How Catalogue For Philanthropy Raised Over $1.2 M With #GivingTuesday

As far as 2020 goes, your year may have felt like this: 

While everyone else is ready for 2021, tis the season when fundraising ramps up, especially with #GivingTuesday around the corner. 

To talk through some end-of-the-year strategies, we’re pleased to welcome Matt Gayer, the co-executive director for Catalogue for Philanthropy on our Nonprofit Leader Panel. During our interview, we learned how Catalogue launched a hugely successful #GivingTuesdayNow campaign this past May and how they’re currently navigating digital fundraising in 2020.

Stayed tuned for interview highlights below or listen to the full recording here:

Note: Giving Tuesday is usually the Tuesday after Thanksgiving but in response to unprecedented need spawned from COVID, Giving Tuesday International organized an impromptu day of giving in May. 

About Catalogue for Philanthropy

Catalogue for Philanthropy is a locally-focused guide to giving, working to raise awareness and build capacity for small nonprofits in the DC region. A relatively new member to the CauseVox fam, Catalogue joined last year for their #GivingTuesday “Give Local Together” campaign. As a testament to their success, this campaign brought in more than $574K within a 24 hour period. 

Unlike traditional campaigns where organizations raise money for themselves, Catalogue’s #GivingTuesday campaign raises money for over 200 nonprofits in the DC area.

Lessons Learned on Recruiting, Engaging, & Activating for a Successful Campaign:

1. Set A Clear Goal 

While a monetary goal is important, you should also have a contingency plan if that goal is met. Just because you reached your goal doesn’t mean you should end your campaign early. Instead, it’s best to keep the momentum going. For Catalogue, having that backup plan came in clutch when they surpassed their initial $500K goal this past May and back in 2019.

2. Identify An Audience

Unfortunately, not everyone is interested in participating in your campaign. For Catalogue, they have a tailored audience in mind when drafting their appeal:

They kept in mind what matters most to their donor base – a sense of community and a sense of impact. People want to know that their gift is making a difference, especially during this period of isolation. 

3. Add in Elements of Gamification 

Adding elements of gamification helps motivate donors, especially lower-level donors who may feel that their donation won’t go as far. 

An example of Catalogue’s gamification strategy involved implementing four power hours throughout the day. Teams compete to see who can raise the most in an hour. The winning team won an extra $1,000 towards their campaign. These challenges generated friendly competition and helped raise over half of the total amount.

4. Leverage Peer-to-Peer

Catalogue for Philanthropy engaged their network of Washington DC based organizations to set up individual fundraising pages and teams for their nonprofit. Under the Catalogue for Philanthropy page, hundreds of nonprofits were able to fundraise on #GivingTuesday 2019 and on #GivingTuesdayNow in May.

Catalogue helps prep their folks by giving them very specific social media and images to use. They also encourage partners to recruit lead advocates, “who agree to post the same things on social media and send out the same emails at roughly the same time.” 

They found that this strategy helped with better visibility on the algorithms and it took the pressure off fundraisers to generate content.

5. Think about Media Partnerships

In addition to getting the word out via TV stations or major publications, Catalogue tapped into local, active community groups.

By leveraging the power of local influencers and word of mouth, Catalogue found that this made a big difference. In fact, thanks to media partnerships, Catalogue ended up with over 5,000 donors that day.

How Did CauseVox Help?

For Catalogue, transitioning to digital fundraising “has been a long-term shift”. Here’s how CauseVox helped make that transition easier: 

It’s Quick And Easy To Set Up Your Campaign 

For their May fundraiser, Catalogue worked under a tight timeline with less than five weeks to prep. With so many moving parts, CauseVox makes digital campaigns convenient and a no-brainer to set up.

It’s Easy For Donors To Make A Gift

On a high volume day like #GivingTuesday, there’s no room for error. With CauseVox, donors are able to complete their donation in under 15 seconds on a mobile-optimized form. With mobile payment options like Apple and Google Pay, donors don’t even have to take out a credit card.

With conversion + mobile-optimized donation forms, Catalogue was able to get more donations, quicker.

CauseVox Makes It Easy To Customize and Design Your Page

CauseVox offers sleek, professional-looking campaigns optimized on any mobile device.

According to Matt, the ability to easily drop in photos has been “vital to any type of engagement.” Photos are vital to visual storytelling, helping to drive home your organization’s message.

Additionally, CauseVox makes it easy for your peer-to-peer fundraisers to create and customize their page in under 60 seconds, on any device. This helps activate more fundraisers, makes it easy to update content in real-time, and keep their audience engaged.

Power Your #GivingTuesday Campaign With CauseVox

CauseVox makes it easy for you to run a #GivingTuesday campaign that’s designed to help you get more donors.

With easy setup and design, you can get your #GivingTuesday campaign running within minutes.

Plus, all of our forms are conversion-optimized, mobile-optimized, and support 1-click mobile payments (with Apple or Google Pay), so you’ll get more donations through your site.

If you’re looking for clunk-free software and seamless admin capabilities, check out how CauseVox’s platform can help you raise more with less effort.

Get started today for free.