Australia

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GivingTuesday is just 14 days away – what are you doing to contribute?

#GivingTuesday, scheduled for 27 November 2018, is fast approaching. In fact, #GivingTuesday is just 14 days away. There has been an abundance of activity on social media this year, even here in Australia. It is fantastic to see the energy and the enthusiasm for #GivingTuesday this year. What are you planning to do to take advantage this international day of giving? What are you doing to contribute?

#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.

Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognised shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many Australians focus on holidays and end-of-year giving.​

Let’s do something

Each of use an do something on #givingTuesday even if our own non-profit or businesses are not officially participating. O

Take action in your own community and in your own non-profit organisation. Whether it’s a fundraising event or piggybacking on an internal campaign, such as your Christmas appeal, take the opportunity this November to help the cause of your choice or your own non-profit organisation.

Australia is amongst the first of the more than 150 countries participating countries to recognise the day. Let us set the pace for the rest of the world.

 

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Is #GivingTuesday a gimmick? Perhaps. But, it is a gimmick that works

A few years ago, after the Fundraising Institute Australia NSW End of Year Celebration, I had a debate with another supplier about whether #GivingTuesday was anything more than a gimmick. I told the supplier she may think #GivingTuesday is a gimmick. But, it is a gimmick which works.

#GivingTuesday, founded in 2012, is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration. Sound like a gimmick you want to be involved in? Read on.

Background of Global Event

Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the US) and the widely recognised shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving. This year’s #GivingTuesday is on 27 November 2018 – just 47 days away,

How to Get Involved

One of the best ways to get involved is in your own community and in your non-profit organisation. #GivingTuesday has created a directory to help the general public find organisations, charities, events and more in their own community. As I have written in prior years, it may be 16 October, but it is not too late for your non-profit organisation to be part of #GivingTuesday.

The first thing you need to do is to register to participate and join the movement.

Thereafter, download the #GivingTuesday toolkit and put it to use.

Make GivingTuesday part of your year-end appeal by capitalising on the momentum and the publicity created by the massive giving day. Consider a volunteer drive you might conduct. Your CRM supplier may even be joining the bandwagon in Australia to help fuel the energy generated from this single focused day of donations of time and money. Salesforce.org and Blackbaud are engaged globally.

Giving days are successful at universities and across charitable organisations worldwide. These are campaigns which attract a lot of attention in the media and across social media platforms. People want to join movements and become engaged. In addition to the publicity, giving days generate a lot of funding in a short timeframe.

Giving days take a lot of work to organise. Why not join a campaign already created and tested worldwide?

A Gimmick

OK, I admit it. #GivingTuesday may be a little gimmicky. However, it focuses attention on the need to give back to our communities in a season filled with celebrations and a little bit of self-indulgence. Any gimmick which has raised more than $300 million and has over 150 countries on board is one I am happy to align with my company and myself. Let’s not criticise the good generated by #GivingTuesday and, instead, give the campaign a try in Australia. You will not regret jumping on the bandwagon and your organisation will likely benefit substantially.

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The Fundraising Effectiveness Project – what is it and is it worth commencing in Australia?

The Fundraising Effectiveness Project – what is it and is it worth commencing in Australia? In 2006, the Association for Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute established the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) to conduct research on fundraising effectiveness and help nonprofit organisations increase their fundraising results at a faster pace. Now, 12 years later, the project has allowed 6,000 non-profits in the US to measure, compare, report, and analyse their growth in fundraising.

Australian charities are hungry for information to compare and contrast their organisations against others in the marketplace. Not all organisations can afford to participate in Pareto Benchmarking or Blackbaud’s donorCentrics. One way to gather this information is for an organisation to survey organisations seeking information about fundraising revenue and spend, staff size, and other metrics for use in fundraising strategic planning, budgeting, and other areas. The challenge with surveying colleagues is most fundraising professionals will say they are time poor and many will shy away from responding. Imagine if an organisation surveys 12 NFPs in a given year. Now multiple that times the number of us who survey colleagues wanting to know this type of information. That’s a lot of time spent on gathering and reporting information. Additionally, there is a great variance in how one organisation reports data compared to another organisation. So, we are often not looking at apples to apples and, instead, apples to grapefruit.

Enter the FEP

FEP provides nonprofits with tools for tracking and evaluating their annual growth in giving. Growth in giving is the net of gains in giving minus losses in giving. Nonprofits raise more money by investing more money in growth-oriented fundraising strategies that both increase gains and reduce losses. The FEP is focused on “effectiveness” (maximising growth in giving) rather than “efficiency” (minimising costs). FEP conducts an annual survey, provides useful growth in giving performance measurement tools and publishes gain(loss) statistics in a yearly report through a partnership between AFP, The Urban Institute and participating donor software firms. The FEP resources support growth-oriented fundraising programs.

In this day and age when we are being asked to measure results in a greater, smarter way and when the media and others are demanding we prove our worth, wouldn’t the Fundraising Effectiveness Project assist to provide the kind of data needed?

What do we need to get the FEP off the ground in Australia? An organisational body to coordinate the project (think of a fundraising body or a leading consultancy) and the key software suppliers to offer the FEP measurement tools in their software offerings. A key to the success of the FEP is the participation of a variety of donor software firms – many of them offering the same products in Australia. Most already have the FEP reporting mechanisms built into their software.

Read the 2018 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report here and judge its value yourself.

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Best practice response form in nonprofit tax appeal

Best Practice TWSI wrote previously about my giving to conservation organisations, including Bush Heritage Australia (BHA) and The Wilderness Society (TWS). I have also written about best practices these conservation organisations follow in terms of response devices and confirm, edit and enhance. This week I received a tax appeal from TWS.  The TWS response device spoke of best practice, yet again.

What makes this a best practice response device?

  1. The response device is clear, clean and easy to read.
  2. A question is featured to ask me if I wish to receive more information about the TWS bequest program.
  3. My contact details are pre-populated on the form.
  4. I was asked if my contact details are current.
  5. The form features multiple calls to action. There are three, in total, including the bequest tick box, a petition, and an opportunity to make a gift.
  6. TWS include vehicles to make my gift – post, phone and online.
  7. Finally, the form includes an opt out mechanism.

TWS, and BHA previously, know how to make it easy for the donor to respond to calls to action and to assist the organisations to keep their data clean and correct. Charities across Australia might make a gift to both nonprofit organisations to get on their mailing list and to see live best practice samples for themselves.

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Debate on whether #GivingTuesday will work in Australia

Snip20151203_36I woke up this morning to a dozen emails from US charities celebrating the fact they exceeded their goal for #GivingTuesday. One nonprofit organisation, Dana Farber set a goal of $1 million and raised $1.165 million in the single day.

After enjoying the Fundraising Institute Australia NSW end of year celebration last evening, I went with a group of people to a nearby hotel to enjoy an additional glass of wine. A supplier in this group suggested to me #GivingTuesday will never work in Australia. I pressed her as to why.

The supplier suggested the reason #GivingTuesday will never work in Australia is the fact that “Australians take care of themselves”. This did not make sense to me. Sure, I understand Australia, as a country, takes care of its people. The government provides a lot for its people in this country. Australians are a very caring society. So, why would #GivingTuesday not work here? She went on to describe the fact Americans have Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, etc. I understand all of that. She then suggested because Australia have none of those milestone days on the calendar (I would argue many Australians take full advantage of Cyber Monday), #GivingTuesday does not have a lead up to it and, therefore, it cannot possibly work here.

#GivingTuesday can and does work in countries outside of the US. I believe we will see an increase in the numbers of donors and dollars raised worldwide this year. I also believe Australians can adopt a marketing campaign which has several years of success under its belt. With an open mind and with a focused campaign, we, too, can join the ranks of Dana Farber and the thousands of other charities raising millions in a single day. Why not give it a try?