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You’re dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s for all the elements of your GivingTuesday campaign. And while the main focus is on the lead up and day-of campaign components, one equally critical aspect to plan well ahead of time is your follow-up post-November 29.

Developing a robust follow-up strategy early on can be a gamechanger for your donor relations. Not only can it help you foster deeper relationships, but it can also lead to more long-term support.

Here are three essential steps you can take to create a post-Giving Tuesday follow-up strategy that keeps donors engaged through year-end and beyond.

Plan your thank you process

While most organizations already have this step in place, it’s worth reiterating that showing your appreciation for the people who engaged in your GivingTuesday campaign is crucial to strengthening your donor relationships. And to do so in an effective manner, it’s important to get all the pieces together in advance, in particular automation, social media, and thank you outreach.

• Automation: Make your donors feel immediately appreciated by setting up your system so that a thank you email is deployed as soon as you receive a donation. Be sure your email is fully customized with the donor’s information, mentions GivingTuesday, and highlights the impact of their donation.
• Social media: Utilizing your social media platforms is a quick and easy way to express your gratitude for your donors. Brainstorm and draft a plan now so you can start putting together any required resources, whether it’s for creating a video, posting donor shout outs, or composing visuals of your results to show how donations made an impact.
• Direct thank you outreach: While direct thank you outreach is a bit more of a process—think handwritten thank you cards and personal phone calls—it can go a long way with your donors. And prepping ahead of time can help you be much more efficient in executing the task. Save time by identifying who this task will go to, a timeline for completing your outreach and any tools to make your outreach more efficient such customizable templates or scripts.

Plot out how and when you’ll use your data to identify specific donor segments

As you’re mapping out your campaign, determine which metrics are most important to you to make sure that you’re collecting that information in your donation form. Once GivingTuesday ends, you’ll have that data at the ready to sort through and identify trends that you can use to create specific segments.

Some groups to include are:

• GivingTuesday retained donors
• Overall retained donors
• Low, mid, and high value donors
• Donor who gave gifts over the past year but not during GivingTuesday
• Donors highly engaged with your GivingTuesday campaign

Create a roadmap for each donor segment’s next step

What do you want your donors to do post-GivingTuesday? Get this sorted out ahead of time so you can create targeted email sequences and follow up with each segment in a timely fashion. Some target actions to consider are:

• Engaging new donors: Send an email welcoming new donors to your community. Subsequent touchpoints can include a survey to discover why they donated, an update on how your GivingTuesday campaign impacted your overall mission, and encouragement to follow your organization on social media.
• Sharing engagement opportunities with retained donors: Don’t let your donors lose momentum. Use a sequence of emails to direct them to your website to learn more about your organization, join upcoming events, and register to volunteer.
• Leaving the door open for past donors who didn’t give this GivingTuesday: Create opportunities for anyone who didn’t get the chance to contribute to your campaign by letting them know that it’s never too late to make a donation. If you didn’t meet your goal, send out a series of emails highlighting how a gift can help your cause. And if you met or exceeded your goal, tell them where your organization is headed to drive additional donations for year-end and beyond.

Looking for more information?

For more information or assistance with your GivingTuesday strategy, check out our 12 Weeks of GivingTuesday resources or contact us at info@thelukenscompany.com.