Giving Tuesday is more than just a date on the calendar, after nearly 10 years in nonprofit fundraising, I know it’s a special day where your community comes together to support what matters most. I’ve helped organizations like yours plan and run campaigns that bring in donations, spark excitement, and build lasting connections.
This guide breaks down everything you need to do – before, during, and after Giving Tuesday – to make the most of this powerful day. These steps are based on real experience, so you can feel confident and ready to reach more supporters and raise more funds. Let’s get started and make this your best Giving Tuesday yet.
- What is Giving Tuesday and Why It Matters
- When is Giving Tuesday 2025?
- Getting Ready: Plan Your Campaign
- Spread the Word: Reach Your Supporters
- Choose the Right Tools
- Craft Your Message
- Make Giving Easy on Mobile
- Engage Your Donors Beyond Giving Tuesday
- Analyze and Learn
- Bonus Tips for Giving Tuesday Success
- Giving Tuesday FAQs
What is Giving Tuesday and Why It Matters
Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving that happens each year after the big shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
It is a time when people, nonprofits, and businesses come together to support causes they care about by donating money, volunteering, or spreading the word.
Giving Tuesday matters because it focuses attention on generosity and community support, helping organizations raise funds and build relationships with donors beyond typical fundraising events.
It’s a powerful opportunity to boost donations, grow your supporter base, and create lasting impact for your cause.
Need ideas on how to fundraise on Giving Tuesday? Check out these Giving Tuesday Ideas »
When is Giving Tuesday 2025?
Giving Tuesday 2025 will be on Tuesday, December 2.
It is always observed on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the United States, right after the major shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
This timing shifts the focus from consumerism to generosity, making it a key day for nonprofits to raise funds and engage communities worldwide.
Getting Ready: Plan Your Campaign
Success on Giving Tuesday starts with good planning. Begin by setting a clear goal – how much money do you want to raise, and what will it support?
Set Clear Goals for Your Campaign
Knowing exactly what you want to achieve is the first step to success. Decide how much money you want to raise and what the donations will support. Setting specific goals helps you stay focused and motivates your team and supporters.
Make your goals easy to understand so you can clearly share them with your donors. This helps you communicate better with your donors. For example, instead of a vague goal like “raise funds,” say “raise $5,000 to buy school supplies for 100 children.” Here’s a sample of what that could look like:
Clear goals help everyone see the impact they can make together. Learn how to create goal-based and time-sensitive campaigns »
Know Your Audience
Next, think about your audience. Who are your current supporters, and who else might you reach?
To raise more, you need to connect with the right people. Start with your current supporters – people who have donated, volunteered, or engaged with your cause before.
Group your audience by their interests or past giving to send messages that really speak to them. The better you understand your audience, the easier it is to inspire them to give.
Then think about who else might be interested in helping. This could include friends of your supporters, local businesses, or groups connected to your mission.
Create a Timeline
Timing is important on Giving Tuesday. Plan ahead so you know what to do and when. Start by setting your campaign launch date – ideally a week or two before Giving Tuesday – to build excitement.
Schedule emails and social media posts leading up to the day and throughout Giving Tuesday itself.
Don’t forget to plan follow-up messages to thank donors and share your results after the campaign ends.
Having a clear timeline keeps everything on track and makes your campaign run smoothly.
Create a simple timeline with key dates like when to launch your campaign, send emails, and post on social media. Prepare your messaging so it’s clear, heartfelt, and explains why giving matters.
The better you plan, the easier everything will run when the big day arrives.
Spread the Word: Reach Your Supporters
Now that your plan is in place, it’s time to let people know.
Use Email to Engage Your Supporters
Email is a powerful way to connect with your donors before, during, and after Giving Tuesday. Start by sending a clear announcement about your campaign a few weeks ahead to build excitement. In the days leading up to the event, send reminders about your goal and why their support matters.
On Giving Tuesday, plan to send multiple emails – morning, afternoon, and evening – with updates and calls to action.
Personalize your messages when you can, and always include easy links for donations. Afterward, send a thank-you email to show appreciation and keep your donors engaged for future support.
Promote Your Campaign on Social Media
Share your story on social media with pictures, videos, or updates to catch attention.
- 📖 Start by creating posts that tell your story clearly and emotionally.
- 📸 Use photos or videos to show the real impact of donations.
- ⏰ Schedule your posts in advance so they go out at the right times without stress.
- 🔄 Encourage your supporters to share your posts and use the hashtag #GivingTuesday to join the global movement.
- 💬 Engage with people who comment or share your posts to build a sense of community.
- 💸 Don’t forget to include easy ways for people to donate, like buttons or links.
You can also create a social media event or challenge to get more attention and involvement. Keep your messaging short, positive, and focused on the difference donations make
Consider asking your supporters to help share your campaign with their networks, that can bring in new donors. Keep your messages positive, clear, and focused on the impact their gift will make.
Promoting your campaign is all about sharing your story where your supporters spend their time and making it easy for them to help.
Next, you need a few basic tools:
- Donation forms that are easy to use
- Payment options that donors trust
- An email system to keep in touch
- Social media tools to spread the word.
Without the right tools, you’ll waste time and miss out on donations because of clunky forms or poor communication.
Choose the Right Tools
To run a smooth and successful Giving Tuesday campaign, let’s first understand the issues almost all non-profits face:
- You’re stretched thin, short-staffed and pressed for time.
- It’s hard to ask donors or build campaigns when no one has tech skills on staff.
- Tight budgets make every dollar count, but most platforms take a cut of your donations in fees.
- Too often, complicated tools and rigid systems slow you down when you need to move fast.
- Juggling platforms – from your donor data, email, and reporting creates chaos.
Sounds familiar? That’s exactly why we built Charitable. We know how hard it is because we’ve been there. So we made the process easy, even for those who aren’t “tech people.”
With Charitable, you get an all-in-one donation solution built by people who’ve spent decades working with nonprofits, facing the same challenges you face daily.
Getting started is effortless. Our intuitive setup wizard guides you step-by-step, so everyone on your team can create campaigns, no matter their technical skill level.
With Charitable, you can build and launch beautifully designed campaigns in minutes using a powerful visual builder that lets you simply drag and drop elements without any coding. Plus, our ready-made templates mean you don’t have to start from scratch.
Here’s a sneak peek of the campaigns you can create with Charitable:
Next, Charitable connects seamlessly with all the major payment gateways—including Stripe, PayPal, Square—as well as local solutions in places like South Africa and Australia. This means your donors can give securely and conveniently with their preferred payment methods.
You can accept one-time donations, set up recurring gifts for ongoing support, and even allow anonymous contributions for those who prefer privacy.
Now here’s where it gets powerful. You can bring on your community to raise more by enabling peer-to-peer fundraisers and donation teams. Let your supporters become ambassadors for your cause, extending your reach and impact organically.
Charitable automates the administrative side too. PDF receipts and annual summaries are generated automatically to save you time and help donors with tax reporting. You can customize every email to match your brand, then set them to send automatically. See Why Your Donation Receipt Email is More Important Than You Think.
Once you raise funds, managing your donors is simple. All your donation records are automatically created and organized for you. You can export your data anytime to maintain complete control.
Security and compliance are taken care of behind the scenes, so you and your supporters can focus on what matters—building your mission.
And when you need a hand, our dedicated support team of real people is always available by chat or email to help you succeed.
You can get started for free with our Lite version, perfect for zero-budget organizations.
Ready to scale? Unlock everything with our Pro version: advanced features to help you grow your impact, faster. You’ll never pay platform fees. Just one affordable annual fee to support the plugin’s development and your mission. Every penny you raise is yours to keep.
Charitable gives you everything you need in one place so you can focus on reaching donors, not fixing tech problems.
Below are more tools I recommend using to boost your fundraising and make donation management much easier.
WPForms – We use WPForms ourselves for everything except donation forms because it’s simply the most reliable and flexible WordPress form builder out there. Whether you need volunteer signup forms, event RSVPs, surveys, or contact forms, WPForms makes building them easy with drag-and-drop and AI-powered templates.
All In One SEO – Getting discovered online is crucial, especially when raising funds. AIOSEO is our go-to SEO plugin that boosts your site’s visibility by helping optimize every page for search engines without any complicated setup. It’s beginner-friendly yet powerful, so you can focus on your campaign content while it quietly drives more organic traffic your way.
MonsterInsights – Knowing what works is key, and MonsterInsights brings Google Analytics directly into your WordPress dashboard. We’ve relied on it to track donor behavior, which email links convert the best, and what keeps visitors engaged. This helps you make smart tweaks during and after your campaign based on hard data, not guesswork.
OptinMonster – Capturing emails and encouraging donations with timely popups and slide-ins is a game-changer. We’ve seen it dramatically increase signups and conversion rates by using well-timed, personalized offers right when visitors are about to leave or after they’ve browsed key campaign pages.
WP Mail SMTP – Nothing’s worse than lost emails. WP Mail SMTP fixes email deliverability issues we’ve encountered, ensuring your campaign announcements, receipts, and thank-you emails reliably reach your supporters’ inboxes instead of spam folders.
Sucuri – Security is paramount when dealing with donations and donor data. We’ve used Sucuri to protect our donation and campaign sites from attacks and hacking, so donors feel safe giving online.
Duplicator – This one’s a lifesaver for backing up your site before big campaigns or easily moving it between servers if needed. Duplicator has saved us many headaches. It’s a simple tool for peace of mind that your campaign data is safe.
WP Rocket – Speed matters for donor experience. WP Rocket improves loading times on donation pages and the entire site, reducing bounce rates and making donors more likely to complete their gifts.
SeedProd – Quickly create eye-catching landing pages for Giving Tuesday to focus visitor attention and guide them to donate.
Easy Digital Downloads – If you give digital thank-you gifts or run merchandise sales for your cause, EDD is our preferred plugin. It handles payments and delivery professionally, keeping that part hassle-free.
PushEngage – We’ve found push notifications effective for nudging supporters with timely reminders or updates in real-time during campaigns.
Smash Balloon – Embedding social media feeds on your site shows live supporter engagement and campaign momentum, building social proof and trust.
RafflePress – Running contests or giveaways can create buzz and bring in new donors. This plugin makes it simple to launch viral fundraising challenges.
Envira Gallery – Use this to create beautiful photo and video galleries telling your campaign story visually, which really connects with donors emotionally.
Soliloquy – Highlight donor stories and milestones with sliders that look great and keep visitors engaged without overwhelming them.
Uncanny Automator – Automate repetitive tasks like sending follow-up emails or updating donor info by connecting your WordPress plugins, saving you time and hassle.
These tools aren’t just chosen at random; they’re ones we use or have tested extensively in nonprofit contexts to make fundraising smoother, more secure, and more successful. Paired with Charitable’s donation features, they give you a strong, integrated toolbox for your campaign.
Craft Your Message
Your message is what moves people to give. It needs to be clear, honest, and show exactly why your cause matters. Start by telling a real story – whether it’s about someone who will benefit, a recent success, or a challenge you’re facing. Donors want to see the impact of their gift, not just hear generic appeals.
Learn all about Psychological Triggers That Make Donation Forms Convert Better.
Be direct about what you’re asking for. Don’t just say “Please donate” – explain what their donation will do. For example, “Your $25 gift will provide school supplies for a child in need.” Use simple language and strong calls to action like “Give now to make a difference.”
With Charitable, you can build your campaign page to bring your story to life. Add photos, videos, and donation thermometers that show progress so donors feel connected and motivated. Charitable’s tools let you highlight why giving matters and make it easy for people to take action right then and there. Your message, paired with a simple donation process, is the key to turning interest into support.
Make Giving Easy on Mobile
Many donors use smartphones to contribute. On Giving Tuesday, make sure your donation process is simple and quick. Use clear donation forms that work well on phones. 📲
You can offer options for a one-time or recurring gift to fit different preferences, even on mobile. Test everything out and make a donation yourself to see how your donation process works.
Engage Your Donors Beyond Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday is not just one day. It’s a chance to build long-term relationships with your donors. Start by making a great first impression with clear, honest communication and a smooth giving experience.
- Use storytelling to inspire and show the impact donations have. 📖💖
- Consider adding a limited-time match challenge to motivate giving and create urgency. ⏳🤝
- Use social proof, such as “recently gave” notifications, testimonials, and donor comments, to encourage others to give to your cause. 👥👍
- Keep your donation forms simple and easy to use, especially on mobile devices, with clear suggested amounts and calls to action. 📱✅
- After the campaign, send personalized thank-yous and updates to keep donors connected to your cause. 🙏✉️
- Plan follow-up campaigns and offer monthly giving options to turn one-time donors into lifelong supporters. 🔄💝
Engaging donors before, during, and after Giving Tuesday helps grow your community and increase your impact over time.
Analyze and Learn
Data-driven fundraising beats guesswork every time!
After Giving Tuesday, take time to look at what happened. Use your donation tracking to see how much money you raised, where donors came from, and which messages worked best. Did your emails get opened? Did certain social posts bring more donations? This information helps you understand what your supporters respond to.
Charitable makes this easy by giving you clear reports on donations and campaign activity. You can quickly spot your top donors, track recurring gifts, and see which campaigns brought the most support.
Use these insights to tweak your messaging, timing, and outreach for next time. Learning from each campaign helps you raise more money and make a bigger impact with less effort in the future. Don’t guess. Let the data guide your decisions! Learn how to track who gave what and when and the fundraising reports you should have »
Bonus Tips for Giving Tuesday Success
- Get Creative with Your Campaign
Try something different to catch attention. Host a virtual event, launch a challenge, or offer a matching gift to double donations. Share behind-the-scenes looks or personal stories that make your cause real and relatable. Creativity helps you stand out and keeps supporters excited. - Handle Urgent Fundraising Appeals Smoothly
If you need emergency funds, be clear and honest about why the help is urgent. Use strong, simple messaging to explain the immediate need and how donations will be used. Charitable lets you update your campaign quickly, so supporters always have the latest info and can give confidently. - Coordinate with Year-End Giving
Giving Tuesday kicks off the busy year-end season. Plan how your campaign fits with other fundraising efforts like holiday drives or major gifts. Segment your supporters and tailor messages so each group feels personally engaged. Coordinating your efforts means you can raise more without overwhelming your donors. Here’s how to maximize your fundraising in the year end »
With these extra tips, you’ll be ready to make your Giving Tuesday campaign not just good, but great.
Giving Tuesday is a powerful day to grow your impact, but success doesn’t happen by chance. Planning early, knowing your audience, crafting clear messages, and using the right tools all set you up for a great campaign. Promoting your cause through emails, social media, and supporters who share your mission helps you reach more people. Remember, after the campaign, reviewing your results and staying connected with donors lays the foundation for future growth.
Ready to make your Giving Tuesday campaign simple and successful? Get Charitable today and take advantage of easy-to-use donation forms, secure payment options, powerful email automation, and supporter-friendly fundraising tools -all in one place. Start your free trial or choose the perfect plan for your needs now and see how smooth fundraising can be!
Remember, the best campaigns focus on real stories, clear goals, and making it easy for people to give and feel appreciated. Using a platform like Charitable brings together donation tools, communication, and fundraisers in one place – making the process simple and effective. With these strategies, you’re ready to make the most of Giving Tuesday and fuel your mission all year long.
Giving Tuesday FAQs
When is Giving Tuesday 2025?
Giving Tuesday 2025 is on Tuesday, December 2. It always falls on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, following Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Why does Giving Tuesday matter?
It shifts focus from consumerism to generosity, helping nonprofits boost donations, grow supporter bases, and create lasting community impact during the year-end giving season.
How can nonprofits prepare for Giving Tuesday?
Plan early with clear fundraising goals, know your audience, create a solid campaign timeline, craft compelling messages, use trusted fundraising tools, and promote widely via email and social media.
Can small donations really make a difference?
Absolutely! Collective gifts of all sizes fuel meaningful change. Even small contributions add up during Giving Tuesday, making a big impact.
How can businesses participate?
Businesses can engage employees with matching gifts, organize volunteering events, and promote giving campaigns to customers, strengthening culture and social impact.
Is Giving Tuesday only celebrated in the U.S.?
No, it’s a global movement with participation in over 90 countries, each adapting the day to their local communities and causes.
What is Charitable, and how does it help with Giving Tuesday?
Charitable is a WordPress plugin designed specifically for nonprofits to create and manage fundraising campaigns, including Giving Tuesday. It simplifies donation forms, supports multiple payment gateways, and automates donor communications, making it easier to run a successful, trustworthy campaign.
How does Charitable make donation forms better for Giving Tuesday?
Charitable’s donation forms are mobile-friendly, customizable, and easy to use, reducing friction for donors. It supports one-time and recurring gifts, multiple payment options, and automatically generates receipts and thank-you emails to keep donors engaged.
Can Charitable help me build a campaign community on Giving Tuesday?
Yes, Charitable supports peer-to-peer fundraising, ambassadors, and donation teams. It allows supporters to create fundraising teams to fundraise on your behalf, helping expand your reach. It also includes social sharing buttons and automation to encourage supporters to share your campaign widely.
Does Charitable provide tools for tracking and analyzing campaign performance?
Yes, Charitable offers reporting features that help you track donations, top supporters, recurring gifts, and overall campaign progress so you can make informed decisions and improve future fundraising efforts.
Is Charitable easy to use for nonprofits without tech expertise?
Absolutely. Charitable is built with user-friendliness in mind, so you can launch campaigns quickly without needing developer support. Its integration with email marketing services also automates much of the campaign follow-up process.
I’m using another platform. Can I switch to Charitable?
Yes, you can easily import your data from other platforms and start using Charitable right away.
Where can I learn more about Giving Tuesday?
Check resources like the official GivingTuesday.org.
Next, you may also want to read Which is Better: Giving Tuesday or Black Friday?
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