Tag: corporate

Giving Tuesday partners GivenGain explore how past campaigns can help influence future ones ahead of Giving Tuesday 2021 on the 30th November. GivenGain’s Giving Tuesday starter pack is available here.

Thembalitsha

Lindsay Ndigiwe, Global Fundraising and Marketing Manager

One partner of GivenGain is Thembalitsha, which supports the work of the Thembalitsha Foundation in South Africa. Since 1997, the Thembalitsha Foundation has invested in change by providing healthcare, education and training in South African communities.

In 2019, Thembalitsha ran a Giving Tuesday campaign to support that vital work. They set a simple but clear goal – to beat the previous year’s fundraising total by more than 50%.

GivenGain spoke to the team there about what they learned from the experience.

In the lead-up to Giving Tuesday, how did you promote your campaign to potential donors? 

We focused on social media (Facebook and Instagram) and newsletters (MailChimp). We started planning about 90 days out but our external communications began about 30 days before #GT. In the week leading up to the campaign, we ramped up the frequency to finish strong. 

What did you achieve with the funds you raised through Giving Tuesday? 

The best thing about a general campaign on Giving Tuesday is that the funds are unrestricted. We all know how challenging it is to work with designated funding. The money we raised through our Giving Tuesday campaign last year really helped us fill in any end-of-year gaps that we still had in our budget.

Do you have any tips you would like to share with other charities thinking about creating Giving Tuesday campaigns?

Securing match donors ahead of time made reaching our goal way more achievable. This makes the smaller donations a lot more valuable. 

Also, remember to thank donors as soon as you can. GivenGain sends out custom automated responses, but we sent an additional thank-you with a graphic that we prepared in advance. 

Endangered Wildlife Trust

Tammy Baker, Business Development Officer

The Endangered Wildlife Trust has worked to protect threatened species and ecosystems for almost half a century.

In 2019 EWF decided to hold a 24-hour fundraising sprint for Giving Tuesday instead of a long campaign – and managed to raise record levels.

What sort of campaign did you do for Giving Tuesday?

Our campaign was titled ‘It’s their future too’, focused on protecting and conserving some of our baby animal species. We used some cute fluffy pics of wild dog pups and interviewed the children of some of the staff who work for the EWT to ask them what they think grown-ups should be doing to save the planet.

How did you communicate your Giving Tuesday campaign with potential donors?

We launched our campaign via a mailer to our database the day before Giving Tuesday. We sent out 4 additional mailers on the day, letting people know how far off we were to our target – then finished off with a thank-you mailer the next day with the final amount raised.

What were you able to achieve with the funds you raised through Giving Tuesday?

As with all funds raised for the EWT, the money we raised went to keeping our staff doing what they do best: conservation in action.

Do you have any tips you would like to share with other charities thinking about creating Giving Tuesday campaigns?

I believe our campaign worked because we had a clear and concise message. Focusing on the fluffy baby animals we protect always pulls on people’s heartstrings. We also communicated how far we were from our target several times throughout the day to motivate people to donate.

Whether you’re planning a marathon fundraising campaign like Thembalitsha or a sprint like the Endangered Wildlife Foundation, you can find all kinds of great fundraising tips and resources in GivenGain’s Giving Tuesday starter pack. Head to their Giving Tuesday page to download it now.

Feeling inspired? Sign up as a Giving Tuesday partner here

Giving Tuesday partners Work for Good have put together some helpful tips and advice for small businesses on how they can get involved in Giving Tuesday and get their message out there.

Imagine the impact and incredible change in society if it was actually odd not to be doing good through your business.

The inspirational Michelle Ovens CBE, founder of Small Business Britain and Small Business Saturday UK, has noticed that many small business owners are reluctant to celebrate their acts of giving, suggesting that they felt it would somehow diminish the impact of their kindness.

Many businesses who fundraise for charity through their sales are bashful about this meaningful act of supporting good causes. However, we know if more of us celebrated our giving and philanthropy the more it would become normal and inspire more people and businesses to do good for others.

At Work for Good we believe everyone should be able to turn the work they do into good and be proud of their giving.

Why should small businesses get involved in Giving Tuesday?

Whether your business is fundraising for a charity through your sales, volunteering services or donating products to good causes, you should be proud of it.

A powerful way in the next few weeks to tell the world about your generosity, giving through your sales, social impact, and passion for good causes is to get involved with Giving Tuesday – the global day of giving.

Being part of a global movement that drives positive change, kindness, and philanthropy has multiple benefits and will not only make you feel happier but also prouder of your business.

Getting involved with Giving Tuesday is also great for business.

So whether you are a butcher, a baker or candlestick maker, pulling pints, percolating coffee, selling through Etsy or running a local law firm, using Giving Tuesday’s massive influence is a golden opportunity to amplify the good your business does.

Ideas To Help You Amplify The Good Your Small Business Does.

Highlight the charities’ cause or campaign:

Shining a spotlight on a cause that you care about and taking the time to support the charity alongside your fundraising demonstrates your values and shows your customers and community that you genuinely care. Talk about the impact the charity has and use your platform to inform people of the work they’re doing and why you’re supporting them. Blog posts and e-newsletters are a great way to do this.

Tell Personal Stories:

Giving Tuesday is the perfect time to tell your story and show the people behind your brand.  Telling your story helps to forge emotional connections, let your customers know your personal reasons for choosing to raise awareness for and support a particular cause. This can be very powerful, building loyalty and respect in a way that simply showing images of products or talking about services might not – remember people buy from people.

Become a Small Business Star:

If you are fundraising through your sales this festive season or have plans to, make sure you join the Small Business Star campaign.

It’s easy to get involved, pledge your support to your favourite charity, download the marketing toolkit and tell your customers and clients how your business is making a difference. Use the hashtag #SmallBusinessStar and tag in @WorkforGoodUK – so we can work together to spread the word about the mighty UK small businesses who use their business for good. 

Find out how to become a Small Business Star

Feeling inspired? Sign up as a Giving Tuesday partner here

After such a successful Giving Tuesday, we caught up with one of our founding partners, NatWest Group, to find out more about their #GiveBack2020 campaign.

For #GiveBack2020, NatWest donated over £410,000 to charities that its employees and colleagues support.

What did NatWest Group do for #GiveBack2020?

This was the 7th year we had supported Giving Tuesday, and for us, 2020 was hugely significant given this was positioned against the backdrop of a global pandemic. Recognising the devastating financial impact that COVID-19 had had on the sector, Giving Tuesday provided us a vital platform to highlight the need for our colleagues and customers to give back more than ever before, and help to make it easy for them to support the causes they care about.

We delivered a campaign to promote Giving Tuesday to our colleagues globally, encouraging them to think about how they could #GiveBack2020, and signposting them to our colleague charitable giving programmes, including our three days volunteering leave. We also ran a Payroll Giving campaign to incentivise more colleagues to join this scheme, recognising that establishing a regular income is hugely important for charities. For every new joiner to the scheme, and for existing members who increased their monthly donations, we gave a charity donation of £125. We also encouraged colleagues to use their voice to share the #GivingTuesday message on social media.

For our customers, we engaged with 1.45 million MyReward current account holders, encouraging them to exchange their reward points for a charity donation, and we matched donations up to £50.

How did NatWest Group find #GiveBack2020?

Due to COVID, we had to pause a number of our employee volunteering programs, and with many individual fundraising events also cancelled, Giving Tuesday presented us with that perfect moment in time to highlight other ways our colleagues and customers could give back, be that through donations and volunteering their time. The day was also about shining a light on the charity sector and celebrating the societal value it creates and the lives that these wonderful charities help day in day out.

“Giving Tuesday is one of those moments where we can stop and give back”

What impact will the money raised have?

We’re a really diverse organisation, with colleagues operating in the UK and overseas so our approach is to  support our people to give back to the charities and good causes they are passionate about. We were overwhelmed by the response we received from our colleague Payroll Giving campaign. As a result, NatWest Group donated almost £315,000 to the fantastic charities that our colleagues support each month. Due to the new joiners and increased donations, those charities will see an annual increase in over £300,000 of donations if our colleagues maintain their levels of monthly giving. Through our customer campaign, 11 charities received donations which totalled £292,959, which includes matched funding of £100,000 from NatWest Group.

What’s special about Giving Tuesday to NatWest Group?

Giving Tuesday is one of those moments where we can stop and give back, as well as taking part in a huge global celebration. It helps us shine a light on important causes and support our colleagues’ and customers’ charitable giving. The Giving Tuesday team is fantastic at guiding you through everything with advice and tips. Everything the team provides to their partners makes the whole day really easy and flexible.

Any advice or top tips?

Get involved! If your business has a charity partner, Giving Tuesday is a brilliant opportunity to show your support and rally colleagues around a cause. If you don’t have a charity partner, the flexibility of Giving Tuesday means you can support your colleagues to donate to their favourite charities in all kinds of ways, which is the approach we took. The more people that get involved with Giving Tuesday, the better!

Feeling inspired? Sign up as a Giving Tuesday partner here