Why December is a Great Month to Ask for Donations

In a recent article that I wrote for Steamfeed, I quoted some pretty amazing “December Giving Stats.” Here they are:

Charitable Online Holiday Giving Stats for the Month of December (as taken from the Online Giving Study)

• Thirty (30) percent of annual giving occurs in the month of December.
• Ten (10) percent of annual giving occurs on the last three days of the year.
• Online giving (by dollars) on December 31 is concentrated between 12 p.m. and 7 p.m.

And here are two more statistics to sink your teeth into:

• Branded giving pages account for 54% of online giving.
• Branded giving pages raise six times more in contributions than generic giving pages.

Knowing this, how can you not create a targeted, local marketing campaign? Why not take advantage of the spirit of giving?

Social Media – It’s Social!

If you are a local nonprofit and like the statistics mentioned above, how are you planning to reach the right people? I am going to assume that you are already connected locally, whether you are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or Google+. If you have a decent audience on all of these platforms, putting together a giving campaign is going to be fairly easy!

But before we figure out how to reach them, we need to know what the marketing message will be. To create that message, we need to know what motivates people to donate more money in December than in any other month! From the abovementioned Steamfeed article, here are the "Top 5 Reasons People Donate in December":

1. Contributions to a nonprofit are tax-deductible in the year they are made.
2. People have a heightened sense of awareness of charitable organizations and of the needy during the holidays.
3. People like to receive recognition for being charitable.
4. It is a great last-minute, gift-giving idea!
5. They like the ease of giving  gifts to those who are hard to buy for by making donations in their honor.

Now that you know what motivates people to give in December, your message should be fairly easy to figure out! But how can you reach local givers?

Local Giving Campaign – Let’s Get Started!

Here is a course of action to take:

1. Set up a branded online donation page with easy-to-use donation buttons on your website! It would be great if you have a web page dedicated to this holiday campaign with say, the “Top 5 Reasons to Donate to XYZ Charity,” followed by a call-to-action and the donation button. Make sure it is branded for your charity!
2. Create powerful images and maybe a video (if you have a budget) to show the need for donations. Think stories! Make it about local people and places. Create images for each social media platform (different sizes!)
3. Find business partners and sponsors who are not only willing to give donations (and if they partner with you, you can include their logos in your marketing), but are also active on social media—ask them to share your images and videos!
4. Run a Facebook Ad campaign to drive traffic to your web page.
5. With your local story, engage journalists and media personalities and send out press releases. You should be trying to get TV and/or radio coverage (which in turn you can plug back into your social media campaign).
6. Find local hashtags, and send the link to your donation page out onto Twitter using some of the local hashtags.
7. Use your current email list to share your story and your giving campaign, and be very specific about how people can help you by adding a “call-to-action.”
8. At your physical location, make signs to ask people to check in while they donate and/or volunteer!
9. Create a UGC hashtag campaign related to your giving campaign. Ask people to use a hashtag related to your charity, and ask them to upload pictures to share their personal stories. A great example of this is the #RedKettleReason campaign run by The Salvation Army this 2014 holiday season.
10. Get started now!

I hope your local nonprofit can benefit from these tips and will have a very successful giving campaign this month. If you cannot pull it all together this year, may I suggest you bookmark this article and get started earlier next year! If you do have to defer to next year, make sure to budget for Facebook Ads and video editing for your next holiday campaign!

Dorien