause’s resources
One of Mightycause’s overall goals is to help make nonprofit fundraising easy for as many organizations as possible. That’s what our company is all about.
This is why for #GivingTuesday we’ve curated an expansive resource library with Training Webinars and our Nonprofit Toolkit including our Social Media Kit. Here, every nonprofit has access to great training and useful resources for planning their unique campaign. (Even if it is last minute.)
On-Demand Webinars
For a crash course in everything #GivingTuesday, or if you want to brush up on a particular topic, like matching grants or social media, we’ve got you covered. Our On-Demand Webinars cover all of this and more! Just hop over to our library, pick a video, and start watching. You can even download the slides if you’re not the type to watch recordings.
Don’t have the time to watch the webinars? Ask a volunteer to watch and take notes for you!
Nonprofit Toolkit
Our Nonprofit Toolkit is a lifesaver when planning your last minute #GivingTuesday campaign. It has everything you might need or want for #GivingTuesday, including:
- A #GivingTuesday checklist
- #GivingTuesday email templates you can copy, paste, and customize
- In-depth guides to social media, email strategy, planning, and more
- #GivingTuesday fundraising ideas
- A #GivingTuesday brand kit with logos and email signatures
- Not one but three free e-books specifically about #GivingTuesday fundraising
- #GivingTuesday case studies
- Social Media Kit
So, use the toolkit! It has literally everything you need to plan & execute a successful campaign… but only if you utilize it.
4. Start scheduling content
Now that you’ve got the basics down, you’re ready to start building the scaffolding of your campaign. And that scaffolding is social media posts and emails.
Social media
The secret to using social media is to schedule as much as you possibly can in advance. On #GivingTuesday, you want to use your live-posting time and effort for things like interacting with donors, celebrating milestones, and other things that must be done in real-time. So get your key content together, build the posts, and schedule posting ahead of time. Not only will this save time on November 29th, but it’ll save you the stress and writer’s block that almost inevitably comes on the big day.
Just like social media, create your email schedule ahead of time! Your email strategy can be as simple or as robust as you’d like. We know this is last minute, but at the bare-bones minimum, plan one email blast on #GivingTuesday asking people to donate to your profile page. If you’re up for a bit more of an intensive strategy, try scheduling some pre-event or targeted emails to key groups of donors (such as previous #GivingTuesday donors, your recurring donors, volunteers, and so on.)
If you’re looking for inspiration, don’t forget our Nonprofit Toolkit! We’ve got a sample email schedule and templates ready and waiting for you.
5. Make a day-of plan
As it has been said, failure to plan is planning to fail. #GivingTuesday is not the day to fly by the seat of your pants. It may be last minute, but take the time to put together a day-of plan so you’ve got your bases covered on November 29th. Here’s what we recommend:
- Social media:
- Assign someone to monitor social media. This means responding to comments and DMs, live-posting when needed, and making sure your scheduled posts fire off as planned. If you have an actual Social Media Manager, great. If not, find a capable staff member or see if you have any volunteers who can help.
- #GivingTuesday is a long day. It may be helpful to have more than one person assigned to social media. This way one may take over for the other after a certain number of hours or each may take a break when needed. But be sure that a particular person is designated for social media at all times.
- Donor care:
- Have someone on hand to handle phone calls and emails from donors. This can be Development staff (if you have them), but you can also enlist volunteers to help out. Be sure this person is also checking any responses to your blast emails!
We recommend outlining who is on your #GivingTuesday team, what their roles and responsibilities are, and meet at least once close to November 29th to go over the plan.
Food for thought: If you’re comfortable, consider having at least two admins for your Mightycause profile page. Crazy things happen on #GivingTuesday and having another person who knows what is happening on the platform can ease the load.
Now you’re ready!
If you follow these steps by showing your profile on Mightycause some love and having a few social media posts and emails planned out, you can make #GivingTuesday work. Even if you’re making it work at the last-minute.
So what are we waiting for?? Let’s get registered!