Fundraising Tech: Keys to Our Day of Giving Success

by Gary B. Grant

Let’s dive this week into a more tactical topic: How to make a successful online Day of Giving.

The Day of Giving concept has emerged as a vital part of many institutions’ fundraising year and has been enabled by the internet. Online giving makes it possible to utilize a vast network of constituent donors to dedicate a single day to fundraising. There is something nice about having that one 24-hour period to unabashedly engage in asking, giving, and receiving philanthropy and to do so as a community.

In other contexts, volunteers have assignments that may hang over their heads for months, and goals with deadlines that ominously approach. But networking for donor solicitations in a high intensity day, as frantic as it may be, does give a quick sense of closure and forces volunteers to let go of solicitation anxiety.

Of course, the simple ability to give online makes this possible. But best practices require utilizing giving portals with a variety of tools and features.

The Details

The first major decision is to decide when to hold your Day of Giving. Some organizations focus on Giving Tuesday (or #GivingTuesday), the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, as their day, although it appears that any day can work. Some pick a day that is meaningful for their organization or just plays well in their annual fundraising cycle.

For most organizations, the goal for Day of Giving is to drive participation numbers. But many also celebrate larger gifts, and matching gifts are a powerful incentive for the day. And of course, the day is a chance to highlight and draw attention to donor loyalty and the impacts of philanthropy overall.

By its nature, some form of competition is inherently a good part of a Day of Giving, but be careful to craft these in a way that keeps it positive and fun and not discouraging. Some give up if their team is clearly not going to be at the top. Finally, for most, a Day of Giving theme gives the event a personality, differentiates it from other years, and makes it fun.

The Platform

Once you establish the details of your Day of Giving, you need to look to the online platform you want. This can be challenging, given the many options.

Here’s what has been important to our team:

Cost is naturally a factor. We want to pay fairly for the tools the site offers and to make sure there is the strongest possible return on investment.
Customer service. We want to make sure that our online platform is provided by a company that works hand-in-hand with us to ensure our success.
Simplicity and ease in giving, especially on mobile devices. 80% of email is opened on mobile devices. In addition, it has to integrate easily with social media to encourage alumni to share easily. Finally, we want our fundraisers to be able to handle the system, which requires a back-end management system that is easy to use and a front facing appearance that is clean and crisp.
Payment options. It’s increasingly important that a giving platform accept gifts in all the various ways people like to make gifts. Venmo, Paypal, and Zelle are payment forms to consider. While our system did not allow some of these, we are anticipating the need growing.

The Event

As with many things we’ve discussed in this blog, the pandemic has intensified the motivations for creativity. This past year, we enhanced our Day of Giving program with an idea that was new, at least to us. Because we lost our in-person activities on campus, we felt a particular urge to create an online experience that brought our constituents together remotely.

The idea we developed was gamification and entertainment. We wanted a reason for all our potential donors to come and have fun on our day of giving platform. In prior years, they came to give and see where they were in the standings and to see our progress, but we wanted more. We knew that virtual speakers would not suffice. We were already beginning to tire of Zoom sessions and there was nothing special about having another speaker present. But coming to play together would be new and different.

Our Day of Giving was more like the old telethons on TV—just more interactive.

And there’s the key—using the internet to create interactivity. We featured competitions that all could do (e.g., 24-hour Pictionary) or that all could watch (e.g., a virtual rock-paper-scissors pitting frats and sororities and sports teams against each other). We had a celebrity Hollywood Squares that used Zoom windows to replicate the old television game show.

Drawing as many eyes to the website as possible led to the most successful Day of Giving since the program began and to a practice that we intend to continue to build on.

Again, the secret is to let the internet’s functionality enable us to think out of the box. Aim to be engaging and relevant to your audience, many of whom are geographically distant; have little time; may be in a different time zone; and have a variety of interests, needs, and perspectives.

Another approach we took was to build an ambassador program. That concept is not new (and predates the internet), but what was different for us was recruiting many ambassadors to build mini-teams as small as just five people. Alumni were encouraged to just use their friend networks, sometimes the employees of their company, or to use LinkedIn to make some connections with graduates near them. We loved the idea that the program could strengthen the alumni network while serving as a multiplier for giving.

We used leaderboards on our Day of Giving site and tried to make just appearing there the key thing, rather than who was listed as the top ambassador.

The Future

What does the future look like?

Through more creative use of our Day of Giving platform, we had a fabulous year, helping us to surge in outcomes during the pandemic. We learned things we will continue to use in the future, such as the gamification model. We intend to grow the ambassador program, which allows alumni a very easy and concrete way to give their time and to feel a part of the success of the day. Ambassadors will be invited to be part of planning meetings, and some may additionally lead gaming areas to contribute to the fun of the day.

We could not be more excited by the possibilities.

Here is a 3 minute video where my team talks about our Day of Giving: https://vimeo.com/494025697/e54cf2750b

Gary Grant has a BA from the University of Chicago and a JD from Illinois Tech's Chicago-Kent College of Law. He currently serves as Senior VP for Development for Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech). Founded at the dawn of the Space Race in 1958, Florida Tech is the only independent, technological university in the Southeast. In this role, he oversees all fundraising and leadership engagement for the University. Gary has authored several books on the use of the internet in nonprofits and fundraising.