A small charity with no budget can take part in Giving Tuesday on 1 December and do it well, though probably not by copying what large charities do. The day is crowded with cash appeals from organisations with paid advertising and email lists in the tens of thousands. Your advantage is the people who already know you, and the decision that matters most is what you ask them for. Sometimes the right answer is not money.
What follows is a plan built backwards from 1 December, for a charity where one or two people will do all of it alongside everything else.
If your appeal names a specific target, read what to do when a charity appeal raises too much or too little before you publish anything.
Is Giving Tuesday worth it for a small charity?
Yes, with a condition attached. Giving Tuesday UK is run by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, and it brings a day of public attention to giving that no small charity could buy. What it will not do is introduce strangers to a charity they have never heard of. The people who give to you on 1 December will mostly be people who already knew you existed on 30 November.
So the honest test is the size of that group. If you have a few dozen supporters, volunteers or past donors, the day gives you a reason to ask them for something. If you have almost nobody, use the day to start a list rather than to raise money, and treat anything that comes in as a bonus.
It also helps to know that the UK campaign counts far more than donations. Its own description of how to take part includes volunteering time, sharing skills, donating goods, campaigning and running a community event. That matters for a small charity, because a request for three volunteers or one person with bookkeeping experience competes with far fewer asks on the day than a request for money.
Decide what you are asking for
One ask. Not a menu.
A charity that asks for donations, volunteers, goods and newsletter sign-ups in the same post gets a little of each, or nothing. Choose the thing you most need and can most easily explain, and make everything else wait.
A one-off donation towards something specific. The most familiar option and the most crowded. It works best when the thing is concrete and small enough to be reachable, and when you have evidence for what it costs. If you name a target, write a sentence saying what happens to the money if you raise more or less, before the appeal goes live.
A monthly gift. Undervalued by small charities and well suited to a day about giving. One person giving £5 a month gives £60 over a year and tends to keep giving, which is worth more to a small charity’s planning than several one-off gifts of £20.
Time or skills. Volunteers for a specific role, or one person with a skill you are short of: accounts, design, safeguarding, grant applications. Easier to ask for, and the people who say yes often become donors later.
Goods. Food banks, baby banks, school uniform schemes and furniture projects can ask for exactly what they are short of, with a drop-off point and a date.
A sign-up. For a charity starting from very little, simply getting fifty people onto a mailing list with their consent may be the most useful outcome of the whole day.
Who you can reach without spending anything
Start with the people closest to you and work outwards.
Your existing supporters, volunteers and past donors come first, because they are the most likely to respond. Then your trustees, each of whom knows people you do not, and who can reasonably be asked to share your post and send it to five people personally. A trustee board of six that each reaches five people is thirty warm contacts you did not have before.
Local businesses are worth an approach, though keep the ask modest. A poster in a window, a share on their social media, or a donation towards your target. If a business offers to give a share of its sales on the day, that arrangement needs a written agreement in place before it starts, so agree it in October rather than the week before.
Local press, community Facebook groups, residents’ associations and faith groups all carry small charity news more readily than people assume, particularly with a local angle and a photo. Giving Tuesday UK also provides free graphics and a partner toolkit, which saves making your own.
One group needs more care than the others. People who use your services may well want to support you, but asking them for money can create pressure they find hard to refuse. Invite them to share or to take part in an event, and leave the financial ask to others.
October, setting it up
The work in October is deciding and preparing, so that November is about telling people rather than building things.
Write the ask in two or three plain sentences, and find one story to go with it: a person your charity helped, told with their consent, or an honest account of what your charity has done this year and what it could not do. One specific story does more than a general description of your work.
Check the route people will use to give. If you already have a donation page, look at the fees it charges and make sure a Gift Aid declaration is on the form, since it lets you claim an extra 25p for every £1 given by a UK taxpayer at no cost to them. If you are asking for time or goods, set up the simplest possible way for someone to say yes: a form, an email address, a drop-off time.
Line up two or three people who will share your post on the day and mean it. A trustee, a volunteer with a good local network, a business owner who likes you. Ask them now and tell them the date.
If you are running a coffee morning or another event for the day, list it for free on Nonprofit Voice and anywhere else local people look.
Not listed on Nonprofit Voice yet? A free directory profile, written in your own words, means that someone who hears about you on Giving Tuesday can find out who you are when they search. List your charity for free.
November, getting ready
Tell your supporters in early November that something is coming on 1 December. People who have been told in advance respond far better on the day than people who receive a cold ask along with forty others.
Draft every message for the day before the day. A morning post launching the ask, a mid-afternoon update on how it is going, and an evening message saying thank you and where things stand. Three is enough. Tell people how many to expect and stick to it.
Open your donation page on a phone and read it from the top, because that is how most people on the day will see it. If the fee information or the Gift Aid box is hard to find on a small screen, fix it now.
Decide who will watch your inbox and social media on 1 December, and who can answer a question from a donor quickly. A small charity that replies within the hour looks more trustworthy than a large one that replies next week.
Know what else is happening that week. The Big Give Christmas Challenge runs from 1 to 8 December, and its applications closed in July. If you are not part of it, your supporters will see matched appeals from other charities all week. Do not try to compete on matching. Compete on being close to them and specific about what you need.
Write your thank-you message in November too. The reason is in the last section.
On the day
Post the ask in the morning, and send your supporters the email or message you told them to expect. Share progress honestly as the day goes on, including the modest parts: “twelve people have given so far” reads as more genuine than a vague claim of overwhelming support. Thank people publicly as they give, if they are happy to be named.
Do not send more than you said you would. Everyone’s inbox is full on 1 December, and the charity that sends a fourth message is the one people unsubscribe from.
The day after is where small charities win
Large charities send automated receipts. A small charity can send a real message from a named person, within two days, saying what the gift will do. That difference is the whole of your advantage, and most small charities waste it by sending nothing until they need something again.
Thank everyone who gave, volunteered, shared or turned up. Tell them clearly what their contribution makes possible. Then, in January, tell them what happened: what the money bought, what the volunteers did, what changed. Ask anyone new if they would like to hear from you again, and keep a record that they said yes.
A charity that raises a modest sum on Giving Tuesday and turns ten first-time donors into people who hear from it twice a year has done better than one that raised more and heard from none of them again.
Running a campaign this December? A featured campaign placement puts your appeal in front of donors browsing Nonprofit Voice through the whole giving season, with a button straight to your own donation page. Apply for a featured placement.
