Amplify Your Marketing Efforts with an Online Giving Day Store
Lancaster County Community Foundation’s ExtraGive delivered truly extraordinary results on November 19, 2021. This year was a huge milestone as they celebrated their tenth annual Giving Day, and their fourth year with GiveGab. Raising over $15 million from 30,000 donors for 516 organizations, ExtraGive’s success can be attributed to Lancaster County’s robust community that came together to support this local cause.
Tracy Cutler, Executive Vice President of the Lancaster County Community Foundation (LCCF) shared how they engaged their community to drum up enthusiasm for ExtraGive – utilizing an online store for their marketing materials.
“As the creators and hosts of our Giving Day, […] we have always been intentional about engaging as many local vendors as possible and committing marketing dollars to support promotion of the event.”
The ExtraGive team and their participating organizations host a wide array of in-person and virtual events in the hopes to promote the 24-hour giving period. Having branded materials available to nonprofits at a discounted rate is a crucial part of the Giving Day’s social media presence and marketing.
To Tracy, partnering with a local firm, the H&H Group, was a natural step towards this initiative. They had a strong relationship with this company already as they supplied LCCF with many of their printing needs year-round. When approached with the idea of working together on ExtraGive, the H&H Group “proposed creating and managing an ExtraGive micro-site for direct online ordering.” As a community supporter, the H&H Group also generously offered the ExtraGive products to nonprofits at a special low rate.
In this online store, nonprofits are able to select from a full range of ExtraGive branded products, including posters, postcards, banners, yard signs, large photo frames, and more. Many of these items could be customized with their organization’s logo. This allows LCCF to ensure that marketing materials used by participating organizations maintain the core ExtraGive branding and that they are promoting the Giving Day’s generous sponsors in a consistent way.
Participants can place their orders and pick them up at the H&H Group’s brick and mortar store or arrange for delivery for some items, which has been an option since the pandemic.
New this year, the Community Foundation “offered each organization a stipend to use towards printing and production of the products that would work best for them.” Then, the H&H Group was able to bill LCCF directly.
Rather than spending their marketing budget on “one-size-fits-all” materials that some organizations may not find useful, this approach allows every dollar to be used for the exact needs of each unique organization.
From the Community Foundation’s perspective, this outsourcing of a major part of their event has been a game-changer. It lightens the load for ExtraGive’s organizers and allows them to focus on other aspects of the Giving Day. Tracy also recognizes the importance of local businesses engaging with more customers and supporting an exciting community event.
Thank you so much to Tracy for taking the time to share LCCF’s Extraordinary marketing and congratulations on such an amazing Giving Day!
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