Over the past decade, Giving Days have become a standard practice for many nonprofit organizations because they typically produce year-over-year growth. However, with donors becoming so used to the annual Giving Day appeal, in addition to Giving Tuesday, and other "single-day" solicitations, many fundraising leaders have begun to question to effectiveness and efficiency of Giving Days.
One of the most impactful ways to overcome donor fatigue for Giving Days is to use a multi-year giving approach and Digital Gift Agreements that benefit donors and increase efficiency for advancement operations.
What is a Giving Day?
Giving Days are fundraising campaigns that focus on a specific moment in time – commonly 24 hours – designed to bring a flurry of giving momentum and donor excitement to an organization. These concentrated campaigns can benefit individual fundraising programs while simultaneously yielding unrestricted gifts. Matching challenges are often tied to Giving Days to further incentivize donors to increase gifts, both in terms of volume and dollar value.
Giving Day Challenges
As mentioned above, Giving Days come with challenges.
The first challenge is that organizations are looking to draw big volume, but they're only giving themselves a small, typically 24-hour, window to accomplish the goal. This means that Giving Days can become "all hands on deck" campaigns that take planning, coordination, and execution to pull off.
A second challenge is donor fatigue. Donors are likely solicited multiple times throughout the year. They may have just given to the calendar year-end push or may feel they've already contributed their annual gift and wonder why the should also donate during Giving Day.
A third area that makes Giving Days challenging is that they don't always feel donor-centric. That is, when Giving Days center around making a gift at a specific date and time, donors may feel that they are transactional in nature, rather than about building a relationship with an organization and its mission.
Multi-Year Giving & Digital Gift Agreements for Giving Days
The quick timelines and large donor pools associated with Giving Days can be seen as transactional from the donor's perspective and limit opportunities for personalized asks. To avoid this perception, many organizations are turning to multi-year giving strategies for their Giving Days. They're doing this in two distinct ways:
Rather than relying on mass solicitations on Giving Day, more and more organizations are having their frontline fundraisers reach out to donors well ahead of Giving Day and securing pledges to give early. Fundraisers with Digital Gift Agreements can confirm pledges during pre-campaign outreach and set customized pledge reminders to go out on the actual Giving Day. Automated pledge reminders not only make things easy for donors, but advancement services professionals also love that Digital Gift Agreements dot the i's and cross the t's, ensuring that all pledges are accounted for, are bookable, and do not create a glut of extra work.
Asking someone to give on a specific day at a specific time does not have to be a transactional conversation. Many fundraising leaders are turning to Digital Gift Agreements for Giving Days because they open a door to multi-year giving that never existed before. Rather than asking your donor to give now on this Giving Day, fundraising leaders are tasking frontline fundraisers with asking donors to commit to Giving Day this year and the next handful of years. Digital Gift Agreements make this multi-year giving strategy a reality. When fundraisers secure gift commitments for years in advance, they're elevating the donor experience. As opposed to placing donors in seemingly endless solicitation cycles, you already have their commitment. In turn fundraisers can turn those solicitation touchpoints into stewardship and relationship-building touchpoints that deepen a donor's connection to your organization.
Giving Days have become pillar campaigns for many organizations. By adding a multi-year giving strategy to your Giving Day, you're able to improve the donor experience, exceed this year's goals, and set up your next Giving Day for success in a single swing.