Darkness Rising Project Increased Donations for GivingTuesday by 400%
GivingTuesday is one of the biggest fundraising days of the year around the world. In a sea full of nonprofits fundraising on GivingTuesday, it can be a challenge standing out. But in 2024, Darkness Rising Project, a nonprofit dedicated to Black mental health advocacy, shattered expectations by increasing their GivingTuesday fundraising on Mightycause by an incredible 400% compared to the previous year.
So, how did they do it? By leveraging strategic storytelling, online fundraising tools, and a community-driven approach, Darkness Rising Project turned their GivingTuesday campaign into a success.
Mightycause is easy for people who don’t donate often, who it might be their first time ever donating. It’s easy for people, and has a really nice interface. People enjoy looking at it, and I think that encourages donors to give.
Darkness Rising Project REBUILD Program
In 2022, Darkness Rising Project launched their REBUILD program. The program helps connect formerly incarcerated individuals of color to culturally competent therapists. Prior to 2024, they had never developed a dedicated GivingTuesday campaign. With some additional resources available to them in 2024, they decided to harness the full potential of GivingTuesday with a focused strategy and campaign.
The Darkness Rising Project turned to Mightycause’s GivingTuesday event to create a GivingTuesday campaign . Learn how the Darkness Rising Project was able to achieve a 400% increase in donations on Mightycause for GivingTuesday:
Can you share a little bit about the Darkness Rising Project?
We are an arts and mental health nonprofit, and we provide free performances as well as mental health resources to the black community and other marginalized communities. We also provide free therapy to justice-involved and formerly incarcerated people of color and wellness, workshops to the community as well.
Was this your first time participating in GivingTuesday?
We’ve done GivingTuesday campaigns before but this was the first year that we signed up for GivingTuesday through Mightycause.
What were your goals for your fundraising campaign?
Our goal was to raise $10,000 for our REBUILD program.
What was your strategy going into GivingTuesday?
We started communication a couple of months before GivingTuesday. We started informing people about GivingTuesday through our newsletters and on social media. Mariame Kaba, one of the founders of our REBUILD program, gave us a $10,000 match. So we started by letting people know that their gift would be matched up to $10,000 for GivingTuesday, with a direct link to our page. We removed any other donate links on our website so we could just focus on our Mightycause fundraising page for the REBUILD program.
Were there any challenges or lessons learned from the past that informed your GivingTuesday plan?
Yes, I think in the past years we started too late. In 2024, instead of just asking for donations, we started nurturing our donors earlier. That’s something that we really focused on heavily. In our newsletters we started by simply informing donors “hey. GivingTuesday is coming”. We made phone calls, thank yous, and sent out personalized emails. And I think that helped a lot.
Your organization created a lot of great content and videos surrounding your campaign. Can you share a little bit about that process?
I think that our donor base very much prefers to hear directly from people impacted. What I’ve learned is that in order for us to get those stories, we have to reach out to our people much earlier, especially with the people that we serve. Some people don’t have a phones or computers. So it just takes a much longer time to get the stories recorded.
What surprised you the most about your GivingTuesday campaign?
We were very happy to see that we received a lot of new donors! I think Mightycause is easy for people who don’t donate often or who it might be their first time ever donating. It’s easy for people, and has a really nice interface. People enjoy looking at it, and I think that encourages donors to give.
What were some things you learned or took away from your campaign?
Honestly, I think we need to start earlier when it comes it engaging our donors. Sending “thank-yous” should be something we do year-round or quarterly. Also we need to start preparing for GivingTuesday marketing much earlier than we did, especially in terms of the videos we create and post on social.
Can you share your overall experience with Mightycause?
We’ve had a really great experience with Mightycause. We’ve had a great experience in being able to fundraise effectively and being able to create a fundraising page that people feel connected to and want to see. On the fundraising pages, people can easily see the donations growing. People like to see that a lot. The pages are engaging, and I I know that we definitely plan to continue.
What would you tell a nonprofit that was interested in pariticpting in GivingTuesday?
Oh, I would tell them it’s absolutely worth it. I think it’s very helpful. I think Mightycause made the process really easy. I remember opening up the Mightycause emails that included step-by-step guides. I think that was really helpful. There was like one for marketing and another one for development, and I sent them both to my marketing and development directors, and we used those. That was really helpful, so I would absolutely recommend it.
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