Giving Tuesday is on the horizon. For those who don’t know, Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday following Thanksgiving in the United States, and it is a day that focuses on giving and supporting your favorite organization, local community, or the general spirit of giving. In previous years, an estimated $400 million has been donated on Giving Tuesday, making it one of the most important holidays of the year—especially for nonprofits like yours that are powered by donations.

The day will be here before you know it, so now is the time to start planning for what you’d like to do for the holiday. Our checklist below goes over how you should plan your campaign, from before the start of the campaign, during, and after it’s finished. If you’d like to print out this checklist, click on the image to open the PDF version.

Before the Campaign

Collaboration

Find opportunities to promote your campaign with local newspapers, and TV or radio stations. Find organizations to partner up with for events, and engage local schools and businesses.

Campaign Pages for Your Website

Create a campaign page and put a donation form on it. Also, create a page for planned events. Stay ahead of the work and create your thank you messages now as well. Announce your campaign on social media, and create specific Giving Tuesday images for your website.

During the Giving Tuesday Campaign

Make regular posts so readers can stay current and be reminded of the importance of Giving Tuesday. Be sure to emphasize the value of giving. Provide reasons to give, such as stories of people who have been positively affected by your nonprofit. Also, share milestones that your campaign reached throughout its course so people can see progress.

After the Campaign

Share with your community through social media the impact they made with their donations, and thank them for their participation. You’ll want to do a large, community-wide thank you, but you’ll also want to send individual thank you notes later on. If you didn’t already create your thank you notes before the campaign, now is the time to do it. This is also an excellent opportunity to massage and manage donor relationships. Make sure to thank both your donors and your volunteers. Devote extra time and attention to the biggest donors and fundraisers.

Free Webinar: Maximize Your Year-End Giving

The holiday season tends to inspire people’s generosity, so they increase their giving to causes and organizations they care about. Because of that, now is the time to attract new donors, ask people for recurring donations, and solidify gift renewals. Donors want to give, so start by making it easy for them. We’ll go over some specific focus areas for year-end giving efforts. During this webinar, you will learn how to:

• Ensure that your giving options are donor-friendly
• Implement improvements to your giving page to make donating simple
• Improve your social media presence for better awareness
• Use effective tools and tips to implement and manage year-end giving
• Nurture your year-end donors to maximize their potential giving and support