The early numbers on Giving Tuesday are pretty amazing. The 24-hour total for nonprofit fundraising was a reported $3.1 billion. Not bad for something that just started 10 years ago.
How did your organization do? If you saw an increase in donations or volunteerism, congratulations! If not, take heart. Your fall fundraising doesn't live and die over one day.
It helps to put Giving Tuesday in perspective. Annual giving by individuals was $326.87 billion last year. By that measure, Giving Tuesday accounts for less than 10% of total annual revenue. That's big, but Giving Tuesday is not an all-or-nothing day.
The best way to look at this is through the famous by Winston Churchill about beginnings and ends. Remember that campaigns have two parts:
Getting people's attention - Generally, from September to November nonprofits engage supporters with their mission and impact.
Moving them to action - December is when people traditionally give and they give to the organizations that already have their attention.
Giving Tuesday should be the culmination of your outreach and the kickoff of your actual pitch. Statistics support that. A study by Neon One says 20% of annual giving comes in December
The importance of December is even bigger online, which is increasingly the way donors prefer to give. According to the NextAfter company's 2021 year-end giving benchmarks:
50% of online year-end revenue occurred during the last week of the year
21% of online year-end revenue occurred in the last day of the year
16% of year-end web traffic occurred during the last week of the year
Here are the takeaways on Giving Tuesday:
We can no longer say, "it's just a fad" or "we tried it and our donors didn't respond."
It is an opportunity for nonprofits to raise funds and even attract new donors.
Even if it is not a big revenue producer, it is a chance to get donors' attention and build towards a successful end-of-year campaign.
PS, only time will tell whether the economy and state of the stock market will cause donors to pull back this year, but there are indications that people are still feeling generous. A survey by Classy and GoFundMe found that 90 percent of American donors planned to give the same or more than they gave last year.
Good luck!
