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Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta (Advancing Justice-Atlanta) is the first nonprofit legal advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander (AANHPI) and Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities in Georgia and the Southeast.
Like many of our partners, Advancing Justice-Atlanta relies on donations from supporters to power their work, and Giving Tuesday is an invaluable opportunity to bring in more funding. Giving Tuesday takes place on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the U.S. — this year, Giving Tuesday is on November 28th.
To help prepare organizations for this valuable opportunity, we chatted with Donia Hanaei, James Woo, and Maria Azuri-Humm to hear their strategies for making the most of Giving Tuesday. Thank you Donia, James, Maria, and the whole team at Advancing Justice-Atlanta for sharing your fundraising wisdom!
Click here to support Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta! Your contribution helps support and sustain programs that provide direct aid and assistance to those most vulnerable in the AAPI community through civic engagement and organizing, policy advocacy, legal services, and litigation. Learn more and contribute here.
1.Encourage donors to spread out the impact of their donations throughout the year by making their donations recurring
Your donors are already prepared to support your organization with a one-time donation. By encouraging them to make their donation recurring, they can support your work year-round (and spread out the costs for themselves throughout the year).
On Action Network fundraisers, you can enable a recurring upsell pop-up that prompts donors to make their one-time contribution a monthly recurring donation after donating. You can include a pitch tailored to your donors in the ask.
Click here to learn more about recurring donations on Action Network.
2. Customize social media sharing text to bring in more donations from donors’ social networks
Advancing Justice-Atlanta puts a lot of emphasis on peer engagement around donations. Simply providing a template for donors to share why they donated — “I supported this organization because _____.” — can go a long way towards increasing your reach and bringing in more funds.
Action Network’s sharing features ensure that these asks are built-in to your fundraising pages. When creating your fundraiser, make sure the sharing options are enabled. You can also customize the content for Facebook and Twitter using the ‘Sharing & Tracking’ tab on the manage page for your fundraiser.
Click here to learn more about social media sharing on Action Network.
3. Use the ActBlue integration to supercharge your fundraising efforts
Action Network’s integration with ActBlue takes your fundraising to another level. Track donation data to specific emails (even break that data down by email test variant!), track and target your ActBlue express lane donors (for 1-click donations!), track recurring status for ActBlue donors in Action Network, and much more.
Click here to learn more about the Action Network / ActBlue integration.
4. Take advantage of employee matching programs to double, triple, and maybe even quadruple contributions
Advancing Justice-Atlanta is based in Atlanta, so they’re sure to highlight the Atlanta-based companies that have employee matching programs. If your organization serves a specific city or region, it may be worth looking into which major employers in your area offer a similar benefit to employees. Most companies with these policies allow employees at any level to get their donations matched — though some require minimum donations to trigger the match.
There are services available that can help you match your donors to these programs, such as Double the Donation, which offers this service starting at about $1000/year for small nonprofits.
Click here to read Double the Donation’s primer on employer donation matching programs.
5. Set up Ladders that incorporate fundraising asks into your welcome series for new supporters, folks who take action on a petition, and more
Ladders on Action Network are a powerful and flexible tool for automating emails and mobile messages. They allow you to design sophisticated campaign journeys for your supporters as they subscribe to your list or take a specific action, and the ability to send activists down different paths with decision trees means that you can simulate a conversation — like asking about an activist’s interests or volunteer capacity — entirely automatically.
You can use built-in templates to get started right away or customize Ladders to fit seamlessly into your program.
Click here to read more about Ladders on Action Network.
Giving Tuesday is a huge day for fundraising, but it’s also an amazing opportunity to get your fundraising program optimized for the other 364 days of the year.
Now that you’ve read through these tips, the best way to level up is to join our free, monthly trainings that offer deep dives into every aspect of the Action Network toolset. Click here to check out our Trainings calendar and sign up!
Thank you again to the team at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta for working on this with us and for being amazing and impactful Action Network partners.
Lastly, don’t forget to support their work! Your contribution helps support and sustain programs that provide direct aid and assistance to those most vulnerable in the AAPI community through civic engagement and organizing, policy advocacy, legal services, and litigation. Learn more and contribute here.