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For any nonprofit, the last few months of the year are huge. Not only do we see a surge in generous donations around this time, but there are also days and events specifically created to help potential donors focus on the causes they care about.

One of the most popular such days is Giving Tuesday, a global day of giving, created to help people stay intentional about charitable giving and nonprofits they support. This year, Giving Tuesday falls on December 3rd, and if you’re planning for your nonprofit’s strategy, it’s vital to maximize your efforts.

If all you’re planning to do for Giving Tuesday is send out a few random reminders or create a banner, you’re missing out on a huge pool of potential donors. Using software tailored to your nonprofit’s needs – like ours at Paperless Transactions – you can make sure no stone goes unturned in your efforts. Here are our five tips to best prepare your nonprofit for Giving Tuesday this year.

1. Design a Giving Page

One of the top ways to lose potential donors is having a confusing website (or no website at all), which inadvertently leads people away from your site and also away from clicking donate. No one wants to visit a website with a specific goal in mind only to find a cluttered page that’s difficult to navigate, forcing them to do a bunch of legwork to find the donate button. Ultimately these potential donors leave your page and decide on another charitable cause that’s provided an easier to use solution.

To create a page that looks great and functions for your donors, you should utilize a service that makes it easy for you. At Paperless Transactions, we’ve created Page Builder Pro - Robust Design, which helps you build pages that make sense not only for your donors but also for you. Platforms like Page Builder Pro allow you to evolve quickly, creating and editing pages as needed without waiting for updates.

Obviously, other software can help you build a straightforward page that has information on it but accomplishes little else. With Paperless Transactions, you get coaching to help you build a page that works for you to gather potential donors and target the right people for you. You can even create two different campaigns for A/B Testing to figure out what works best for nonprofit campaigns. These are digital marketing practices that all kinds of brands are taking advantage of, and now your nonprofit can, too.

2. Maximize Your Visibility

Whether it’s for something as big as Giving Tuesday or an event in the early spring, your goal should be to have the most effective campaign as possible. To do this, you must maximize your visibility. In the digital era, this is a new challenge, but it also has tremendous benefits.

With software like Page Builder Pro - Donor Analytics built to utilize Google Analytics metrics, not only can you design versatile pages for your website, you’ll also be able to analyze donor data, which can help your nonprofit become more visible to search engines as well as provide real insights into how your donors behave on your page ultimately giving you full visibility into what’s working for you or what’s working against you. Increasing your visibility also means utilizing other mediums, such as email campaigns. With an efficient donor page, it’s easier than ever to gather contact information and create these types of campaigns, and Paperless Transactions can help.

During Giving Tuesday and the end of the year, donors are looking for causes and nonprofits to give their money to right now, not in the future. Harnessing all your digital capabilities to make your nonprofit as visible as possible allows you to catch these donors at the right time.

Not only that, but Paperless Transactions has the capability to manage all aspects of your campaign, from your website to targeted emails to SMS messages. An all-in-one service allows every bit of your campaign to work together without having to try to manage it from different systems.

3. Meet Donors Where They Are

These days, getting donors from your website while they’re sitting down at their computer is important, but it’s only one piece of the larger picture. Meeting your donors where they are is crucial to getting as many donations as possible, and where are they? Their phones.

With Paperless Transactions, we can create a custom mobile app that fits your exact needs, tailored for your church or nonprofit. This means Text2Donate campaigns, which involve sending texts to your donors that can include actual links for them to donate or allow communication directly with someone in your organization via chat.

Paperless Transactions allows our clients to:

• Build a custom mobile app for your church or nonprofit, uniquely positioned to accomplish your goals
• Make it easier for your donors and/or volunteers to connect within the app for events and functions
• Allow donors to give through the app, creating a seamless process and connection between you and your audience

Basically, engagement is key, and an app enables total engagement with your content and nonprofit.

These mobile apps and messages are also vital for donors who might wish to give a large donation but aren’t sure how that works. If these types of donors are unable to find answers, they may be encouraged to go elsewhere. With the ability to ask questions from their cell phones, you enable them to get the answers they need reliably and efficiently.

4. Create and Track Your Goals

All of the functions we’ve mentioned so far are excellent ways to tap into a larger market on Giving Tuesday, but to really take your efforts to the next level, you should develop campaigns that not only get you donations on December 3rd, but that also helps you build and meet long-term goals.

Every campaign should have a set of goals, whether that’s a specific dollar amount reached or a number of new contacts gained. With Paperless Transaction, you can easily track your campaign goals in every facet, whether that’s email, texting, or online donations.

With Page Builder Pro, you can even connect your website to Google Analytics and get precise, in-depth data that can help you not only track your goals but create new ones that make sense for your donor base.

5. Build Relationships With Donors

One of the more underrated but very important parts of Giving Tuesday and other times of the year with large donations is that receiving a donation can also mean receiving contact information from donors who support and care about your cause. Using a service like Paperless Transactions allows you to gather this data and use it to forge relationships that benefit both you and your past, present, and future supporters.

Contact information of donors who you already know support your cause allows you to send email campaigns and text messages to them and even provide the convenience of a mobile app, building a relationship that continues their support and partnership with your nonprofit.

Get Prepared in Advance

You might be thinking that this all sounds great but there’s just no way to get it done before Giving Tuesday, but Paperless Transactions can help you within a week or even a few days. From now until Giving Tuesday, Paperless Transactions is waiving our setup fees until December to give you a chance to see how effective and efficient we can be for you. Fill out the form below to take advantage of this special offer and to download out #GivingTuesday toolkit.