If you haven’t started planning for Giving Tuesday, you haven’t missed it. You’ve missed the version with a twelve-email sequence, a custom landing page, and a video shoot. That’s fine. With 19 days left, a small team needs a match, a set of messages people will open, and a plan for thanking everyone who gives. Everything else is decoration.
The day keeps growing. GivingTuesday reported that people in the U.S. gave $4.0 billion on the 2025 day, up 13 percent from the year before. That cuts both ways. Your donors are primed to give, and your email lands in an inbox next to every other organization they love. This year the day falls on Tuesday, Dec. 1.
Secure a match this week
A match gives donors a reason to give today instead of someday. It also gives every message you send a story with a clock on it.
Ask a board member, a longtime donor who already gives at year-end, or a local business that likes its name next to yours. Ask by phone. The ask can be one sentence: “We’re hoping to raise $10,000 on Giving Tuesday. Would you match the first $5,000, dollar for dollar?” Set the match at an amount you’re confident you’ll meet. Announcing at noon that you’ve met the full match beats chasing an oversized one at 11:30 p.m.
Two details people skip. Get the matcher’s permission to use their name, or agree on “a generous friend of the school.” And decide in writing what happens if you blow past the match. Will the matcher stretch, or will you announce a second goal on your own? Settle it now, not at 4 p.m. on the day.
Write every email before Thanksgiving
On the day itself, your job is to update numbers and press send. Not to write.
A workable sequence for a small shop:
- Tuesday, Nov. 24. A heads-up. One paragraph on what Giving Tuesday is for at your organization this year, the match, and the date. No ask yet.
- Monday, Nov. 30. “Tomorrow.” Short, with the match and one link.
- Tuesday morning. The ask. Lead with one concrete thing a gift does, then the match, then the button.
- Tuesday afternoon. A progress update with a real number. “We’re at $6,400 of $10,000” moves people. “Help us reach our goal!” does not.
- Tuesday evening. Last call. Three sentences, sent only to people who haven’t given.
That last point matters all day. Pull donors out of each send as their gifts come in. Nothing says “we aren’t paying attention” like asking someone who gave at 9 a.m. to give again at 7 p.m. If your email platform can’t suppress them automatically, assign one person to pull a fresh list before every send, and put it on their calendar now.
While you’re at it, test your donation page on a phone. Count the fields. If you require a phone number, a title, and a “how did you hear about us” question, cut them. Every extra field is one more chance for someone to close the tab.
Plan the thank-you before the first gift arrives
This is the step most organizations leave for Wednesday, and Wednesday is too late to plan it well. Decide these now:
- The automatic receipt. Rewrite the default. A receipt that reads like a bank statement wastes the one message every donor is guaranteed to open.
- Who calls whom. Pick a threshold, such as every first-time donor or every gift over a set amount. Give each board member a short list with names, gift amounts, and a three-sentence script, with calls finished within 48 hours.
- What the matcher hears. A personal note the next morning with the final total and what their match made possible.
Write those messages now too. When Wednesday comes, you’ll be sending, not drafting.
What to leave off the list
If your team is two people and a part-time database manager, skip the countdown graphics, the live stream, and the peer-to-peer page someone will have to babysit all day. None of them is a bad idea. They just aren’t on the short list. In my experience, a match, five well-timed emails, and a real thank-you plan, done with care, raise more than a dozen tactics done in a rush.
Your one assignment for this week: call your matcher. Everything else on this list depends on that conversation.
If you want a year-round annual giving plan so Giving Tuesday stops feeling like a scramble, see Annual Giving and Grant Strategy.
– Mary-Ellen
Sources
- See How Your Generosity Made GivingTuesday 2025 Record-Breaking (GivingTuesday)
- About GivingTuesday (GivingTuesday)
Featured photo: Photo by Ekaterina Shevchenko on Unsplash.
