How we raised over $10k with one email and one social post on Giving Tuesday
Ahhhhhhh take a deep breathe, relax and enjoy - Giving Tuesday is OVER.
C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S!
Truly, if you put in a full throttle effort - I hope you had a ton of success and would really (REALLY!) want to learn what you did you make it so.
As mentioned in last weeks note: I received nearly 50 Giving Tuesday requests with some organizations sending me as many as three emails in one day. Normally, I would have unsubscribed, but I’m a researcher and therefore truly curious to know what others are doing.
This year, I only oversaw ONE Giving Tuesday event for my client, ManifestWorks. ManifestWorks in a Los Angeles based organization that trains individuals who have been incarcerated, homeless or in the foster care system to become production assistants in the entertainment industry. I say this to anyone who will listen: their program is one of the MOST effective that I’ve ever been involved with. For example, on average, their participants come to ManifestWorks earning less than $285/week and within one year they are earning over $1,172 (over $60k annually). Across all measurements - their alumni are happier and healthier - physically, financially, and emotionally. They are a dream client!
Over the last several years that we’ve been working with one another - we’ve prioritized a few things including value-based messaging, consistency and impact storytelling. I believe that the focus we’ve executed on is what made this year’s Giving Tuesday not only successful, but pain-free.
Bookmark this for next year, because this is going to be helpful!
To give you context and before you assume that ManifestWorks is large or been around forever - they have not. They have been in operation for five years. The team is a total of four people: a full-time executive director and a full-time operations director. They also have a part-time program manager and part-time social worker on staff. They do have an incredible network of about 100+ industry pros who do a lot of teaching and mentoring throughout their 12 week program. They have a budget size of less than $500k and an email list of about 1200.
On Giving Tuesday - we sent one email (at 7am PST) followed by one social media post to Instagram and Facebook. That is it! The result? $10,626.80.
(for those who want the nitty-gritty - the email had a 43% open rate and a 8% click rate. If you are wondering how that compares, you can check this post out).
I don’t want you to think it’s as easy as that though.
Here is what we did throughout the entire year to ensure our Giving Tuesday (and entire end of year giving campaign is a success):
Committed to consistent communication: What that means for ManifestWorks is that one time per month, we send our email list an email with quality, value-add content. This might include a success story, some impact stats, a new board member joining the team, or a partner spotlight. It is short and to the point - most often directing people to a “read more” button to get them on the website if they want to read longer. For those of you wondering - we do not include a donation button on every monthly email we send, but do include links to our social handles.
Increased our social media effort: About a year ago - a volunteer was running our social pages which resulted in inconsistent and sometimes off-brand posting. We took it back this year and have seen our following grow 300%, but more importantly, engagement averages around 20% which in social media world (the average is less than 3%) is really good. We’ve been strategic so that when emails go out - we compliment the content on social media too. I know you are going to ask - we do not post daily (although that is a 2020 goal). We post anywhere from 1-3 times per week and it’s usually a mix of feed and story postings.
Got the board involved: This year, instead of asking our board (14 board members) to reach a specific financial goal - we asked them to simply each recruit FIVE new donors at any level. Yep, that’s right. It could be a $5 donor or a $5,000 donor - we just wanted five new ones. So far, this seems to be more do-able for board members. Something about five people vs. a dollar amount doesn’t seem so overwhelming. The thought is that if we can enroll five new donors per board member, then over the next year we can delight them and keep them as recurring donors. How did we do it? Here is a link to a sample board sheet we had each member fill out at our Fall 2019 board meeting.
We primed our audience: I have to say, ManifestWorks makes raising money easy for me. Not only do they have an incredible mission with the data to prove it (more on that in a minute), their ED, Dan, really understands his responsibility to raise money for the organization. One of the ways he did this was he started sending personalized, individual emails back in AUGUST to donors who usually make their gifts at the end of the year. Most people didn’t respond right away, but some gifts did come in on Giving Tuesday (and I’m sure the rest will come in before the 31st.). Giving Tuesday and the rest of our campaigns are just the trigger/reminder. People are BUSY - and donors often need to see a request multiple times before they take action.
We thanked our email list on Thanksgiving Day. Just a simple email with a photo and about 4 sentences.
Data: One of the best investments ManifestWorks has made over the last few years is in our data collection and analytics. As a storyteller, I know how valuable these assets are. To be able to weave in concrete (numerical) information next to profound success stories is an art only made easy when the data proves the point you are trying to make. Since last year, ManifestWorks has brought in specialists to revamp how we collect participant’s baseline information as well as information upon completion and post. Our results have a 78% response rate that has provided value in everything from everyday emails, our website, our annual report, our annual campaign and grant proposals.
Serving their donors: At ManifestWorks, we’ve subscribed to the philosophy that you can’t thank your donors enough. We thank donors publicly and privately. For example, after each donation - a donor receives a thank you email and their donation receipt automatically. Dan also sends a handwritten thank you note. We also like to send a Valentine’s Day card in February and a handwritten gratitude card (written by alumni) in November.
Does this sound like a ton of work? This is what consistent work looks like. It is slow and steady and in the end - wins the race.
I want to ask you - what might your 2020 revenue look like if you committed to even just three of these things throughout the year?
xoxo,
PS: Two quick notes - you might say, “Jess - I can’t get a video made!” We couldn’t either. We were lucky that one of our alumni gifted it to us and we just saved sharing it for this moment.
PSS: Wish I could write your fundraising emails for you? Want to stay consistent with your communication year-round so you can see results like this? Join my Fundraising Template Membership for just $13/month! You’ll receive a weekly email template (or social media caption!) - the exact ones I use for my clients like this.
