9 Social Media Ideas to Inspire Donors on GivingTuesday

GivingTuesday is one of the biggest days on the nonprofit calendar. Every year, millions of people around the world take the opportunity to support their favorite causes. 

And they support those causes in a big way! Recent statistics show that donors gave $3.1 billion to nonprofits—and that’s just in the United States! People didn’t just donate money, either. They also volunteered, made in-kind donations, participated in events, and advocated for their favorite causes and organizations on social media.

The massive generosity movement is largely driven by an active online community, with the #GivingTuesday hashtag gets billions of impressions each year. If you want to get the most out of participating in GivingTuesday this year, you’ll want a social media strategy that helps you capitalize on that visibility.

How Can Social Media Benefit Nonprofits on GivingTuesday?

Social media is important for nonprofits all year. So why is it so important on this day in particular?

Well, there are a few reasons:

• It’s an easy way to get current supporters excited to spread the word about your cause and encourage others to get involved.
• Social media is a great tool to build awareness for your organization. Using it well helps you connect with potential supporters who otherwise wouldn’t know about your organization. This is especially true if you use the #GivingTuesday hashtag and engage with others in your community on the big day.
• You can create a sense of community by posting about your GivingTuesday activities, tagging relevant staff and supporters, and interacting with people on different channels.

If you’re ready to amplify your social media presence and engage more donors online this year, here are eight GivingTuesday social media post ideas you can use throughout the day.

1. Launch a Storytelling Campaign

Storytelling is much more effective than fact-sharing alone.

We’re not just making that up—it’s science! When humans hear a story, our brains produce the chemicals cortisol, dopamine, and oxytocin—the chemicals that form memories, keep us engaged, and deepen our relationships. 

That’s direct scientific proof that storytelling is the way to go when we want to engage and inspire people on GivingTuesday and beyond. 

Try running a story-centric campaign that leads up to GivingTuesday. While thousands of nonprofits will be vying for donations on GivingTuesday, and launching a campaign prior to GivingTuesday will help your organization stand out and build interest over time.

Share a story (or a series of stories!) that directly ties into the impact someone can make by giving to your organization. Use the power of storytelling for your GivingTuesday social media posts to help people connect with your cause on a personal level.

2. Create a Social Media Kit

One of the best ways to reach new audiences on GivingTuesday is to get your community to talk about your campaign. Here’s the catch: You’ll have the most luck getting people to post about your cause if you make it really, really easy to do so.

To do that, try providing a social media kit to your staff, volunteers, board members, and other supporters. 

A good kit will include images, talking points, conversation starters, and even pre-written posts or templates. Of course, your supporters can also create their own posts—and that should be encouraged!—but people will appreciate any resources you give them. Writing a social post from scratch is hard!

Put your kit together and make it available on your website. You may also want to intentionally reach out to dedicated supporters personally to invite them to participate, then email them the resources directly. 

However you use it, your kit will make it easy for people to spread the word about your campaign, which will make it more likely that people will do so. 

3. Don’t Forget the Hashtag

Each year, nonprofits use the #GivingTuesday hashtag to share their campaigns, and supporters use it to find them. In 2019, the hashtag had over 20 billion social media impressions. That’s a lot of eyes! 

No matter which type of social media campaign you decide to run for GivingTuesday, always remember to include the popular #GivingTuesday hashtag. Other hashtags are fine—including your own campaign hashtag if you have one—but they’re unlikely to get the kind of traffic #GivingTuesday gets. 

If you use your own custom hashtag in addition to #GivingTuesday, ask anyone who posts about donating to your organization to use the hashtag to tie all of the campaign’s posts together (psst—this is definitely something you’d want to include in your social media kit). Having people use your campaign hashtag also makes it easier for you to find and engage with the posts people make about your organization.

Feeling ambitious? Do some research into other hashtags you might want to use. Are there commonly used fundraising tags on each channel you’ll use? Does your city or general area have a hashtag that has a decent following? Get creative!

4. Build Posts Around Updates

It’s exciting to see fundraising numbers increase in real time, especially if your campaign has a set goal associated with it. Let donors know how much they’ve helped raise so far! 

This approach uses visuals to provide regular updates on social media. Throughout the day, share where you are in meeting your GivingTuesday fundraising goals and get people hyped about moving you closer to that goal.

This is a chance to foster a sense of community, rally people around meeting the goal, and keep your social media audience engaged. Create a sense of urgency by asking people to give toward meeting the goal by a certain time (“If 50 people give $50 by 5:00, we’ll meet our goal in record time”).

Use a call to action that inspires people to help meet the goal by sharing it with their social media followers. Make sure you include a link to your donation form so donors know exactly how to support you!

5. Use Video

People share video content two times more than any other type of content. Whether it’s storytelling or behind-the-scenes footage, using video on social media captures people’s attention and makes your message more shareable. 

It doesn’t have to be fancy! Social media posts are sometimes allowed to be more unrefined. After all, these are channels where people share their lunch photos and cat videos. 

You could try live-streaming updates, sharing appeals, and giving behind-the-scenes looks at your activities—none of these ideas require any slick editing or expensive equipment. Simple videos are perfect. 

If you’re feeling fancy (or have someone on staff who’s good at such things), tools like CapCut and other editing apps make it possible for you to create pretty videos right on your phone.

Even if you don’t have the resources to send a video crew to film stories, text-only videos can be an excellent format for sharing statistics and quotes.  

6. Run an Education Campaign

While sharing facts and statistics alone isn’t always an effective way to raise money, you can use them to illustrate how someone’s donation can help on GivingTuesday. 

Use your GivingTuesday social media posts as an opportunity to answer questions about your cause during a live Q&A session or share powerful statistics or figures related to your organization’s work.

Even negative statistics can make a statement that inspires people to be generous on GivingTuesday. 

Here’s a great example: 

“Did you know that 1 in 4 teens in the U.S. has missed class because they don’t have access to menstrual products? It only costs around $45 a year for The Agloe Center to provide a year’s worth of products to someone who needs them. Will you give $45 to end period poverty for someone today?” 

The statistics make the call to action extra compelling!

7. Say Thanks

GivingTuesday is a great opportunity to thank your donors and volunteers. You can even repurpose this “thank you” initiative as content for GivingTuesday social media posts or emails. 

You can take a couple of approaches here. 

The first is creating a mix of thank-you posts and fundraising appeals. When you intentionally share both types of post on your social media channels, you can achieve two goals at the same time. 

You show your current supporters that you value their involvement with your work, and you signal to potential donors and volunteers that their contributions will get the same level of appreciation.

The second approach you could try is to focus entirely on thanking your community. This is a great choice if you have GivingTuesday goals that are not tied to a specific fundraising total or if you simply want to take advantage of a big cultural moment without needing to raise money yourself.

8. Share Social Proof

Peer pressure is a powerful thing—use it for good! 

When you share stories from other donors, volunteers, or board members who have chosen to get involved with your work, you send a few signals to others in your broader network. You subtly show them that you’re a trustworthy organization that has the support of your community—and you also create a little bit of FOMO.

A testimonial from someone who is deeply involved in your organization can be a powerful motivator that makes others want to join in.

For example, highlight a highly engaged donor, volunteer, or board member. Share how long they’ve been involved and quotes from them on why they chose to give to your nonprofit. Then, thank them for their work and invite others to get involved!

There’s another benefit here, too, especially if your organization needs to protect your clients’ identities. If you can’t share stories from the individuals you serve, this is an invaluable way to share compelling content without endangering others.

9. Go Live

Most social media platforms (such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok) offer the ability to broadcast live. “Going live” before, during, or after GivingTuesday can help add a personal touch to your campaign. 

Use live video to introduce your GivingTuesday campaign, talk about how people’s support will make a tangible difference, share your progress, and more. There are so many possibilities! 

It doesn’t have to be a professionally produced live broadcast. Someone on your team talking to the camera will do! Face-to-face videos feel authentic and personal and can help your supporters connect with the campaign you’re introducing them to.

To get the most out of your live video efforts, you can save the video and use all or parts of it in other ways, like in other GivingTuesday social media posts or in an email.

Take Your GivingTuesday Fundraising to Social Media

GivingTuesday is annual proof that online movements and social media fundraising work. When you discover the type of content that works for your audience and engages your donors, social media becomes a powerful fundraising tool.

Looking for additional resources to help you plan for GivingTuesday? Check out our GivingTuesday Toolkit below!