As Giving Tuesday approaches once more, your nonprofit’s crack team of unicorns is likely putting together your Giving Tuesday 2024 strategy. For most nonprofits, this once-a-year one-day event is well worth the effort, bringing in new donors and kicking off the busy year-end fundraising season with a bang. 

But what if, like most nonprofits, you're entering Giving Tuesday with limited staff, time, budget, and resources? 

If any of the above sounds familiar, you might want to consider going all in on one marketing channel instead of pursuing multi-channel marketing. While we're all about a multi-channel strategy during the rest of the year (let's give it up for diversified funding streams and a customer experience that meets everyone where they are!), sometimes, you need to put all those eggs in one super-sturdy, beautifully woven basket and carry it very carefully. With a single-channel campaign, you can put all your resources toward a single channel, giving it a greater chance of sweet nonprofit success.

This Giving Tuesday holiday season, we've narrowed it down to four marketing channel contenders: email, text, social media, and local press. Read on to discover what each channel can do for you and what you’ll have to put in in terms of time and effort. Let’s single-mindedly jump in!

Which Giving Tuesday marketing channel is right for your nonprofit organization?

Email Campaigns

When it comes to marketing strategies, email is a tried-and-true way to reach current and potential donors repeatedly, consistently, and thoroughly. Consider this: In 2022, 4.48 billion people worldwide used email (Statista). And a 2020 survey found that for every dollar invested in email marketing, brands earned $36 back (Statista). So, if you're unable to tackle a multi-channel marketing strategy this Giving Tuesday, email is an option that can have a big reach and pay off big time. 

A lot goes into email fundraising campaigns, but with a little help from Funraise, you can make that meager marketing budget go far with eye-catching, mind-changing emails. First, we have our Giving Tuesday toolkit, chock full of email templates and AI prompts. Then, we have AppealAI, our free AI feature that lets you write an email series that persuade and convert. And did we mention the customizable email templates to ensure every triggered response and receipt email is easy on the eyes and the user experience?

For a bit more support, we suggest you tap into a specialized email marketing platform, like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, to ensure a robust but user-friendly email program. And lucky you, Funraise integrates with both of them! 

Text Campaign Strategies

One downside to email? More and more of your supporters have abandoned their desktops in favor of mobile apps and text threads. In fact, SMS messages have a 98% open rate (compared to just 18% for emails), so if you're hopping on the single-channel marketing bandwagon, texting might be your go-to strategy, particularly if you're looking to cultivate the next gen of donors through their next-generation communication.

We recommend text engagement for nonprofits that are particularly resource-strapped. Why? Because when it comes to marketing efforts, texting is a strategy that works best when used with a light touch: don't reach out too often, and keep your messages short and sweet.

With Funraise’s text-to-give feature, your digital marketers can create a personalized experience with custom text-to-give codes and automated replies, wooing a wide audience of prospective and current donors. 

Social Media Campaigns

Ah, social media. Love it or hate it, when it comes to Giving Tuesday, social media posts are a great way for nonprofit organizations to connect with their target audience with minimal marketing spend. If you choose to court your social network this Giving Tuesday, you’ll want to start by picking a platform platform. Facebook? Instagram? TikTok? Tinder? Well, probably not Tinder, but you get the idea.

Once you've chosen one single social media platform to rule them all, you can post with abandon. Videos that disappear in 24 hours? Check. Heartfelt pleas on your org's page? Yup. An eight-hour livestream? Sure thing. Another bonus is that social media posts let your supporters work for your cause. Just ask them to spread the social proof by sharing your already-written social post on their own pages. If you have room in the budget, spend a few bucks on social media ads. If you have an extra hour, cross-post across a variety of channels for a slightly more multi-channel marketing strategy. 

Funraise is totally prepped to help with all of your social efforts, bee-tee-dubs. With a gorgeous and seamless Facebook integration and our ah-may-zing AppealAI tool, we’re making it easier for nonprofit teams just like yours to take advantage of the power of social media messaging for the greater good.

Local Advertising Campaigns

Then again, you might want to keep things simple and choose a single-channel marketing strategy that's close to home. This Giving Tuesday, what if you just advertised locally? Local news stations, small-town newspapers, and good ol' word-of-mouth are a great way to get the word out about your nonprofit's Giving Tuesday campaign goals. If your nonprofit is smaller, community-based, and tied to a certain geographical area, this campaign idea might be the best option for you.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any statistics about word-of-mouth fundraising’s ROI, but we do have a few suggestions. Send a press release to every newspaper in your area—you can check out givingtuesday.org's complete campaign toolkit or ask AI to lend a hand. While you're at it, try to get your director on local television—TV makes stars, and your nonprofit is ready for the limelight!

You can also go back to basics and partner with local businesses to turn prospective customers into first-time donors or first-time donors into monthly donors, whether it's through pinning a brochure near the cash register or offering a gift matching so people know their donation goes twice as far. And if you can't find a match, you can always advertise corporate matching programs (Funraise makes it a breeze). 

The key to making any online fundraising campaign into a successful campaign

It's pretty simple: give 'em a great giving experience.

No matter which channel you market with, the whole point is to get them to your online donation form to start giving. And that means consistent branding, a clear call to action, and an online donation form that knows your donors as intimately as you do. 

• An easy-to-find donate button
• Mobile-optimized donation page
• Contextual giving aka pop-up forms
• Multi-step donation forms
• All the payment methods
• Power Ups, like tailored ask amounts, recurring upsells, and abandoned cart reminders
• Super-secure cyber security

Giving Tuesday always has its challenges. It might be less challenging, however, if you go all-in on just one channel. Don’t divide up your resources unnecessarily—instead, give one channel your all and see what happens! If you need a little more guidance, check out Funraise’s Giving Tuesday Toolkit—it has all the info you need and all the resources you want to achieve those fundraising goals. And good luck!