December 3^rd marks the seventh anniversary of  GivingTuesday which has grown from an idea spawned at the 92^ndStreet Y in New York City has grown into a global movement involving thousands of organizations and millions of donors and is now its own organization.

So far in its 7 years GivingTuesday’s organizers claim the event has produced more than $1   billion in online gifts in the U.S. alone.  The GivingTuesday organizers are estimating that this year’s 2019 event will raise $400 milllion in the U.S from 3.6 million gifts with a mean gift size of $105.

In short, GivingTuesday has become a cultural phenomenon for a good part of the nonprofit world. [ If you want to learn more about “who” gives and “why” GivingTuesday has published a FAQ that’s well worth a read.]

GivingTuesday also has its skeptics, critics and advice-givers:  The Agitator  among them with  our posts like A Better Alternative to #GivingTuesday  … On #Giving Tuesday, Thank, Don’t Ask   … For Your Matching Gift and #GivingTuesday File. Each of these posts contains a small dose of “grumpy” and a large portion of helpful advice.

Most of the criticism of GivingTuesday is rooted in the legitimate concern that too many nonprofits place too much emphasis/dependence on a single day rather than treating it as just one part of a larger, overarching fundraising and campaigning strategy.

The Agitator isn’t discouraging participation in GivingTuesday.  We are discouraging nonprofits from jumping into the #GivingTuesday Sea of Sameness by blindly copying each other’s subject lines, poorly-thought-through matching gift offers and other oft-misunderstood and often misused tactics.

As a sort of negative checklist to help you avoid common mistakes for GivingTuesday 2019. Here are some examples of poor and/or undistinguished subject lines and badly executed matching gift offers we’ve highlighted in the past.

In 2016 Nick signed up for emails from the 100 largest charities in the United States. have a warped sense of fun.). Here are the subject lines from most of the emails he received around that GivingTuesday:

• A special Giving Tuesday challenge for you
• Alert: Triple Match
• DEADLINE: #GivingTuesday gifts doubled!
• Don’t miss this, Nick
• Double your impact for #GivingTuesday
• ENDS TONIGHT: Now up to $15,000 available!
• Every donation doubled today!
• FINAL NOTICE: Match expiring
• FW: Alert: Triple Match
• fwd: [until midnight] TRIPLE your impact
• #GivingTuesday challenge
• #GivingTuesday is here!
• #GivingTuesday: Your gift DOUBLES
• Good news: match EXTENDED
• Happening now: TRIPLE your impact
• Hours Left: Help Meet Our #GivingTuesday Match Goal
• Hurry Nick – triple match!
• It’s not too late: 2x MATCH
• Last chance: 3x Match
• Last chance for Giving Tuesday
• MATCH: 3x
• Match! Make Bigger Change This Giving Tuesday
• Only a few hours left
• Reminder: Give on #GivingTuesday!
• There’s still time to help – #GivingTuesday
• This #GivingTuesday your gift doubles!
• Triple Match Alert: Time is running out
• TODAY ONLY: Gifts Doubled!
• UPDATE: We’re So Close to Our Goal!
• URGENT response needed: All gifts DOUBLED!
• Your gift can be matched on #GivingTuesday
• Your #GivingTuesday gift

Three key things to notice about this list:

1. Almost everyone has a match. In an effort to stand out in a noisy email environment with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and post-Cyber Monday, they’ve all picked the same tactic.

This leads to what Nick calls “the Men’s Wearhouse effect”. Whenever you see an ad for that store, you see that you get one, two, or three suits free when you buy one. Why would you ever buy something regular price there without a free suit?

Same thing here. If the best idea that all of us have simultaneously is to have a match, you are going to train your donors to respond only to matches. In fact, there’s some evidence here that talking about a lead gift works better than a match (because some people count the match as part of their gift and give lower average gifts). And triple matches don’t work better than 100% matches (which may not work better than 50% matches). Also, they tend to work only for active donors; lapsed donors and non-donors respond better to pitches as to why to give. And that brings us to the  second point:

2. These subject lines talk about when to give, not why. And when you do that, you don’t raise new money – you cannibalize revenue from other communications you would have received. We already know that 63% of revenues from an additional communication aren’t new revenues. Why contribute to it by making your primary pitch the time of year, rather than the good your gift can do?

Here is the opening of one of the Giving Tuesday emails – we’ve changed it only to anonymize who sent it (because even a great organization is entitled to a mistake or two):

“As I’m sure you know, today is #GivingTuesday. But it’s also the end of November, and digital revenue for XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX is behind $XXXXXXXX, Nick. Luckily, every donation today will be TRIPLED. Will you step up?”

Why would any fundraiser ever think a shortfall in digital revenue would be compelling to a donor?  Donors don’t want to fill a bucket; they want to light a fire.

Donors want to save a life or change a life.  They do not give a damn that Digital Dan is 4% behind his November revenue goal.

At the very least, make a pitch that someone cares about.

Here are a few subject lines from Nick’s email treasure hunt that actually do this:

• Help Jewish kids like me this Giving Tuesday
• Raise your voice for kidney patients
• Thank a Professor, Save a Scholar
• This Giving Tuesday, give clean water

These were emails written by someone with an actual ask for a differentiated reason. Which leads to our third point:

3. Most of these emails are snoringly generic. Take a look back at the original list of subject lines. We’ll bet the entire contents of your wallet that you can’t guess which organizations sent any of those emails.

We’ll go one step further and bet that some of the people who wrote those subject lines don’t remember which is which. They are looking at the list saying “did we use ‘#GivingTuesday challenge’ or ‘#GivingTuesday is here!’?”

So…take the generic out of your GivingTuesday campaign (and all your campaigns for that matter) and let donors know why  to give

As you review the drafts you’ve prepared for GivingTuesday take a step back. Does it hurt to remind people that this is a special day of giving? Absolutely not. But that can’t be your primary message. Otherwise, your donors will complete the sentence “It’s time to give” with “to someone else.”

Have a great #GivingTuesday.

Roger