Giving Day Platforms: 5 Essential Software Features
Nonprofit giving days are an effective fundraising stream that can be launched with ease. With hundreds of ‘Awareness Days’ every year and more popping up every month, nonprofits are leveraging giving days to increase their fundraising reach.
These days can be incredibly successful outreach opportunities for nonprofit groups, which why they’ve become so popular. With so many giving days and campaigns out there, you’ll need fundraising best practices to help you standout.
So what’s the key to success?
In order to attract donors to your next giving day, a digital strategy should be the cornerstone of your campaign. From online giving software to mobile-optimized fundraising pages, to peer-to-peer solutions, and text-2-give solutions, there is an incredible number of helpful tech available for nonprofits.
Don’t worry! We will walk you through five best practices to help you leverage fundraising software to power your giving day to success.
1. Create custom giving day fundraising pages
Giving days thrive because of the power of social networking, social sharing, and social promotion– all meant to reach donors where they are – online.
Today’s nonprofits need ways to tap into virtual networks through digital channels. To reach today’s donors, nonprofits must have a digital fundraising strategy that provides options for supporters to give anytime and anywhere.
Enter giving days. These campaigns occur online and the giving occurs literally in one day – 24 hours start to finish. They are a great fundraising vehicle to create urgency, excitement and fast giving for your cause.
But in order to have a successful giving day, you need an easy-to-use online giving tool. Your giving day fundraising page should be customized and personalized with your nonprofit brand, campaign images, messaging, and goals.
Key features for your giving day tool and pages include:
- Embedded forms that allow donors to donate directly within your platform.
- A secure, SSL/PCI-compliant payment processing system that gives both donors and your team peace of mind that donor information is safe.
- Customizable donation levels to encourage larger gifts throughout your giving day.
- A giving day-specific leaderboard to rally support and highlight your top donors.
- Customizable Calls-to-Action Buttons to grab attention and signal where donors can click to give.
- A real-time social wall collecting social media mentions and posts throughout your giving day to share with supporters.
2. Encourage Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
In a giving day campaign, your supporters are tasked to spread the word of your cause and garner donations from people likely have not ever heard of your organization or mission before. The most successful giving days harness the power of peer-to-peer fundraising and supporters’ social and professional networks to gain net new donors.
Your supporters create individual donation pages to raise funds. Personal fundraising pages are great for giving days because they make it easy for supporters to social share your campaign, encourage fast donations, and create competitive giving, which spurs on more donations!
As you’re looking for your giving day platform, keep these features in mind:
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Social media integration and feeds
Social media integration and feeds make it easy for supporters to share their individual donation pages with their followers.
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Gamification functionality
Gamification both motivates and rewards donors to keep them engaged and maximize incoming donations.
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Customizable micro-donation pages
Customizable micro-donation pages let your donors personalize and update with their pictures, stories, and more.
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Scalable technology
Scalable technology allows for as many or as few peer-to-peer supporters as you need.
3. Offer Digital Fundraising Options
As nonprofit fundraising grows online, there is a need for seamless giving. Remember, today’s nonprofit donors are consumers. They transact online, in nearly every aspect of their life. And they expect their giving to mirror their daily online experiences: easy, fast, and frictionless.
In order to capture and capitalize on quick, fast donations, your team needs digital fundraising tools in place for your upcoming giving day. Based on research, digital channels are the top ways today’s donors are engaging in giving opportunities.
Two digitally optimized channels for effective giving days are Text2Give functionality and Online Giving Sites.
- Text2Give: Text-enabled fundraising solutions make donating during a giving day a streamlined donor experience. You simply need to create a shortcode, advertise it through all of your traditional, digital, and social channels throughout your giving day, and wait for potential donors to text your team directly. Donors will be automatically directed to a fully-mobile donation page where they can engage with your giving day campaign – all without ever having to log into a webpage.
- Online Giving Site: give nonprofits the ability to create a brand new microsite — or add a fundraising-specific form to their current site — with just a few button clicks. Online giving tools should include donor engagement functionality, such as social sharing, social engagement features, progress tracking, gamification, and a variety of donation form options for flexible giving (e.g., inline, modal, etc).
4. Plan In-Person Giving Day Fundraising Events
While most giving days take place online or over digital channels, some nonprofits choose to schedule their giving day fundraiser in tandem with an in-person event to really maximize the fundraising potential. This could be anything from hosting a black tie gala for your top supporters to celebrating with a family-friendly 5k run/walk to raise awareness.
When hosting events alongside giving days, a creative way to engage supporters is via Ambassador Fundraising campaigns. These fun campaigns have loyal supporters compete against each to see who can bring in the most donations in 24 hours.
Whatever the event, hosting nonprofit events alongside your larger giving day campaign takes organization, which is why a best-in-class event fundraising platform is so important.
Automated event fundraising platforms are especially helpful for giving day events because they enable last-minute appeal donations in which attendees try to hit a specific fundraising goal at the event to help set the giving day campaign over the top. What better time to encourage a frenzy of donations than on a day specifically dedicated to frenzied donations?
5. Choose a Comprehensive Giving Day Platform
Instead of having to work with multiple solutions to accomplish your goals, look for a single, integrated platform to meet all of your giving day needs and more. From online donations to personal fundraising pages, to event solutions, finding the right platform for your organization is key.
In order to give your supporters the best possible experience (and to drive as many donations as possible for your organization), look for a single, comprehensive solution that combines all of the necessary features your team needs with year-round functionality that you can leverage beyond your giving days, to support your annual fundraising plans.
