As you’re getting ready for Giving Tuesday — or the campaign season starting before Thanksgiving — this question comes up often:
Should I include my monthly donors in my Giving Tuesday campaign?
My answer is: Yes! Absolutely, BUT…
Why do I recommend including your monthly donors? Because this is an exciting time to give, and you’ll leave money on the table if you don’t ask. Many Giving Tuesday (or Giving Day) campaigns have a match challenge included, so it’s more of a motivator for monthly donors to make an extra gift.
Remember, your monthly donors love you. They care about you and your mission. So give your monthly donors the opportunity to make a special gift at this special time and allow them to help you reach your special (match/challenge) goal sooner.
How about that BUT?
You must recognize them as monthly donors when you send them the special ask. This starts by telling your monthly donors that you know that they’re special and that they are already making ongoing monthly gifts. This means that you must have your monthly donors in a special group or segment in your email list (and you must flag them separately in your donor base/CRM).
You can start your email with something like this:
Thank you so much for your ongoing monthly support as a [member of the monthly giving program name]. Today, I wanted to let you know about a very special match… that will make even more of a difference to the children, animals, clients, [fill in the blank] you save.
Last year, Steven Shattuck did a great study about the many emails he received on Giving Tuesday as a monthly donor and virtually nobody recognized him as such. Only one organization sent just a “thanks for giving” email. I experienced the same. I highly recommend you recognize those monthly donors with just a tiny variation to show your appreciation for what they’re already doing.
Now’s the time to plan those versions. And by isolating your monthly donors in these emails, you can compare open and click-through rates as well. You may be very pleasantly surprised. You’ll generate so much more money if you do that with just a little bit more work to create a tiny variation of your Giving (Tues)day emails. It’ll be worth it!
