You’re getting ready for Giving Tuesday in 2024 – after back-to-back years of unprecedented year-end seasons, with a high-stakes election just around the corner. To say there are a lot of factors to consider would be an incredible understatement.

For the last four years, our annual Giving Tuesday Report has traced the ups and downs of the nonprofit landscape on one of the year’s biggest days in nonprofit digital fundraising. We’ve highlighted record-breaking moments of philanthropic giving as donors took action to support nonprofits responding in the face of a global pandemic, international emergencies, hurricanes, and more. And we’ve shared the strategies that helped nonprofit fundraisers raise as much revenue as possible for their critical, world-changing missions.

With this year’s biggest days in nonprofit fundraising just around the corner, we’re looking at some of those proven strategies that have been driving urgency and action, even in the face of significant challenges.

Maximizing Your Giving Tuesday Strategy in 2024

At MissionWired, we’re helping our partners strengthen their nonprofit fundraising strategy across every direct marketing channel, and we’re proud to offer an expert for every challenge. We look to data and testing to inform our strategic planning, and we’re dedicated to telling compelling, authentic stories. This combined expertise and focus has been driving results for our partners for years. Since 2020, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the trends in nonprofit fundraising each Giving Tuesday – so we’re excited to share the top-performing strategies that are proven to drive results for nonprofits on one of the biggest fundraising days of the year.

Top-Performing Giving Tuesday Strategies

– Lean into preview & extension messages: Offer supporters more time to give.

Gone are the days of one-day-only Giving Tuesday campaigns. In recent years, we’ve seen nonprofits across the industry drive revenue by getting ahead of the rush with preview messages and early access to matches. And Wednesday morning match extension messages performed well for many nonprofits – so well that our End of Year Report in 2023 found that among our nonprofit partners, the day after Giving Tuesday was one of the highest revenue days of the entire EOY season.

– Don’t shy away from end-of-day sends.

For the past two years, emails deployed in the evenings on Giving Tuesday drove the highest response for many of our nonprofit partners.

End-of-day messages are a key opportunity to lean into urgency-driving tactics that emphasize midnight deadlines and leverage the engagement tactics proven to drive response for your audience.

– Maximize the strategies you’ve tested into throughout the year.

From countdown clocks to bold headlines and graphics to ask arrays and match-driven language, A/B testing is a critical tool for finding out what fundraising strategies your unique audience responds best to over email, ads, and SMS. And your Giving Tuesday campaign is the perfect time to lean into those proven strategies to drive the strongest response possible.

– Invest in acquisition early to email your largest, best audience.

From 2020 to 2021, we saw

the number of first-time donors on Giving Tuesday increase by 46%. In our 2022 report, we shared how new donors accounted for 35% of total donations on Giving Tuesday. Many of our nonprofit partners have found that investing in list growth through The Digital Co-Op has helped bring in new, ready-to-give audiences for their biggest moments. Last year, our Giving Tuesday report highlighted nonprofit members who saw co-op-delivered names account for over 25% of their email revenue for the campaign.

We recommend that our nonprofit co-op members make their list-growth investments ahead of EOY to acquaint their new audiences with their mission and work before their biggest fundraising appeals. To learn more, check out recent insights from our SVP Jane Shepard on targeting your best audiences at end of year.

– Speak directly to your mid-level donors.

For some nonprofit fundraisers, gifts from mid-level audiences can be essential to meeting and surpassing your Giving Tuesday goals. We recommend tailoring email and mail packages directly to this audience to emphasize the uniquely essential role these donors play in supporting your work. Lean into high-quality graphics and approaches like impact equivalencies to convey the increased impact a mid-level gift can have on your nonprofit’s ability to meet the needs of their mission.

For one of our nonprofit partners, a dedicated campaign appealing to mid-level donors on Giving Tuesday 2023 drove a 28% increase in mid-level gifts and an increase in average mid-level donation of 75% year over year.

– Personalization, urgency, and impact in email subject lines drive opens.

Every year, email volume breaks through the previous year to set a new all-time high. Paired with increased competition from e-commerce and political emails, it’s safe to say that compelling subject lines will be more important than ever in this year’s email campaigns.

Consider opportunities to appeal directly to your audience by name, remind them of the urgency of your mission, and illustrate the impact of their gift through match-heavy language. A strong SL is the first essential step to any top-performing email campaign.