Giving Holidays

You may not know this already, but there are “holidays” every year around giving. Giving Tuesday (always the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) is the most well-known in the US, but there may be others for your state or more local area. For example, Washington State has GiveBig in the spring.

During these “holidays”, there is lots of marketing and momentum to encourage the public to donate. People or entities who have allocated an amount to give may use these as opportunities to encourage others to give. For example, a company may agree to match donations from their employees during a time period or a donor may partner with a non-profit to match gifts from others.

If you’re planning out your marketing and communication strategy for one of these giving periods, make sure you have ample time to communicate to your audience and get them excited about your cause. Many non-profits take a whole month (sometimes all of autumn!) centered around Giving Tuesday and use various matches or marketing themes to encourage people to donate. They may take specific problems or causes that they focus on and send material to educate their audience on specific issues that they face. It’s a good opportunity to showcase what your organization does and how it helps others.

Be creative and make the most of this time to really sell what your organization does well. I’ve always found that doing these deep dives to highlight and share aspects of organizations that I’ve represented can be a lot of fun because it takes me back to the root of why giving is important.