Taking Giving Days to the Next Level

Originally featured on the Knight Foundation Blog on July 8, 2015

For many community foundations, Giving Days have been a great way to cultivate donors for their community’s nonprofits, while raising millions for local causes. Several funders have gained so much expertise in this area, that they have shared their own tools and templates for the broader field in Knight Foundation’s Giving Day Playbook, an online, soup-to-nuts guide to putting on one of these online giving campaigns.

Now, though, that many foundations have a few Giving Days under their belts, we’ve heard that organizers need higher-level on training that can help advance their efforts. So today, we’ re introducing our advanced Giving Day webinars, a free and open series addressing the needs of growing and experienced campaigns. As more community foundations are integrating Giving Days into their work, they face issues of sustainability, and often question how the management of these days helps them leverage their presence in the community and bring in new donor advised funds. This advanced series will focus on topics that speak to those goals, and give advice and tools to participants.

Moderated by social media expert and trainer Beth Kanter, the series will address a range of topics, from how to land corporate sponsorships to using a Giving Day to build your foundation’s brand.

And because there are always foundations and staff new to Giving Days, we, in partnership with consultants Third Plateau, will kick off the series with a Giving Day Basics for Newcomers in August. The session will be a general introduction for those trying these campaigns for the first time.

Here are the upcoming webinars, with registration links:

Giving days for Newcomers (2 p.m. E.T. Aug. 13): This webinar for Giving Day newbies will provide an overview of the main areas that every organizer must consider, such as campaign goals and structure, donor incentives, crisis planning, communications and measuring success. Three community foundations, from cities big and small, will discuss their approaches to conceptualizing and executing their campaigns. Register.

Landing Corporate Sponsorships (2 p.m. E.T. Aug. 27) : Even though Giving Days raise more and more funds for communities each year, the foundations that organize them continue to search for ways to make these campaigns financially self-sustaining. This webinar will cover the best practices and methods for researching, cultivating, landing and retaining corporate and business sponsors for Giving Days. Register.

Building Your Foundation’s – and Your Giving Day’s Brand (2 p.m. E.T. Sept. 17) : Giving Days help community foundations raise their profile, and increase awareness of the valuable roles they play in their cities. However, many hosting foundations do not have a branding strategy that can help them capitalize on the added boost of an outward-facing, attention-generating Giving Day. This webinar will share best practices in crafting a brand strategy that takes advantages of the lift of a Giving Day yet benefits the community foundation year round. Register.

Reaching Diverse Donors (2 p.m. E.T. Oct. 15, 2015): While Giving Days are successful at bringing nonprofits new dollars and donors, the campaigns may not be attracting a diverse or representative set of participants, early research shows. Given the nature of Giving Days, there is great potential in using them as a platform for deepening and broadening giving in communities – even from people who don’t consider themselves philanthropists. This webinar will share expert advice from proven fundraising campaigns on how a foundation can truly democratize giving in their community. Register.

A full list of speakers is available at givingdayplaybook.org/webinar.

Along with the webinar series, you can join the Giving Day Exchange Facebook group, a safe place to share successes and resources and ask questions as you experiment with Giving Day models.

We hope you find these webinars and resources useful as you continue to raise your community profile and engage new donors. Please share your stories with us on Facebook and during the webinar series, and encourage others to join!