5 Common Pitfalls to Avoid While Collecting Giving Day Donations
On a Giving Day, donations are made through one website to many, often hundreds, of separate organizations or departments.
To ensure you’re ready to collect donations on the big day, here are five common pitfalls to avoid.
1. Entering Bank Account Information too Last-Minute
It can take a few days for your bank account to be ready to receive donations through GiveGab’s Giving Day platform, so if you wait until the very last minute, you may not be able to collect donations on the day!
Fortunately, our friendly and speedy Customer Success Team provides plenty of reminders, and the platform itself (being user-friendly) makes it quick and easy to add this information, so nothing is standing in your way of completing this on time!
2. Promoting the Wrong Giving Profile
Make sure you familiarize yourself with the difference between your Giving Day profile and your GiveGab profile! The GiveGab platform is designed for both year-round fundraising campaigns (as well as events and volunteer management) AND 24-hour Giving Days, so all of these capabilities exist when you sign up with the platform.
Your Giving Day profile is available for a limited time and dependent on the rules around your day, whereas your general GiveGab profile can exist for as long as you want it to. Make sure you’re sharing your Giving Day profile by navigating to your “Giving Days” tab and copying the link to your giving profile to share with your supporters.
3. Having More Offline Donations than Online
For many Giving Days on GiveGab, offline donations (those made outside of the Giving Day platform by cash, check, or otherwise) do not count toward the Leaderboard totals or associated prizes. These offline donations can be added to your Giving Day totals, but they typically won’t count toward your standing for having the “Most Raised’ or “Most Donors” for the Giving Day.
So, although these donations are still important and valued, offline donations don’t carry the same weight as online for a Giving Day (in most cases).
4. Not Updating Your Donate Button on Facebook
To ensure all your online donations come through your Giving Day campaign, you’ll need to connect your Facebook button directly to your Giving Day campaign link.
Any donations made through Facebook’s built-in donation tool WILL NOT count toward the online giving of your event. To ensure users are not confused, there is an option to deactivate Facebook’s “Donate” functionality for the duration of the Giving Day.
In addition, you can promote your Giving Day campaign link directly on your Facebook page as apart of your regular content marketing strategy.
It’s also important to note that if your nonprofit has not connected a bank account to Facebook, any incoming funds will sit in Facebook or Network for Good’s Donor-Advised Fund until your organization claims them.
5. Not Customizing Your “Thank You” Emails
On GiveGab, you can set up automated “Thank You” emails that include a donation receipt to be sent to all your donors. These can be customized to include an image or video that make the email even more meaningful.
A number of your supporters on a Giving Day could be first-time donors, and it’s estimated that “93% of donors would give a second gift to the same organization if they used donor-centered fundraising.” Customizing your Giving Day emails is a simple step of stewardship that could go a long way.
Find more Giving Day tips here or schedule time to speak with one of our Nonprofit Engagement Specialists below!
About the Author
Kyle is GiveGab’s Director of Nonprofit Engagement.
Her mission is to connect fundraising professionals from cause-based organizations with the products and services that will make their jobs easier and their efforts more successful.
You can connect with Kyle directly here.
