Last month, a client of ours participated in a local 24-hour giving day campaign. For those in Washington, think GiveBIG, but for their region. Two people on our end. Less than 13 total hours a week combined. This wasn't our only project.

Here's what happened:

That's a 124x return on their $250 investment. Even accounting for staff time, they saw a roughly 25–30x return on total cost.

Not because they had a big team. Not because they had a big budget. Not because they had a big audience.

Because they had the right formula.

I want to share the strategy I’ve shaped over years of experience with you today. No webinar. No pitch. No gatekeeping.

Here's what I hear a lot: "Giving days feel chaotic. We don't have capacity. It's too much email."

I get it. I've been running these campaigns for over nine years. I've felt that too.

But here's what I also know: giving days don't have to feel that way. When done right, they become powerful moments to mobilize both major donors and grassroots givers all collectively working toward a shared goal.

One of our clients’ donors told me how meaningful GiveBIG is to him, because it gives him hope in our collective power. That is a very different story. That is the energy we are building toward.

The organizations that crush their goals on giving days aren't doing more. They're doing it smarter — and they're starting earlier than you think.

This is the step most organizations skip, and it costs them.

At least two to three weeks before your campaign launches, send a warm, impact-forward message to your donors and community. No ask. Just a genuine thank you and a clear picture of what their support made possible.

Share your real numbers. Jobs connected. Families served. Policy wins. Hours of programming delivered. Be specific — concrete impact data builds trust and primes your community to give again.

Include quotes from the people your organization serves. Not framed around hardship. Framed around their strength, their leadership, what they're building. That's asset framing, and it resonates deeply.

Do this loudly, across every channel — email, social, text if you have it. You are not bothering people. Your donors are parents, professionals, students, and neighbors who are busy living their lives. I’ve consistently found that most people see less than 25% of the content organizations put out. What feels like a lot to your communications team is barely a whisper in your supporter's inbox.

One of the single highest-impact things you can do before a giving day is secure a matching gift. Just a $5,000 match can transform your campaign energy entirely — because it turns every donor into a multiplier.

But here's the part nobody talks about: the best match pool conversations happen on the phone, not over email.

Think about who gives around this same time each year. Is there a donor who recently gave that you could ask if their gift can function as a match for the campaign? Is there a longtime supporter you've been meaning to reconnect with?

Pick up the phone. Share what the organization has been up to. Talk about the campaign and what a match would mean. These conversations aren't just about money — they're relationship-building moments that pay dividends long after the campaign ends.

Once you have a match secured, put it in every single email. Every social post. Every text. "$25 becomes $50." "$50 becomes $100." The math is simple. The psychology is powerful.

Your email list is powerful. Your volunteer base is even more powerful — because they already believe in your work.

Before your campaign launches, give your most engaged supporters clear, easy steps to amplify your reach:

Peer-to-peer fundraising is one of the highest-ROI tools available to nonprofits, and it costs almost nothing to activate. When someone gives because a friend asked them to, that gift carries an entirely different weight. It grows your donor list. It brings new people into your community.

The key is making participation as simple as possible. Don't just say "spread the word." Give them the exact post, the exact link, the exact language. Lower the bar, and you'll be surprised how many people show up.

Development and communications staff often hold back on outreach because they don't want to overwhelm people. The reality is the opposite problem.

Think about how your donors actually experience your content. They're scrolling while making dinner. Half-reading emails between meetings. Catching a story on their phone before bed. A message you sent three days ago has already moved to the “I’ll read this later” folder of emails.

Your giving day campaign needs a consistent, multi-channel presence across a multi-week window — from pre-campaign thank you to early the day after the campaign. That means:

The organizations that win giving days are the ones willing to take up space. Your community wants to hear from you. They just need you to show up consistently enough that the message lands.

This is especially for the small shops out there who are thinking, "I don't have capacity for all of this."

Here's what we tell our clients: you're not building a campaign, you're building an asset bank to be repurposed year after year.

Year 1: Build out your full email sequence, your social content calendar, and your major donor outreach script. This takes real effort the first time. But you now have a foundation that is almost entirely reusable.

Year 2: Add on. Peer-to-peer fundraising. Texting. Low-cost local advertising. You're not starting from scratch — you're layering onto a system that already works.

The template you build in Year 1 will serve your organization for years. The community member's stories and the program numbers change, but the core structure remains the same.

This is how small teams achieve outsized results. Not by doing everything at once — but by building and scaling strategically over time.

We've built out a complete, ready-to-customize campaign guide for nonprofits running GiveBIG or any matching gift giving day. It includes:

The template is free. No webinar. No pitch. Download it below.

You know your organization is ready for its next level of growth, but you’re stuck in a familiar bind: you need senior-level leadership, but the budget for a full-time fundraising director just isn’t there. Fractional Directors provide part-time, long-term senior leadership without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.

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