How do you plan a giving day?

Planning a giving day can be broken down in to four main steps. Following these steps with the support of a fundraising platform like mycause.com.au will help charities get community donations, approach major donors and co-contributors, and collect and streamline donor data.

Step 1: The first step in planning your charity’s giving day is selecting the date on which the giving day will occur. You should choose your giving day date based on an important time for your charity, for instance a breast cancer charity might prefer a giving day in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Once you have chosen a date, you will need to confirm its availability with your fundraising platform.

Step 2: Next you will need to have a campaign strategy, covering advertising, social media and PR. When you work with mycause.com.au for your giving day, you will have help coming up with, and expanding your strategy to get the most out of your giving day. A campaign strategy is vital as a clear, consistent message increases the campaign reach and encourages people to donate.

Step 3: Once you have a coherent campaign you can approach philanthropies, corporates and major donors who associate with you to ask for a large contribution to your campaign. This sum will be used as “matching money” that motivates the community to donate. This and other gamification features available through mycause not only increase the number of donations made to your giving day, but also the dollar amount each individual donates.

Step 4: It is highly recommended by mycause to have a phone room on the date of your giving day. To organise a phone room you will need to reach out to volunteers, book a space and set up handsets. Mycause can provide your volunteers with a script to use when calling potential donors. Utilising a phone room will bring in more donations that you may not have received otherwise.