Welcome to part two of my 2024 Giving Tuesday Endless Email Review!
As I mentioned in part one, I am reviewing all 627 Giving Tuesday (GT) emails I received and sharing with you email tips, best practices and expert advice.
Let’s get to it!
The Data
➡️ Data point: 6% of emails were thasks (including the final one I received on December 9- six days after GT)
Verdict: Major blech
Best practice: A thask is a gratitude letter that includes a fundraising ask. Don’t do this!
Fundraising emails should stand alone.
Gratitude emails should stand alone.
Never shall the two mix. That includes sending a gratitude email and sneaking the ask in the P.S. Just stop it!
➡️ Data point: Americares sent me 21 GT emails altogether (the most of any organization)
Verdict: A bit much? But maybe not
When they sent: The first email arrived November 15 (18 days before GT), another three were sent in November, one on December 1, one on December 2, nine on GT, four the day after GT, one on December 5 and a thank you email on December 9 (six days after GT).
We know that the average person opens one out of every three or four emails. So if you think Americares sent way too many emails, not necessarily. People aren’t opening and reading every email they sent.
Is nine in a 24-hour period too much? Maybe. I’m not being definitive here because I’d need data from previous campaigns to see if it’s overkill or not.
But the next time your boss says sending two emails a month is too much, tell them they’re wrong. Send more emails, not fewer! Inboxes are overflowing. If you’re emailing infrequently, inbox visibility will be low which leads to fewer opens.
Constant and consistent communications is how you build relationships!
The Awesome
Every year I shine a spotlight on Second Helpings in Indianapolis and this year is no different.
They do GRATITUDE Tuesday– their Board members, staff and volunteers call as many donors as possible and thank them for their support and share the impact of their gift. No ask!
Their Board Vice Chair, fundraising expert Adam Clevenger, sent me this pic:
He’s there along with the team making phone calls.
Here’s what’s amazing: Adam told me they spoke with 2,133 donors!!!
Look at that astounding number. By leading with gratitude, I bet it boosts their year-end campaign, donor retention and donor lifetime value.
The Good
Giving Tuesday has become a cash grab. It’s one of the reasons why I dislike it.
But the real reason behind GT is for people to simply do good. And believe it or not, donating money isn’t the only way to do good.
1) Good on Ocean Conservancy for sharing this in an email and providing readers options to do good:
2) Use email to get people involved and communicate with them in other ways. The Alzheimer’s Association added this at the bottom of one of their emails:
3) Knowing your audience means sharing gift amounts that appeal to them. Take a look at this from the World Jewish Congress (WJC):
The WJC knows that many of their subscribers are Jewish. The number 18 is a special number in Judaism. 18 equals the Hebrew word “chai” which means life. Many Jewish donors will give that amount, hence the $18 and $36.
And if you’re wondering, “but why $57.85” as a gift amount? On the Jewish calendar this is year 5785.
Know your audience!
4) A week before GT, Special Olympics sent me an email to announce a 2x match. What I liked is their segmentation.
In their email they said, “Are you ready to make your first gift to support Special Olympics athletes?” They know I have never donated and using the match can be a good way to encourage me to make that first gift.
5) When asking for a donation, you want to share what the impact of a gift will be. American Lung Association did that:
I like the icons they used- they capture a reader’s attention, even if they’re skimming and scanning. What you can’t see is that this image was a GIF and every two seconds the icons would change and “2x more” would appear in their place.
Now you know impact of a gift AND that your gift will be doubled.
6) For many organizations, dollars is the name of the game. Feed the Children did things a bit differently- and I love it.
Their GT goal? “Provide 300,000 meals for hungry children this Giving Tuesday.”
Feeding America did something similar:
When you put it in terms of impact as opposed to (or next to) dollars, people will better understand what their gift will do and the problem it can solve. That will equal more donations.
7) I’m a huge fan of doing something different. Kudos to the United Way of York County for trying something else to raise money on GT:
The Not So Great
1) In a pre-GT email the ACLU called me one of their “top supporters.”
If they define that by the fact that I open all their emails, fine. But if their definition relates to gifts, I have never donated to them.
Bad segmentation.
2) A couple of times Special Olympics sent me an all-image email. Here’s why you shouldn’t do that:
- It won’t load for someone who has images turned off. They’ll just get a big empty box of white space below the subject line
- The text won’t be searchable if later your subscriber wants to find something in one of your emails
- It may not be accessible to people using screen readers. Having alt text can help with this
- Mobile: they resize images to fit the smaller screen. That might result in very tiny text which subscribers will have a hard time reading
- If it’s a large file size the email will load slowly. People won’t wait around
3) Street Squash Harlem had a good idea: They share what a gift can cover. However, on both mobile and desktop it’s very hard to read. Think about users with disabilities, eyesight issues and those over 45 when eyesight may start to deteriorate.
The Unsure
A few organizations, for marketing purposes, decided to change the name of GT.
Open Table and Houston Food Bank called it “Giving Food Day.”
Toys for Tots called it “Giving Toys Day.”
On the one hand, you could say it’s a gimmick to stand out from all the other GT campaigns people are seeing. Then again, they’re sharing impact right in the name of the campaign which isn’t a bad idea.
I’d need to see the data to see if this works or not.
One thing I know for sure: I LOVE that Cancer Navigators switched the name of the day to Grateful Tuesday and they sent an email thanking everyone!
The Ugly
It’s no longer Giving Tuesday. It’s really Giving Week.
Pre-GT emails start coming in advance. Then, many nonprofits who didn’t hit their GT goal were magically able to extend the campaign for another day or more.
To quote Michael Corleone in Godfather III: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
The day after GT I posted on LinkedIn that it was a holiday miracle that campaigns were extended. To which nonprofit marketing smartie Racheli Edelkopf commented: “Imagine the relief the donors feel!! 24 more hours!”
Yuck.
If It Aint Broke, Don’t Fix It!
For the third year in a row, Feed the Children has used this image in their GT emails:
Side note: I’m probably the only person on Earth who noticed this besides their staff.
Here’s the thing: It’s a GREAT picture! Their email asks for a donation to feed one child. The picture captures my attention and I am motivated to say Yes! I wanna give to feed this girl.
If it works, stick with it!
That’s it for post two of three of my GT email review. I’ll be back next Monday with part three.
Does your nonprofit want to use email to help it grow and thrive? Check out the variety of email services I offer to help organizations of all sizes.
