Soapbox Engage Blog

This is the third post in our #GivingTuesday series, with ideas to activate your community Check out the second post in the series on crafting your message. Save the date: July 28th we will close out the series with a live webinar. Reserve your spot now!

UPDATE 7/12/2017: Watch our free webinar recording, Seize #GivingTuesday Success with Fundraising Wisdom and Salesforce. which was originally broadcast on July 11, 2017.

At its heart, #GivingTuesday is a social campaign focused on collective impact: if the entire world gives back, what amazing feats can we accomplish together? This is why activating your community on your behalf is a must for a successful campaign.

Just like setting goals for #GivingTuesday donations, you'll want to set benchmarks for online engagement. Relationships - including online relationships - are key to creating loyal donors. You have the opportunity with #GivingTuesday to lay a really great foundation for a beautiful friendship. It's pretty easy to find online engagement benchmarks for your #GivingTuesday campaign:

• Figure out how many people engaged with or shared your content last year including: email clicks, likes, shares, retweets, and so on.
• Compare year over year data to see the success and growth for your online advocates.

Once you have an idea of how much activity you'd like to see for #GivingTuesday, you'll want to recruit your online advocates. Gather the people closest to your organization: your staff, board of directors, volunteers, program beneficiaries, corporate and media partners and so on. Ask them to share your emails and social media posts. Why? The algorithm for your followers' social media feeds differs on every platform. Having your constituents share content means it will stay in their feed and spread your message far and wide. Your network expands exponentially by including their network. And we all know that people are more likely to act when asked by someone that they know!

Some key pointers to make this really easy for your online advocates:

• Prepare suggested posts and/or messages They may or may not use it, but it will help them understand the tone of the messaging and can give them something to build on.
• You never know who may want to step up and be an online advocate for you! Include share links in your emails - both appeals and thank yous. Here's how to do it with Soapbox Mailer, Facebook and Twitter.
• Always use UTM variables in your links - not only will you be able to do great reporting, you can share details with your online advocates so they can see their own impact! After the dust settles (ha, I know), share with your advocates the success you had during #GivingTuesday as part of a thank you.

Keep it simple and remove barriers that might interfere with advocates working on your behalf. Your message will go farther and your volunteers will increase their connection to your organization.

Our final post in this series will cover donor thank yous. Don't forget to sign up for our Gearing up for #GivingTuesday webinar on July 28th!