Hey, it's Mike. Quick note before we get started. My company, BuildGood, publishes this podcast that you're listening to. But our core work is to actually build a multi-channel metrics-based fundraising program for nonprofits that focuses on building the long-term value of new and current donors. So we actually helped nonprofits in the US and Canada build a broad base of donors. We helped them with acquisition, with retention, with monthly giving, and with mid-level giving programs. Now, every year, we take on a few new clients. And we tend to work with international development organizations, hospital foundations, children's hospital foundations, and local poverty relief, like food banks or homeless service providers, those kinds of organizations. Now, here's the thing. If you're raising at least $5 million, and you're looking for a partner to help you raise more money with your digital and direct mail programs, or if you're going into an RFP process, you can get a hold of me at
[email protected]. And someone on our team will make sure that the email gets to me, and I will personally get back to you. Alright, let's get the podcast going. [Music] Well, hello, builders of Good. Thank you for tuning in to the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. Fundraising isn't easy, but it should be simple. So on this show, we take the mystery out of raising money. Now, on every episode, we coach you to build your fundraising like a flywheel. If a flywheel has five steps, number one is listening to donors so you can get to know who they are. Number two is engaging them in personal ways. Number three is asking the right people for the right things. Number four is celebrating every single gift at every single level. And number five is reporting back in a responsive in real time way. If you master the five parts of the flywheel, your fundraising flywheel will start to spin reliably with less effort on your part, your revenue will grow, and so will your career. Now, every week, we focus on one part of the flywheel. And today, we're focusing on asking specifically. We're focusing on asking around Giving Tuesday and how to build a donor experience around Giving Tuesday that will delight the people that love your mission, support your mission, or want to support your mission. Today, we're talking to Repinder Deenza, she's the director of Mass and Digital Marketing at the Make a Wish Canada. And she's built out there Giving Tuesday program over the last couple of years. So let's get right into it. Here's my conversation with Repinder. Repinder, thanks for coming on the show. Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. We're going to talk about Giving Tuesday today. And before we do that, can you give us a very quick sort of breakdown of who you are, what you do at Make a Wish Canada? And maybe a little bit of your journey that brought you here. Yeah, so I am Repinder. I have the director of Mass and Digital Marketing at Make a Wish. I'm a self-proclaimed fundraising nerd. I started over 10 years ago working in the nonprofit sector. And I just fell in love with fundraising. I kind of fell into it, but I'd actually started working way ago when somebody wanted to just start a level of giving and they weren't too sure about it. So I kind of went in all in and it was really great and amazing. And then I moved to the agency world, which you know very well, Mike. And I worked with a lot of clients across Canada and the US. And from that, I've just been doing all things marketing, DRTV, catalog, DM, digital, and every single channel. And the opportunity at Make a Wish was just really incredible to come in and be able to work in a very focused way to grow this program. Make a wish, as you know, is a very well-recognized friend. But there's a lot of work to be done to really change the perception of it. And the organization almost five years ago merged with Children's Wish. And in addition, they moved from a federated model to a national model. So that was a lot of change, but it was really exciting for me to come in and be able to really rebuild a program in a really effective way. And that's that's why I'm here. Yeah. You're in an interesting position. You are leading mass fundraising at essentially a legacy brand. Like you said, very well known brand, Make a Wish. At the same time, you're almost like a startup at this point because you had this massive structural change. And all the regions were doing their own fundraising before. Now you've got one consolidated national office and you are building a national program from scratch is not the correct way of describing it. But you're sort of rebuilding it as a national program. At the time of our chat right now, we're a few months away from Giving Tuesday, which is crazy because it's still birds are still chirping sun is shining when the middle of summer here. But people are working on on year and already and asked people are listening to this podcast. Hopefully they are already thinking about the year end and giving Tuesday. I want to get into the specifics of how you have built the Giving Tuesday program at Make a Wish. But let's start here. T.O.S. up. How do you think about Giving Tuesday as a whole as part of your fundraising? Yeah, we know that Giving Tuesday is sort of that big giving period. But everything that we do really leads us up into that heavy year end fundraising period with Giving Tuesday being a big pillar of that. We often joke with an organization our fiscal year starts a little bit different than maybe others do. Our fiscal starts in October. So it's Q1 for us. So it's really, really time frame for us. But we also know the majority like a massive part of our donations come in during that time. So it's a really important time and looking at that giving Tuesday is probably the most compelling campaign that we have. It's so it's really important that everything we do when we are testing and learning throughout the year. We're testing and learning to optimize for Giving Tuesday. So for doing certain things to understand because this click work better, does this subject line work better? Is this child image work better? Is it a need image? Is it this? All of that is really leading us up to say we want to learn and be able to optimize on Giving Tuesday. We do do testing on Giving Tuesday. But we minimize our test in certain areas because we've done so much testing and learning and we want it to be all optimized for this time period. We have another time in April called World Wish Month. It's really important for our charity. And during that time, we have World Wish Day, which we kind of have called our Giving Tuesday light. And then that time frame, we do a lot of the similar ish tactics that's giving Tuesday. But it allows us because the neighbor allows us to learn to optimize and really understand donor motivation. Understanding that of course, it's not exactly the same because Giving Tuesday is more recognizable in the market. But we've taken a lot of that learning and tried to apply it both ways. And so that's how we view Giving Tuesday. It's a really, really important time to engage with our supporters meet the where they're at. And we know that a lot of our supporters are only going to give to us on Giving Tuesday or year end or the holiday. This is their time to give. So how do we continue to make sure that we're in their mind when they're thinking about Giving Tuesday. They think about us as a charity that they need to give to and they feel really good about giving to us because they know that we're going to be doing good with their with their money. Yeah. So a lot of the files that we see like 30 sometimes 50% of revenue for the year comes in in October and November and December with a good amount of that coming in mid November to the end of December. And so a lot of charities tend to be a little bit skeptical of Giving Tuesday. Some people think well, it cannibalizes your end giving others are like, it falls kind of right in the middle of our year end campaign. We've got this big year end push and we've got this this little island of a Giving Tuesday thing. And like, do we build a different offer for Giving Tuesday? Is it just part of the year end campaign? How do you think about that? I think about it as part of our holiday and year end giving campaign. Like I really see it like that because what we saw last year was tremendous success in in three pillar areas. What we consider like holiday, which we consider as our overlay and then Giving Tuesday as a set of sort of micro campaign within it and then year end, which is that time right after the 25th of December. And we saw a growth in all three categories. And so when we see that is not the cannibalization. I think that's an interesting sort of model of it. But I think for us, it's really it's part of our holiday. It's a micro campaign. It's an offer. It's Giving Tuesday. People know about it. They hear about it. It's in market. And so how do you make that about again, it's a value proposition. Why make a way make a wish at this time? And we really saw like tremendous growth in giving Tuesday, but also in year end. So for us, it was it wasn't one or the other. It wasn't that donor was only giving to Giving Tuesday and then it was like, nah, I'm not going to give to you at your end. It was the two different. It's Giving Tuesday. And that's the offer on Giving Tuesday in your end was a very different offer. And so that was really strong for us. Yeah. Well, let's walk through your your your end efforts a little bit. You mentioned holiday is the big year end campaign that's like at this holiday umbrella. And then within that umbrella, you have Giving Tuesday, you have this very specific end of year. Sort of encouragement to donate. What what all is happening under the holiday campaign, sort of umbrella, when do you launch? What are all the pillars within it? Yeah, so we so we consider October pre-Noliday, interestingly for us September is also a really important time because it's childhood cancer awareness month. And so we do a lot of fundraising around that and that's actually from our friends over at make wish America that piloted a childhood cancer awareness as a fundraising offer and it did very well. We saw that in happening in market and we thought last year. Let's try it and it did well for us in our September right now.
second year of it. And so one thing that we realized is that was a big moment for us, but we didn't want it to then be cannibalizing again at year. And so October, we consider, you know, pre-holiday, we want to do more stewardship, we want to do more around just really gratitude towards our file and and making sure we also understand. So it's like, you know, really segmented conversations with monthly donors, with lock donors, with OTTG, really talking to audiences and meeting them based on their life cycle with us. So our holiday officially starts in November. And so we we kick off in November and it runs through December 31st. For us, our holiday campaign, what we always have is our campaign theme. So last year it was best day ever. And that theme was really, how are we talking about holiday? What messaging is consistent across the board? What are the like phrases and key messages that you're you're going to hear? So we frame that entirely. And that's going to lead us into the messaging I'm giving Tuesday and year end. So we're not going to stray away a lot from that best day ever. What we did last year, campaigns, what that theme is going to be consistent because it sort of ties the time period together because if I'm a donor, you know, thinking about everything altogether, if I see your message here and then I see it on giving Tuesday. And so we really want that to be very consistent. And then we look at it really as a full funnel approach. So in our and make the wish we have brand and integrated marketing as well with all it. So within that department, we have what I do, Mass and Digital, but we also have communications and then our creative services team. So communications is a massive part of what we do together. And so when we come together, we brainstorm, we also have the comms team that's sitting there and saying, what are we pitching? What are we going to be out there to do in terms of other media and then building that within comms, you also have if you're planning to work with influencers or working with other people. And that that's all going to sit under again, the theme of holiday and what that looks like. And then we have everything sort of within that. And then with my channel specifically, we look at what are the portfolios we have that can really take the holiday messaging forward for fundraising. So, you know, we have monthly giving, you have direct mail, we have a catalog, so I wish it gives catalog. Everything that falls under digital, how's our website being optimized? How is, you know, paid media? How are we doing or even our donation forum? What are we thinking about on that? Organic social sits there as well. So what's that? Our strategy around that. And so all of that kind of comes together and that really builds that holiday campaign. And then we look truly at giving Tuesday as a micro campaign within that. And that's really the push around, okay, now I'm giving Tuesday, how are we building that in? And then again, end of year, how are we building around that? And so that's how we really approach our planning and our fundraising efforts. Got it. So when you're selecting the theme for the year end campaign, so best day ever, are you creating different offers around best day ever? Or are you, is it just like it's going to be one offer, one theme, one offer? We're just going to promote it in different ways, serve it to different audiences in different ways, have multiple stories that all have the same offer. Whereas it's like kind of multiple offers, but there's one theme that ties them together. That's a great question. So it's really, it's different offers, I would say, in a different way. So for example, with our wish gets catalog, we don't, we don't want a position that is just a donate now. We really look at our catalog as a shop now, the purchase of wish gift. And so we take best day ever and we tie it into how do you make that part of a shopping experience or an experience of meaningful gifts that give back. And so that's really, so that is for that team. So if you have the expertise and that it's pure drawb as that team lead to say, how do I take this theme and now execute it within my channel? And we always make sure when we pick with them, everybody's at the table to say, yes, I think this could work in all the different channels. Again, we have, we have a really big event that happens across all of the country, tree archery's a joy event. And so we want our holiday theme to also be present within that event because that's big and it happens all across the country. But again, for them, they're having the event, they're fundraising around the event. And so for them, it's a little bit more stewardship and how they use it, same with monthly donors, how do we position it. So it's really kind of looking at that's the theme. And then we really target it to very specific audiences, even in communications and then the strategy that they're taking forward, they're using it with their pitching media stories or their pitching stories of kids to say this was like this was the child's best day ever, but they're not saying, you know, donate that's not there at the point of what they're looking to do. And so that's how we really try to tie it together. So if the idea is if I see make a wish during this time, I see this theme and it's just, but it's being served to me in a different way. Yeah, so you're almost approaching it like a mini capital campaign where there's like, there's a theme that there's a case for this for the season. Yeah. And everything going outward bound is tying back to it. Yeah. Yeah. I do want to get into giving Tuesday. And before I do before we get into those details, you just talked about there's an event comms is going to media, their pitching stories are trying to get earned media. I'm sure you have a whole web and digital team that is thinking about what the website needs to look like during that time period. I'm sure there's a gift processing team that needs to know what is happening. There's stewardship. There's so many moving parts here when you have one theme for every department for the last few months of the year. How do you plan for that? How do you get everyone at the table? How do you get everyone to to row this boat in the same direction? Yeah, that's interesting. And that's something we've actually been expanding and we're still kind of learning on and how to really do it because we kind of come to this model in the in the last I would say year or so. And what we found is at the core, if we bring our teams together, the comms and my team and our creative services team when we build this, what we really do is we build a toolkit. So we have a toolkit that has here's all the assets that you need. This is how we recommend that you would put it into market. This is and so all of that we were very open. We have town halls and we have presentations with our senior leadership team and our senior director team. We walk them through it and we let them know this is a theme. This is why we picked it. This is how we recommend that you would use it here are the the kids that you would use here's the photography here's the the looking feel here's the type of logo lock up and everything goes to work for a creative services team. So from a look perspective, that's really helpful because it gets streamlined and they make sure that they're looking at every single piece. But from like just an agency wide like our organization wide perspective, there's really this push that it's unified from a and and kudos to our like our senior leadership team that really rally around this idea and and have everyone kind of be part of that ambassador for that program and making sure that you know if we if we sail this in the right direction all ships and all of everyone should kind of rise if we do it together and we've really been working within that and we see that actually that works if we were all kind of coming together and saying we have this theme and if we all rally behind it, but I will say like having a toolkit is really helpful because people are just looking for the information and having that ability to presenting the town hall or have separate meetings where we're just presenting it and fielding questions because it also helps us understand like oh we didn't think about that and so it's really just having that ability to have that open dialogue. Yeah. All right, so you've picked the theme you've got everyone on board you are starting to plan you're starting to build a toolkit for giving Tuesday but also for the for the overall holiday campaign when it comes to giving Tuesday specifically walk me through the evolution from when you first started doing it to where you are today. That's really great. So I have been through like one full giving Tuesday here so I can kind of talk about what was being done before and then we brought it but it was really looked at as sort of an isolated event and and looked really as a like one of the things I noticed and I think a lot of charities often still struggle with this is giving Tuesdays only one day and that's what it was looked at is like giving Tuesdays one day and all that day you send like two emails maybe three emails and you you rally people around trying to give to you for that one day and that's what it's looked like and we have a match that's exclusive to that day and and that's sort of how it is and everything updates to have that giving Tuesday type of message. So that's how it was viewed. It was really viewed as like a singular event in time and you talk about it sort of on the day and you really hope for the best and everybody to rally around together and it does well in a it's a great offer in market and that's sort of how I would say it was viewed when I when I first joined it was a singular event and we have to kind of respond to it because everybody else is doing it so we got to be in market we got to be competitive so that's what it was really looked at is just a we we must do this and it's a singular sort of an event that we we want to capitalize on versus looking at it as truly a campaign an actual campaign that's fully planned and has more of not just a singular day event by making it more expanded I would say market. Yeah how did you expand it from a singular day because a lot of people they think of giving Tuesday at its a day and we're going to send I don't know a couple of emails on that day we're going to call a couple of people we're going to maybe get a match in place and we put a ton of pressure on that one day how have you expanded it to be more than just a day but a mini campaign within a campaign. Yeah so for us it was um again I think for for me coming from working with so many different charities I think everybody struggled with it but the other thing is it's almost like when you think about um Black Friday or you think about all of these Black Friday doesn't just start the week before Black Friday like it seems to start sooner and sooner and sooner and sooner right and everything it feels like now starts sooner and sooner and sooner and sooner and you see more ads and you see on your like fully it's like if you walk right now into winners which is when my career starts but when you walk in there it's like I already see all the Halloween and I see all the Christmas that I'm like whoa and so I think it's the idea. Do you think of it from like that straight marketing perspective it's everybody's talking about the same thing so they're all trying to get ahead of it and I saw this trend and I think a lot of usbunders saw this trend happening where people were talking about giving Tuesday sooner and sooner and sooner and sooner and sooner and sooner and so it wasn't just like I know giving Tuesday this year is in December so like you would start like maybe mid-November maybe early like and you'd try hearing charities already saying giving Tuesday so much earlier.
And it's because everybody is fundraising around Giving Tuesday. Everybody seems to have a match on Giving Tuesday. Every so for us when we when I thought about that, I was like, if we're looking at every other charity that's out in market, they're already talking about Giving Tuesday at least a week in advance of Giving Tuesday. Actually, humming and it's building the anticipation. So for us, it was actually we started with we always had a two times match. And that's actually our baseline match for holiday is a two times match. And so one of the things that we looked at is if you have a two times match, what's the unique offer on Giving Tuesday? Like is that is it an expanded match? Is it? And so what we did is the week leading up to Giving Tuesday, we we already sort of activated our match and we started it at three times. So we elevated it up for what anybody else was going to see in market already. And we said is already at three times our paid media started earlier. So it was isolated to that day. But so we made sure we had a paid media strategy that was out in market already starting to show this already putting the messaging out there. Again, organic social or emails, website, everything was now saying like, we have this pre giving Tuesday sort of match. And it's new. And then when you get to giving Tuesday, we're like, okay, so now I'm on Giving Tuesday. I'm like, I already gave three times. So so now I'm giving Tuesday. We're like, let's up the match more. And so we have another match partner that was offered that offered to match on Giving Tuesday to increase our pool than to four times. So then on Giving Tuesday, what's unique? It different is just for that day only you have a four times match, which and for us as a charity, I know a lot of charities use matches and they work very effectively. We never have a four times match. So it's it's actually part of our full strategy across the year. You know, it's also in our partnerships and who we work with. And throughout the year, it's obviously harder to get bigger, bigger matches. But we have a lot of partners that want to match on Giving Tuesday. We have more of that money sort of coming in at that time. And so for us, that was really important. It was that's an exclusive true offer for our audience is that four times match on Giving Tuesday. And then you know, when we do our our stewardship on Giving Tuesday, our match doesn't disappear. So we actually still the day after our match is still active for at least another day. It's not the four times anymore, but it's still active. And so there's still the opportunity after like it's kind of like you didn't miss the bow. There's still an opportunity to give. So we really tried to build this like very comprehensive campaign that's around the idea that Giving Tuesday is not just a singular day, but we can make it so that there's anticipation. There's something new that's happening. There's a reason for you to be interested. There's actually if I see it, you had a two times match and even to three times. Oh my god. Now it's a four times match on Giving Tuesday. This must be the best offer to really have my gift go even further on now more compelled to give on Giving Tuesday as well. And so that was what we had really done. And I think I've seen studies that say like you fatigue people after like three or four or five times matches. Like there's a point where people start to get desensitized for matches. And I was very I'll be really honest with you Mike. I was pushing it. But the four times I really thought like maybe but thankfully our audience was like, okay, it worked. But I'm very cautious about the level of matching because I think there is a fatigue. And I think people sort of at a certain match when you're like, I don't believe you're actually matching this. Like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So the the overall campaign and let's last last year it was best day ever. So just for an example, let's go with it. Best they ever launches. It's a two X match. A week before giving to say you launch the giving Tuesday campaign and it's a three X match. So for a limited time, it goes from two X to three X. And now giving to say comes around and for a limited time, it's a four X. And after giving to say the next day or two, it's back to three X. You haven't missed a boat on like it's still higher than the baseline match of the general best day ever campaign. Yeah. Got it. Do you do any sort of pre giving to say engagement of specific donor groups? Let me explain what I mean by that. Sometimes people will like work with their corporate corporate partners team. And their corporate partners will do a staff fundraising things, specifically in on giving Tuesday and contribute to that day. Or sometimes giving groups, like giving circles will specifically do their thing for giving to say. And it's basically like lining people up to give on giving to say to help you make that day successful and also have a bunch of social proof that other people are jumping in and are giving. Do you do any of that sort of thing? Yes. So we do work with our corporate partners actually this year, one of our corporate partners is doing a full sort of campaign around giving to say as well that they're going to be like taking on and really engaging their audiences with. But yes, we have a lot of corporate partners because I think a lot of corporate partners see the impact of giving Tuesday and how important it is. So we do have corporate partners that come in last year. We had a corporate partner that actually did a onoffed with us about giving Tuesday. That was in the newspaper. And so it was like a co author to sort of op-ed that was just really specific to giving Tuesday and then also to our charity. So that was something that we had happen again. It was we had influencers. We worked with influencers last year. So to have a different sort of voice out in market. That's also talking about giving Tuesday. So we're not just now secular to just what we're doing in traditional sort of fundraising. But we have influencers are talking about giving Tuesday. We have like op-eds that are talking about positioning on giving Tuesday. And actually we had a unique opportunity with Canada helps as well to talk about giving Tuesday. And so that was an interesting way that we were able to kind of have a separate partnership with them to specifically talk about the impact of giving Tuesday and everything like that. So there is opportunity and we look at it with looking at not just internal. We also have a radio campaign that goes out with boom. And so we have boom that's talking about make a wish and giving Tuesday and how important it is. So we try to put ourselves in different areas that other people are also engaging with us. And they see our name with giving Tuesday and why it's so important in this period of giving. Yeah. So there's there's a lot of great opportunity with that. And we often just organically will hear people say, I want to do something for giving Tuesday. What are you guys doing? How can we support it? And so there's that's a really important part of it. Yeah. How do your major and mid-level audiences don't are based on how do they fit into giving Tuesday? If they do, then maybe they don't. Mid-level is what I'm going to really want to work on in fiscal, my fiscal 20, 6 coming up. But for a mid-level audience, we do actually, so we have two things that I've observed. One is our mid-level audience really responds to giving Tuesday. And so we have quite a few people that are going to only make their one big gift or their one mid-level gift at this time frame. And so they like the offer that's when they're going to give. That's really cracking the nugget on trying to get them to give more. But I think for them, they really like that. The other big thing that we found is we often get large what I would consider first time mid-level gifts coming in on giving Tuesday. So when I'm looking at, when we're going through the data, what we find on giving Tuesday specifically, and again at year end, those are the two prime periods, we'll see those gifts that qualify in mid-level, high-lock it. So it's a really great acquisition almost period for mid-level giving. And I think that's really important. And one of the things I really want to work on is how do you cultivate and see who's that person that could possibly give a mid-level gift? And if this is the time, it is at the offer with major giving, so that currently doesn't fall. No, it's never going to fall within my purview. I'm not a major gift fundraiser. I'm not sure what they do. It's not me. But I can say for again, for my experience, what we're finding is that major donors really like the giving Tuesday offers. And what I mean by that is we often get, because our email kind of goes out to like everybody. We've lost it and sometimes, you know, there are do not contacts on the major donors, especially if people are working with them, but sometimes they're not. And last year we actually found a really breakthrough gift that came in on giving Tuesday. So this donor, the person that was cultivating them had been trying to talk to them, trying to reach out to them. And they were kind of, you know, not interested, not really talking. They were just having really, like, struggle to try to really build that connection. And we had our Giving Tuesday campaigns. He was getting all of our communication and then on Giving Tuesday, he made a breakthrough gift. Yeah, he increased his giving by over $10,000. And so it was just a really interesting way to say, I think there are just people in the, and this is one of my, and it's something I've been advocating for is, I think often we will suppress major donors or we will say, oh, this is just, this is a mass, like especially with matches, right? People often think that's a mass strategy. That's something that they are doing. That's not, and they kind of keep major donors out of it. And they don't all put the offer in front of them. They don't put like the creative, the content. And it never gets to them. And I feel like that's money left on the table. So I, what I'm really advocating for is like an expanded partnership with really understanding our major donors. And presenting the same offer to them, maybe a little bit differently. But I really think they're in compelled to give to the offer. I think they want to give to Giving Tuesday. And I think it's an actual way to break through to some of the major donors that we have. And so that's something, but last year it was just really interesting because I observed this. And we had one really interesting case of this donor. And I thought, this is something that is really a keynote yet that we're missing. Yeah. Do you think about your Giving Tuesday campaign as largely created for the house file? And then also use this acquisition? Or is it largely created as acquisition? And then also inviting the house file? I think the way that we use it is it's built for a house file and it's all like it's great to get acquisition out of it. I do want to, I do think that there's an opportunity to challenge that though, because I think your house file, again, they know you, they're probably the people that are going to give to you on Giving Tuesday. And so I think it's important. But I think they're not the ones that you're trying to sell like to you. And then or you're not really trying to compel them. They're going to give to you. I would like to see us going.
into that more acquisition side because I do think if, you know, we're doing more brand awareness throughout the year and we're getting that. And now it's like a really great offer to bring in the new acquisition audience, which is something we've been really focused on this year is, is that top of funnel activity is getting more brand awareness, getting people to engage with us in different ways. So we're really hopeful this year on those key giving periods that we're going to see a lot of that conversion into new donors. Yeah, that makes sense. So then I am a donor and I give to you on giving Tuesday and my gift is for X. What can I expect after I make that gift to giving Tuesday? So we we talk on this show a lot about the fundraising flywheel. And so in our framework, it would be okay, we've made the ask, we've opened up a story loop. We've invited somebody to make a gift and we said, Hey, something meaningful is going to happen as a result of your philanthropy. How do you like celebrate that gift? Thank the thank the donor and then report back on it. Yeah, that's a great question. So first for us is the day after giving Tuesday for everybody we send out, we actually segmented to people who don't need to and didn't donate and we send like a thank you message for giving Tuesday, but we always make sure we have a very compelling video on there because we found our audience really likes videos and they really respond well to them. And so we really in two key places that we really focused on is our holiday message and also our message for after giving Tuesday as a thank you. And what we really do is have real wish kids in there. We try to get the content well in advance. If we could have, you know, a spokesperson or a voiceover or anybody, we really try to think about what's the best way to do that. But we know that real wish kids saying thank you, really understanding that parents of wish families that are talking about the impact. So we always make sure that's very intentional, though what we're doing on giving Tuesday is pulling that content together to have that video because I think that's just an immediate one to one reaction and connection. And in that email, we also try to obviously put impact stats because we think that like what I can tell is that we have two different types of people I give to us. Right. There's people that are emotionally driven. And so they're going to be looking at the real impact. And then there's other people that are like, how much is my dollar actually going to go towards like what are you actually going to put towards. So we had that that happens. And then we do have an e-muse letter follow up that happens very quickly after giving Tuesday and our e-muse letter is very like comprehensive around wish stories impact. We really try to do more full sum storytelling and full sum content that tells that really talks about your impact, but it means quite is right. And then of course, we have like our holiday message that comes from our CEO and that message again, very intentional that we build that not surprisingly, but outside of giving Tuesday and year end that message we sent on the on the 24th, which was had no asking it whatsoever, raised the most amount of money from all of our holiday things. I know you're nodding because you know this to be true. I think it's so simple, but it's the most I think impactful thing that you can do. And so we're very intentional. We start building like as we're building giving Tuesday, we're already thinking about that video and what's going to be in that video, what's going to be in the Giving Tuesday video. And again, this was through testing. Like we found our audience really likes videos. And then the next follow up is after we get through this really big holiday push, we have an impact report that goes out in February. So our first like next touch point that's going to come that's major through direct mail and also then through online is is an impact report. That's really reporting back on all of the impact and what you're you're making possible. We do know the twofold. It's a what's already been accomplished. And then what your gift is going to allow us to do this year. And so that's what we try to do. So that's it's really important that we make sure that impact report goes out in February. Yeah, I love the idea of as you're building out the ask already be building out the thank you and report back. Just do it all at once. Yeah. And it's an after thought it's just like it should just part of it's like when we're doing this. What are we saying afterwards like hard we saying thank you to them. Yeah, you just touched on the right mail a little bit. Do you do any mail for giving Tuesday or is it mostly online? No, we don't do any mail. So we don't go out for a mail file. They will have the three times. So we do two times for October and November for our audience. And then we send them their final follow up in December. It does go to three times in direct mail. But we don't give to like we don't drop right in that. Well, uniquely this year we will be dropping very close to giving Tuesday, but it will probably miss the book. And last year first Canada post was not. Okay, so you've made all these changes. Are you comfortable sharing some results like how's it working? Yeah, so I can tell you so you're over here. So from our 2024 or 2023 fiscal year's always going to be the 2023 cap into 24. We saw a 22.6% increase in revenue year over year for giving Tuesday. We had a 3.7% increase in the number of donors year over year. And then we had an 18.3% increase in our average gift year over year. So it was it was tremendous. And you can tell right away like our increase in revenue was helped with a really strong increase in average gift. In addition to we did get an increase in new donors or number of donors that gave to us. Well, we really saw though was the giving surge surge the day before giving Tuesday. And so we saw an impressive 86% increase in donations the day before giving Tuesday. Yeah, so that was really if we think about like what our key breakthrough was actually the the Monday where we saw like the previous year we had also done a Monday. And I'm a day off right. I don't think was there may be the right one or it wasn't the right approach to it, but that's really the biggest breakthrough is 86% growth in that the day before giving. Yeah, and you attributed that to having launched a full week early and sort of having teed up giving Tuesday is coming. Yes, yeah. Yeah, and the way we like kind of left out are giving Tuesday. We just in the service results are in just like sort of the day we look at the total Monday and then giving Tuesday. So that doesn't even account for the additional week where we saw tremendous growth. I only looked at is with a Monday and Tuesday combined together. That's where we saw the the tremendous growth when we did look at it as like the week fire and forward. We also saw growth. I don't have those numbers off the top of my head. You didn't see a lot of birth. But the way we kind of reform and what giving Tuesday is we just looked at those two days and isolated. Isolation. Yeah. Are you trying anything this year in a couple of months here? Are you trying anything new this year? That's a big question. So we have a new brand campaign out in markets. So we're really hopeful to see how that's going to support us and what we do. But for we're already into our planning for giving Tuesday. We're looking at an expanded opportunity. Again, like I mentioned, we have a corporate partner that wants to really capitalize on giving Tuesday. So we're leaning into that and what that how we could leverage that for ourselves. But yeah, we're already like talking to our corporate partners about who's going to be like giving Tuesday match. I have thought a little bit about like we've talked internally about incentivized giving like is there something else that you get a point of purchase. And we're that's a debatable one of it. Do we want to do something around that? Do we want to maybe test it and see maybe it's the lead up to giving Tuesday again. It's if I'm not going to give because of the offer. Is it am I motivated to give for another reason? The other thing that was really interesting is with our catalog program. So I did find with our catalog program is when we unlocked some exclusive matches for the catalog it did really well. So I want to see if there's something I think there's certain donors that like to give to you. The catalog and that's where they're going to give and there's a way for us to kind of leverage giving Tuesday for the catalog. When I worked with save the children in the past, they did this where they did an A/B split where they did a giving Tuesday offer, which was catalog focused and then one that was just regular focused and they found more people gave to the catalog offer. It was more compelling. So I'm curious about testing. I've been thinking about that before right now. We just saw like really tremendous growth. And we're seeing what can we do to really just take it to the next step. And the thing is just really targeted personalization. We were on Salesforce Marketing Cloud now. We're going to have a much more unique ability to do that. So that's where I really want to lean into is speaking to lots of audiences differently. We have this big group of event donors, people who give to events that we can't just crack the navi on. And we haven't been able to figure it out. But I think now with that data. So that's really where I want to focus a little bit more in that space. Got it. When does your gift catalog launch? Our gift catalog launches October 3rd. So that gets out in market very, very soon. Yeah. Here's why I asked that question is because a lot of the critiques of giving Tuesday is this. I don't know how to fit it into your end. The year end campaign makes so much more money than a giving Tuesday campaign is giving Tuesday even worth it. But you're an example of an organization that actually has a ton going on at your end. You have a gift catalog. You have a few different events it sounds like, including a trees of joy event. You have a big year end holiday campaign that you're running. And yet you're still putting a lot of effort and priority on giving Tuesday. So I think you're a great example of an organization that is kind of proving bucking the trend here in terms of like giving Tuesday. Even though we've got a super robust year end strategy. Giving Tuesday is still a key pillar of that. Yeah, giving Tuesday. I think for me, I'm always like giving Tuesday is giving Tuesday. It's one of those things when I think about myself not in the fundraising world, right? If I think about myself outside of it, if I go talk to like my brother or I talk to my neighbor or something, talk to somebody else they hear about giving Tuesday. They know giving Tuesday it's out there because you hear Black Friday cyber Monday. So they kind of are more into into giving Tuesday. So I think to me, there's a tremendous audience that's going to give to you during that time. And how do you just make it more compelling? And the other thing is we did look at the data of how many people gave on giving Tuesday and then gave again at year end or gave throughout the holiday campaign. And we saw it's not just one and one and done. They're giving again. There's a good strong portion of donors. And I want to that's one of the things I actually want to monitor this year is does that increase decrease is we did see.
that people that gave on Giving Tuesday, they weren't just one in that. They were giving again. They would, depending on the offer, they were giving either again at your end or they were giving to a holiday campaign. And that was the big thing. And that's more where I want to continue to move the needle is not just how people give that one in done gift. Is that, could they give again? And so we don't look at it as like, they're only going to give to you on Giving Tuesday and they're not going to give to you at your end. It's, they're likely to give to you at both times. It's just how do you make it compelling enough that they're going to give to you at two different times? Yeah. Well, thank you very much for joining us on a podcast today and giving us a bit of a case study and a look into Giving Tuesday. Will you come back sometime in the new year and we can see how you're giving Tuesday performed this year? 100% and fingers crossed that I'm going to come back until you've voted you for more percent in face than revenue year over year. Yeah, I'm sure you are. Well, that's all for today folks. This has been a bit of a case study with repeender from Make a Wish Canada. If you like case studies, if you like hearing about real organizations, the real work they're doing, some of the real numbers and results and thinking and even some of the real failures and learnings, I think you should come to the Build Good Summit in Toronto next year, May 13th to 14th. We are working on it, we're confirming speakers, but you can already get tickets right now for the lowest price that they will ever be. Just go to BuildGoodSummit.com, click the button there, enter your email and you're going to be in our funnel and you are going to get an email with a special offer to buy your tickets for 50% off. I've been taking notes during this conversation and here's a quick roadmap for you today. If you are considering doing a giving Tuesday campaign, number one is make it part of your holiday theme, make it a key pillar, make it a mini campaign within your larger holiday theme, that's what repeender did. Number two is think full funnel. What, what, what, what, full funnel just means where all the different ways that I can be supporting the giving Tuesday offer. Number three is launching early. Giving Tuesday, just like Black Friday, is an event. It's an event that has a pre event season and a post event season. So launch early, have a unique reason for supporters to be part of it early already. Have a unique reason for why they should give on the actual day and then extend the invitation a day or two after giving Tuesday for those who missed the boat. Lastly, your report backs and your thank yous build them right at the same time that you're building the giving Tuesday campaign. That way everything is cohesive. You will likely feel a lot more prepared for when you actually launch the giving Tuesday campaign. It'll give you more confidence and we know that in fundraising confidence actually often leads to better results. So that's all for today. If you're listening to this, you're my kind of people. I'm your kind of people. Thank you for the work you do. I'm your host Mike Turkson, cheering you on as you took it in the world. (upbeat music)
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