Your 2019 #GivingTuesday Toolkit

Planning your Giving Tuesday campaign is a ton of hard work! You’ve got ads to write, appeals to prepare, social media posts to schedule, and donor retention efforts to put into place. The last thing you need is to spend time hunting around the Internet for the tools you’ll need to put together campaign assets that will catch readers’ attention and inspire them to act.

That’s why we’ve put together this toolkit! Bookmark these resources for later use as you proof-read copy, edit images, and plan your campaign.

Qgiv Tools

We’re an online fundraising platform, so we love helping people plan their online fundraising campaigns. Here are some tools the Qgiv team has put together to help you raise money and retain your donors.

Giving Tuesday Ideas: 18 Impactful Strategies for 2019: Make the most of your Giving Tuesday campaign with these tried-and-true strategies! You’ll find ideas about how to do everything from connecting with local leaders to boost visibility to hosting a thank-a-thon and more.

The Giving Tuesday Social Media Playbook: Creating Your Posting Timeline: The first installment of our Giving Tuesday Social Media Playbook covers how to build a posting timeline for your campaign. You’ll learn how to schedule out your social media posts starting a month in advance and running through the big day.

The Giving Tuesday Social Media Playbook: Branding Your Campaign: You’ve got a great mission and a great story, but your branding will be what makes the first big impression on your potential supporters. This article breaks down how to put together the best branding for your campaign, starting with hashtags and value propositions and ending with tips for creating great visuals.

The Giving Tuesday Social Media Playbook: Creating Your Posts: Now that you’ve got a schedule for posts and a grasp on your branding, it’s time to create your social posts. Not all of them can be done ahead of time, but many can! Browse this article if you want ideas for posts to include in your Giving Tuesday social media campaigns.

The Giving Tuesday Social Media Playbook: Social Ambassadors: The strongest social media campaign will fail if nobody interacts with it. You can prevent that! Here’s how to recruit social ambassadors that will help your Giving Tuesday posts gain traction. It’s a wonderful way to build visibility for your posts while building relationships with your most dedicated supporters!

Build the Perfect Giving Tuesday Donor Journey: Part One — The Discovery Phase: Did you know that donor retention starts before someone ever makes a gift? The impression you make on your donors can set them up for a lifelong relationship with your organization. Here’s how to make the most of the discovery phase.

Build the Perfect Giving Tuesday Donor Journey: Part Two — the Ask: The actual ask is arguably your appeal’s most important element — people don’t give if you don’t ask! But we rarely put much thought into how we ask our donors to give. This article will help you nail your ask this Giving Tuesday.

Build the Perfect Giving Tuesday Donor Journey: Part Three — the Gift: 83% of people who land on your donation form won’t go on to make a gift. While we’ll probably never bring that percentage down to zero, there are some methods you can use to improve your conversion rate. Check out this article to learn how to optimize your donors’ Giving Tuesday giving process to boost the number of gifts made on your page.

(We’re still building our Donor Journey series! Watch for updates coming soon!)

Donor Retention: The Essential Guide for Fundraisers: Let’s be honest: putting tons of time and effort into acquiring new donors on Giving Tuesday could well be a waste of time and money if we can’t keep them coming back. A great Giving Tuesday campaign doesn’t just attract new donors; it includes a strategy for keeping those new donors engaged. Read our guide on donor retention and build a donor retention strategy that will make your Giving Tuesday campaign an even more valuable activity.

2018 Giving Tuesday Campaign Roundup: Feeling uninspired? Sometimes the best ideas come from seeing what other fundraisers are doing at their nonprofits. This roundup includes some of our favorite examples from 2018 Giving Tuesday campaigns. Which of these ideas can you apply to your own Giving Tuesday plan?

The 2018 Giving Tuesday Toolkit: The 2019 toolkit contains lots of external resources you can use to create your campaign. Last year’s toolkit focused on how and why to build certain elements of your campaign. It’s full of best practices, blog links, and other useful resources you may want to read before setting up your campaign this year!

Visual Tools

There’s something to the proverb that a picture is worth a thousand words. This Giving Tuesday, your nonprofit will be vying for readers’ attention on a media-heavy day during the holiday season. Use these tools to help you stand out from the crowds!

Infographic: How to Use Powerful Images: Humans are hardwired to react to images. These tips will help you choose the best possible images for your upcoming Giving Tuesday campaign.

Palette Generator: Have you ever found an image so powerful that you wanted to form an entire campaign around it? You can! And this tool makes it easy. Just upload your photo and this site will generate a color palette that compliments it. You can even use the slider to increase or decrease the number of colors in your palette.

Canva: The worst-kept secret around is that Qgiv staff really like Canva. We don’t have a partnership with them or anything, we just think their tools are really handy! If you need a fast way to create professional-looking images without breaking your budget, this is a must-try platform.

PxHere: Lots of organizations deal with sensitive problems or work with vulnerable clients, and that can make finding usable pictures very difficult. If you need images to include in your appeals, try this site! All of their photos are free of copyrights, so you don’t have to worry about attribution or editing photos.

BeFunky: Photoshop not in your budget? That’s okay! BeFunky is a free online photo editor you can use to polish the images you use in your appeals.

Copy Writing Tools

Writing copy is one of the most time-consuming parts of any campaign preparation. And it can be nerve-wracking, especially if you don’t have a reliable editor on hand! These tools will help you write great copy with confidence.

Grammarly: If you’re never sure when to use a colon or a semi-colon or wish someone would follow you around and help you choose the right vocabulary words, give Grammarly a look. It’s an Internet plug-in that gives real-time grammar and style suggestions as you type! Note: Grammarly isn’t appropriate for users who need to maintain very high-level security. If you’re using your browser to process credit cards or keep sensitive records, consider getting your copy edited the old-fashioned way.

Hemingway App: Great fundraising copy is clear, concise, and easy to understand. Writing that kind of copy can be really hard! This app makes suggestions you can use to create powerful, hard-hitting content. You can either download the app or plug your content directly into the editor on the website.

Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration (SOFII): The best writing teachers are often other writers, and the best fundraising teachers are often other fundraisers. If you’re looking for beautiful stories, well-written appeals, and creative marketing assets, check out SOFII. You’ll come away with more ideas and inspiration than you’ll know what to do with!

Social Media Tools

Giving Tuesday is an inherently social-heavy day. Having a great social media plan in place is important, but having the tools to pull off that plan is important, too! Here are some tools you might want to use.

Giving Tuesday Social Post Guidelines and Examples: Get your creativity going by checking out these top-notch social media posts! They’re all wonderful examples of how to apply your branding, story, hashtag, and more on numerous social media channels.

Infographic: Giving Tuesday Social Media Image Size Cheat Sheet: Create beautiful images for your social media profiles! This cheat sheet will help you avoid sizing issues. Nobody likes a skewed social media cover photo or profile picture!

Buffer.com or HootSuite.com: These platforms are  great social media management tools that let you plan and schedule social media posts. Again, we don’t have a partnership with these brands! This was a suggestion from our social media manager who, before she moved to Qgiv, worked in development at a local college. She also suggests Hootsuite, especially if you’re a larger organization that needs more analytics or wants to monitor multiple channels at one time.

Facebook Help Centre: “How Do I Schedule a Post and Manage Scheduled Posts for My Page?”: Don’t want to splurge on a social media management tool? Here’s an explanation of how to schedule and manage your Facebook posts ahead of time.

The Best Fundraising Tools

If you’re a Qgiv client, you have a great Giving Tuesday fundraising resource tool — our customer experience team. We can help you set up dynamite donation forms, answer questions, or troubleshoot any issues that arise. We’re here for you! If you need us, you can call us directly at 888-855-9595 or send an email to support@qgiv.com.

Are You Ready for Giving Tuesday?

Do you feel confident about your Giving Tuesday campaign? If not, we can help! Qgiv’s customizable online donation forms, text-based fundraising tools, peer-to-peer platform, and other features can support your upcoming campaign. To learn more about Qgiv’s tools and how you can use them this Giving Tuesday, contact us at 888-855-9595 or ask us for a demo!