With GivingTuesday preparations underway, here is a selection of campaigns from last year to provide some inspiration and ideas.
Dominos offered a win win situation last year – highlighting its 2 for 1 Tuesday offer, and encouraging people to save some pennies by taking this up, and to then donate some pennies through a microdonation for GivingTuesday for Teenage Cancer Trust and Northern Ireland’s Children’s Hospice. It’s been supporting #GivingTuesday in this way for a number of years, and in 2020 raised £6,500 on 30 November alone.
Florence Nightingale Hospice gave a very specific goal last year – if it could raise £1,487.50 on Facebook on #GivingTuesday, it would be matched to raise £2,975 – enough to fund all of the Christmas sessions at its day hospice. While it only raised £500 online the Hospice also received an offline donation of £1,000, meaning it hit its target.
Tiny Tickers also took this approach – seeking to raise £1,452 so it could place 6 handheld pulse oximetry machines in UK hospitals, which help to diagnose babies’ heart conditions in the womb. It did even better than that – raising enough money to buy 11.
Creating Better Futures took a different approach, providing a list of 12 ways people could offer support – not all of them financial. It also tried out Dare Bingo – inviting people to request dares for a small donation over the three days following #GivingTuesday. Dares included ‘Wear a ‘condiment’ face mask’ for 10 minutes for a £3 donation, a blindfolded make up challenge for £4, post an embarrassing photo on Instagram for £3 (surely it should have been more?!) and crack an egg on your forehead for £5. It raised £50.
Sane let people know that support doesn’t need to be financial, and that sharing its posts and helping to end the stigma associated with mental illness were also valuable ways to get involved.
The RSPCA took a similar approach, directing people to a post on its site that listed the many ways people can help – from sharing social media posts and signing up to AmazonSmile, to payroll giving, and donating items to its charity shops.
Lots of charities, including NHS Charities Together, simply said thank you – in this case to everyone who had supported NHS charities in any way.
Hope Not Hate was not alone in standing with the RNLI last year on #GivingTuesday after its Hastings crew had been blocked from going out to sea by people angry at them helping refugees. The charity asked their followers to support the lifeboat charity.
Celebrity support can be a great boost for charities at any time, including #GivingTuesday. Last year saw Lady Gaga share her support for the Born This Way Foundation. The Facebook fundraiser raised over £7,000.
Also with celebrity support, Lepra once again ran Giving Shoesday – an auction of shoe donations from screen and sports stars including including Jo Brand, Martin Clunes OBE, Dame Judi Dench, David Flatman, Colin Jackson CBE, Joanna Lumley OBE, Dame Helen Mirren, and Sir Tony Robinson. The charity also launched a ‘£1 from you, we get two’ matched funding campaign and raised over £55,000.
