As Giving Tuesday Expands, Nonprofits’ Campaigns Grow More Sophisticated

One thing that observers of the nonprofit world may notice this year on Giving Tuesday: Campaigns are getting bigger.

Take Skidmore College. Fundraisers there have expanded their Giving Tuesday drive over the years from a small email effort into a full-day extravaganza.

The college will host a daylong live stream of a fundraising event on its Saratoga Springs, N.Y., campus — complete with interviews of professors, alumni, and current students. Almost 100 athletes will be on campus making calls to donors. And alumni volunteers will gather in cities like New York, Boston, and Los Angeles to share food and drink — and to promote the college’s Giving Tuesday drive online.

There’s even talk of alumni in London meeting up.

“It really feels like a global effort,” says Jamie Delsoin, senior director of the Skidmore Fund who helps organize the college’s Giving Tuesday drive.

As Skidmore has expanded its campaign over the years, its revenue has jumped: Last year fundraising dollars grew by 27 percent on Giving Tuesday over 2015’s campaign. The day of philanthropy is a good opportunity for former and current students to volunteer, too, even if they don’t give. “Driving alumni participation is always one of our big goals,” Ms. Delsoin says.

New Experiments, Old Tactics

Giving Tuesday, which falls on November 28 this year, will feature thousands of nonprofits — mostly in America but also in dozens of other nations — appealing for donations online. The day devoted to philanthropy, which follows the discount-shopping days Black Friday and Cyber Monday, has grown substantially over the years. Participating groups raised an estimated $177 million online in the United States last year, more than 10 times the amount brought in when the event was first held in 2012.

As the event grows, bigger, bolder fundraising drives proliferate. This year, some nonprofits are experimenting — with live social-media feeds, fresh messaging strategies, and new volunteer efforts. Many are also continuing tried-and-true methods, like promoting matching gifts.

Nonprofits that have been successful on Giving Tuesday usually try new tactics every year and refine their old plans. “You see the results and then you build from that” each year, says Jessica Schneider, director of strategy and collaboration for 92nd Street Y’s Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact. The 92nd Street Y launched the first Giving Tuesday with the United Nations Foundation in 2012.

Here are some of the tactics that nonprofits are using this year — and some they’ve beefed up from past years:

Starting early. Many nonprofits and colleges aren’t waiting until the 28th to start sending messages about Giving Tuesday.

This year, Skidmore started to “prime the pump” in October — posting more on social media than it normally would about the college’s programs, alumni, and athletic accomplishments, Ms. Delsoin says. The October posts didn’t mention Giving Tuesday — the goal was to get the college’s “accolades” in front of people and “build up that level of pride,” Ms. Delsoin says.

Skidmore will soon send save-the-day postcards to alumni and an email featuring three “video vignettes” of a faculty member, a student, and an alumnus. “They are going to share how Skidmore made a difference in their lives,” Ms. Delsoin says, adding that the email will link to a landing page with a countdown clock to Giving Tuesday.

The Alameda County Community Food Bank will also send reminders about Giving Tuesday to supporters the week of Thanksgiving. Last year, it started giving advance notice to the volunteers who organize its “virtual food drives” about the giving day — which it will to do again this year. The digital drives allow supporters to ask family, friends, and colleagues to donate to the food bank online.

Last year, the Oakland, Calif., food bank saw a 17 percent jump in donations on Giving Tuesday compared with the 2015 drive, and fundraisers think that early outreach was key. “A big part of that increase did come from the direct outreach we did to those virtual drives,” says Michael Altfest, the food bank’s associate director of communications and marketing.

Getting supporters involved. Many nonprofits will try to get supporters involved in crowdfunding and promotions online.

Share Our Strength, which runs the No Kid Hungry campaign, will have members of its “social council” — a group of more than 20 supporters with a big following on social media — push the organization online.

The charity will encourage other supporters to raise money on its behalf through a new Facebook tool that allows users to raise money for nonprofits.

Ahead of the Giving Tuesday, fundraisers will host Facebook Live chats with members of the social council and others who want to share online appeals for the organization to get them ready.

Though donations on Giving Tuesday have jumped in recent years — by more than 50 percent last year over 2015, for instance — Jason Wilson, director of digital communications, says promoting the charity’s mission is just as important as the money raised.

“I see it as a day of raising awareness for causes,” he says. “Spreading that message — whether or not you donate — of making sure every kid gets a healthy meal every day in the U.S. is essential and a really amazing, tangible benefit that we can see.”

Other nonprofits have developed creative options for supporters to spread the word about their charities, too.

For instance, when people donate to the Nature Conservancy this year, they’ll be able to write a note explaining why they made their gift and post it to social media. Those messages resonate, says Shiloh Stark, director of digital fundraising, because donors are “writing in their own words why it was important for them to give.”

Finding matching gifts. Matching gifts are always a draw on Giving Tuesday, says Mr. Stark, citing it as key to the Nature Conservancy’s 67 percent spike in donation dollars last year over the year before.

This year, the organization has $150,000 in matching funds — and the group’s messages will emphasize “how we really just have 24 hours to make as big an impact as we can,” he says.

Streaming live. Like Skidmore, the Alameda County Community Food Bank will post live videos online. Last year, the organization did Facebook Live posts featuring staff members showing off the organization’s food storage and explaining its mission. “We really gave a behind-the-scenes tour about our work,” Mr. Altfest says.

Share Our Strength’s founder, Billy Shore, will likely do a Facebook Live welcome message on Giving Tuesday, while staff members will continue to post videos throughout the day. Some of the social council may post videos, too, says Mr. Wilson.

The videos attract a lot of eyeballs, he says, because notifications are sent to followers when the videos start streaming, and after they’re over, the videos stay in supporters’ news feeds.

He adds: “It’s an opportunity for us to put a human face on the people that are working every day to end childhood hunger here at No Kid Hungry.”