fundraising
Major Gifts + Giving Days = Win, even on #GivingTuesday
Happy #GivingTuesday, fellow fundraisers! This year seems like it will be another record-setting event, with charities around the world receiving a ton of support as we move further into the holiday season.
A whole lot of this giving is boosted and amplified by major giving. In fact, in our recent study of 47 giving days totaling $37M in donations, we found that online giving drives the bulk of individual donations, but offline giving such as major gifts, challenges and matches made up over two-thirds of the total funds.
Why does this work? The first reason is that matches and challenges are a time-tested way to get people on the “bandwagon” and give them a sense that even though their gift is smaller, they are part of something bigger. Secondly, competitions between academic areas, groups of alumni, even states and regions “gamify” giving and just make it more exciting. Here are just a few examples from today’s #GivingTuesday of institutions using the RNL Giving Day Platform:
- NDSU offers multiple major gift matches in engineering, health sciences, the library, and scholarships.
- 5,000 donors will unlock $500,000 in challenge gifts at Tufts
- 500 donors at Illinois State University will unlock a $100,000 check
It takes two key things to make this effective donor motivation strategy work on a giving day:
- The right technology to offer the incentives and show donors a growing total.
- Strong relationships with your major and planned giving team who are most likely to find the big donors who can showcase a gift on your giving day.
As you plan for next year’s #GivingTuesday, or your special giving day, make both a priority.
We’ll be covering these key tactics, and how you can use giving days as a 365-day, full-team strategy, in our upcoming webinar on December 5. Register now to find out how to bring your giving day to the next level.
