Your Crash Course Giving Tuesday Checklist

Erin Booker

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August 25, 2025

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8 minutes

Nonprofit Trends

Giving Tuesday

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Start your Giving Tuesday on all four feet with our essential checklist! Whether you’re a seasoned nonprofit fundraiser or chasing your very first donation, this guide compiles every must-do action item, plus some pro-level bone-us tips to ensure your Giving Tuesday campaign is organized, high-impact, and powered by the best in digital fundraising—Funraise.

Giving Tuesday fundraising prep

Kick off your most successful Giving Tuesday yet! Learn how smart prep and powerful reporting set you up to fetch incredible results!

Pull past reports

Use Funraise’s Fundraising Intelligence reports and dashboards to review data from previous Giving Tuesday campaigns and other fundraising efforts. These insights help you identify what worked, where you can improve, and set a strong foundation for this year’s strategy.

Establish your Why

Define the core reason behind your Giving Tuesday campaign—what vital change or impact is your organization striving for? Sharing this mission with your team keeps everyone motivated and ensures all communications are inspiring and aligned.

Set goals and expectations

Based on past results and your nonprofit’s needs, set clear, data-driven goals for total funds raised, number of donors, or other key metrics. Communicate these goals and expectations so your whole team knows exactly what success looks like.

Hype up your team

Gather your staff and volunteers, celebrate past successes, and energize everyone for the campaign ahead. Use kickoff meetings, fun communications, or small rewards to build excitement and a can-do atmosphere.

Plan it out

Create a detailed plan and timeline for your campaign’s key milestones, outreach, and activities. Map out what needs to happen when, and who’s responsible—ensuring a smooth, organized, and stress-free Giving Tuesday for your whole pack!

Giving Tuesday tactics

Supercharge your Giving Tuesday: discover four easy, high-impact tricks to deliver more support—choose one and your results will do more than sit and stay!

Choose one tactic to complement your Giving Tuesday strategy

Review these four complementary approaches—P2P, Subscriptions, Events, Matching Gifts—and select the one that best matches your audience, team capacity, and goal. Focusing on a single additional tactic boosts your bandwidth and likelihood of success.

Pick P2P

Empower supporters to create their own fundraising pages with Funraise’s peer-to-peer fundraising tools. Guide them to set personal goals and share with their networks, expanding your reach and tapping into new donor pools.

Select Subscriptions

Promote recurring gifts by highlighting the compound impact of monthly giving. Funraise’s recurring giving upgrade allows donors to easily set up ongoing support with a visible, compelling option on your donation form.

Elect Events

Organize an in-person or virtual event—like a mini-gala, contest, or happy hour—to celebrate Giving Tuesday. This adds energy and excitement to your campaign while encouraging new donations.

Make a matching gift happen

Identify a major supporter or business willing to match gifts for Giving Tuesday. Use Funraise’s donor prospecting and wealth screening tools to find strong candidates, then promote the match in your outreach to maximize the sense of urgency and opportunity.

Incorporate the tactic into your existing plan

Integrate your chosen tactic into your communication schedule, campaign site, and team roles. Update your Giving Tuesday “run of show” and reminders to reflect this supplement, ensuring seamless execution alongside your core strategy.

Build your campaign site

Discover how to build a tail-wagging Giving Tuesday campaign site—from branded colors to progress bars to donation celebrations—that results in more donors and makes giving a walk in the park!

Create your branded campaign site

Customize your campaign site with your nonprofit’s colors, images, and logo, ensuring supporters instantly recognize and trust you. With drag-and-drop tools and pre-made templates, you’ll have a professional, unique site set up in minutes.

Include engaging elements

Add interactive features like a countdown timer, progress bar, and a donor feed showing recent or top donations—these elements create excitement, urgency, and trust, encouraging visitors to give.

Deliver an exceptional donation form experience

Embed Funraise’s easy, secure donation forms on your site so supporters can give without hassle or confusion. These forms are proven to provide positive donor experiences, boosting your conversion and keeping supporters focused on your impact.

Test it all (twice or three times!)

Check every feature—form fields, buttons, and visuals—on desktop and mobile devices to ensure everything works smoothly for every supporter.

Ask colleagues for help

Invite trusted friends, staff, or board members to make the first donations. This early activity fills your progress bar and donor list with real names and momentum, providing immediate social proof that inspires more giving.

Send clear communications

Power up your campaign with smart, personalized outreach—see how to schedule targeted emails, texts, and social posts that lead the pack in donations on Giving Tuesday!

Segment your audience

Divide supporters into key email lists—monthly donors, those who gave last year but unfortunately not this year (LYBUNTY), and major donors. Funraise’s donor CRM keeps every segment up to date, so you can tailor your messages and maximize impact.

Separate donors who already gave

Filter your lists so that donors who have already made a Giving Tuesday gift get a big thank you and update on impact. Reminding them of Giving Tuesday goals without including a hard ask keeps your communication relevant and your relationships strong.

Write engaging comms

Craft heartfelt, inspiring, direct messages for each segment. Highlight your mission, combine donor data and AI for personalization, and include clear calls-to-action that invite support, shares, or further involvement.

Diversify your ask

Go beyond dollars! Invite supporters to share your campaign on social, give via stock, crypto, or donor-advised funds (DAFs), or commit to volunteering. This approach gives every supporter a way to make a difference.

Link everything

Every message—email, text, or post—should send supporters to your Giving Tuesday fundraising page for a seamless giving experience and to help you track campaign performance.

Schedule communications

Pre-schedule all outreach (emails, texts, and even reminders) through Funraise’s engagement features, including email, text-to-give, and SMS messaging. Use automation to send the right message, at the right time, to the right segment—without inducing zoomies.

A fool-proof Giving Tuesday plan

Get your pack together and chase those funds—this fool-proof, step-by-step Giving Tuesday playbook lays out exactly how to organize, energize, and maximize your fundraising success.

Provide a well-documented plan

Make sure each task and its stakeholder is clearly noted, from monitoring emails to posting on social—a written plan keeps everyone on track all day long.

Get all hands on deck

Involve your full team, empowering volunteers and supporters to help promote, answer questions, and celebrate every success as part of your fundraising “pack.”

Set an (early) start time

Launch the day with an early message and ensure your donation forms and landing pages are tested and live—the earlier you start, the more time donors have to give.

Monitor your communications

Before the big day, schedule your email appeals using Funraise's Email Messaging feature to deliver at ideal donation moments. Then, on Giving Tuesday, you just have to monitor your scheduled comms.

Efficiently organize fundraising activities

Coordinate time-specific activities like matching gift hours, live updates, donor shoutouts, or exciting livestreamed challenges to keep the energy high and donations flowing steadily.

Celebrate the impactful moments

Mark and publicize special milestones (like halfway to your goal, every big donation, or meaningful impact numbers) with fun updates—every achievement is a chance to build excitement and keep tails wagging!

Kick off a howl-iday season to remember!

Kick off a howl-iday season to remember—discover smart, simple steps to celebrate your Giving Tuesday wins and unleash powerful momentum for end-of-year appeal.

Celebrate!

Take a moment to wag your tail and honor the team—host a virtual toast, share your excitement in staff channels, or send a fun update to everyone who helped bring your campaign to life.

Send thank yous to major players

Reach out personally to top donors, volunteers, and team members with heartfelt handwritten cards or calls—maybe even thank you videos! Let them know their support made a major impact and celebrate their generosity.

Share Giving Tuesday results with your supporters

Craft an upbeat email or social post to share fundraising totals, stories of impact, and heartfelt thanks with everyone who contributed; make it visual and memorable so your supporters feel the win. Definitely schedule follow-up emails with Funraise's Email Messaging feature.

Keep the momentum going

Launch a follow-up campaign or invite giving challenges, using the excitement of Giving Tuesday as a springboard for year-end asks—Funraise’s Automated Tasks can schedule these reminders for you.

Change the world

Reflect on the difference your supporters have made, share stories of impact, and invite everyone to stay involved—reminding your community that together, you’re turning every donation into lasting change.

Bone-us tasks to take it to the next level

Unlock your biggest Giving Tuesday yet or just bring the heat anytime of the year—try these pro-level bone-us strategies to boost your impact, polish your campaign, and surprise yourself with just how far you can go!

Partner with a complementary org to hit your Giving Tuesday campaign goals

Team up with another nonprofit or a for-profit organization that shares a similar audience but doesn’t directly compete for the same donors. Cross-promoting each other's Giving Tuesday efforts lets you reach new supporters, increase visibility, and even co-host events or matching campaigns—all while building long-term relationships.

Have a backup plan

Anticipate potential challenges like tech hiccups, sudden team absence, or low engagement, and prep a plan B to address each. Maybe alternative donation forms, pre-drafted contingency emails, or identifying backup staff to cover key tasks—the goal is to ensure nothing derails your big day.

Get AI in the mix

Explore how artificial intelligence tools can streamline your fundraising tasks: use AI to draft emails, segment email lists, personalize messages, or analyze giving trends. Funraise AI features help you work smarter, not harder, so you can focus more on donors and less on data entry.

Tidy up your CRM

Review and update your donor database before your campaign launches: clean up contact info, merge duplicates, and tag donors by interests or past giving. A tidy CRM means more accurate segmentation, better-targeted outreach, and less stress when it’s time to record thank you videos, do social media shout outs, or analyze results.

Make sure all your payment methods are hooked up properly

Double-check that your donation form is connected to all the current and popular payment types—credit cards, ACH, PayPal, Apple/Google Pay, stock, crypto, and DAFs, if possible. Test each method as a donor to verify that donations go through smoothly, preventing missed gifts and boosting donor trust.

Play pretend: review your process with fresh eyes

Pretend you’re a donor going through the giving process, a stranger receiving your comms for the first time, or a client viewing your website. Test every link, read every message, and look at your branding critically (including your social media posts!) This outside-in audit will help you spot confusing steps, missing info, or places where your images and story could be more inviting.

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Giving Tuesday Checklist FAQ

What is Giving Tuesday?

Giving Tuesday is a global generosity movement and a major annual fundraising opportunity for nonprofits. Celebrated on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday encourages people worldwide to give back, support nonprofit organizations, and make a positive impact in their communities, both online and offline.

When is GivingTuesday 2025?

GivingTuesday 2025 falls on Tuesday, December 2, 2025. Mark your nonprofit’s calendar and start planning your fundraising campaign early to maximize Giving Tuesday’s incredible fundraising potential.

How should my nonprofit prepare for Giving Tuesday?

Effective Giving Tuesday preparation starts with pulling past reports, setting clear goals, building a detailed fundraising plan, and hyping up your team. Funraise’s Fundraising Intelligence and digital tools make campaign setup, targeted outreach, and post-event tracking seamless for nonprofits eager to hit—and exceed—their fundraising goals.

How can Giving Tuesday benefit nonprofits?

Giving Tuesday supercharges fundraising by connecting nonprofits to a global audience primed for giving, increasing awareness, acquiring new donors, and generating vital revenue. Nonprofits using Funraise report higher online engagement, easier donor segmentation, and stronger year-end giving results overall.

How do nonprofits make the most of Giving Tuesday?

Nonprofits maximize Giving Tuesday by planning early, segmenting communications, launching a dedicated donation website, leveraging social media outreach, and using best-in-class fundraising software like Funraise. This approach ensures a smooth supporter experience and keeps the momentum going through year-end fundraising campaigns.