Giving Tuesday Is Bad For Nonprofits

Giving Tuesday is Bad for Nonprofits is only true if the charity you care about is committed to significant impact. If you don’t want see your nonprofit save and transform more lives than Giving Tuesday (GT) is a fine, touchy-feely waste of time, money and organizational resources.

For the next two weeks you won’t be able too avoid the flurry of messages with “Giving Tuesday” in the subject line. Social media will be awash in the hashtag #GivingTuesday. You’ll be inundated on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and X with posts that bomb your phone, laptop and tablet.

Here’s the tragedy. Every Thanksgiving charities take two weeks to confirm every trope donors have heard about nonprofits. How? They launch a Giving Tuesday campaign! This December 3rd organizations will confirm for donors once again that:

1. Do-gooders can stay very busy accomplishing little or nothing
2. Fundraising for the sake of fundraising is boring and tiresome
3. Mediocrity is the cornerstone of the charity asking for their donation
4. They are complicit in the indifference when they give their pennies

Giving Tuesday, Inc., announced last week that monies raised last December flattened in 2022 and dropped in 2023. They also noted that fewer donors participated.

MEET JIMMY LAROSE AT A MAJOR GIFTS RAMP-UP EVENT TO MEET THE MILLIONAIRES WHO LIVE AND GIVE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

You see, thoughtful CEOS and BOARD CHAIRS will use this year’s Giving Tuesday 2024 as a HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY TO END THE SILLINESS. They’ll use this event to transform the organization they serve. It starts with the answers to three simple questions:

1. How much did you raise during your this year’s GT Campaign?
2. How much money did you spend (direct mail/social media/email marketing)?
3. How many hours of paid staff time was invested?

According to the same report, the average nonprofit raised $3,857 in 2023 on Giving Tuesday.

You may say, “NOT US…We raised $41,000! You don’t get any points for raising $41,000 when you could have spent the same amount of money and time raising $4.1 million.

Ultimately, nonprofits who waste resources on GT aren’t serious about MONEY. The old adage, there are things in life that are more important than money, is about as silly as saying there are things in life that are more important than air. Money, like air, in and of itself is not very impressive, nor does it give life meaning. However, life has very little meaning…if you can’t breathe!

It’s simply a matter of THE ORDER OF THINGS. The healthy flow of lots of money (air) allows a nonprofit to flourish and, in turn, realize its important mission in ways never dreamed possible.

When it’s all said and done money is oxygen, without it, charities asphyxiate, atrophy and fail. Tragically, GIVING TUESDAY CAMPAIGNS CHOKE THE AIR OUT OF CHARITY.

MEET JIMMY LAROSE AT A MAJOR GIFTS RAMP-UP EVENT TO MEET THE MILLIONAIRES WHO LIVE AND GIVE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Giving Tuesday, auctions, golf tournaments and direct mail are a thing of the past. Smart nonprofits spend their Giving Tuesday budget on major gifts fundraising and raise millions instead of pennies. Smart nonprofit CEOs insist that their staff invest raise major gifts with wealthy individuals who share their “best gift” ensuring the highest return on investment.

When comparing nonprofit revenue streams, major gifts fundraising is the least expensive. The average industry costs to raise one dollar are:

• $2.00 through GT Campaigns (THAT’S RIGHT THE AVERAGE NONPROFIT SPENDS $2.00 TO MAKE $1.00) including marketing costs and staff time
• $1.50 through direct mail acquisition with a 1 percent or higher return rate, including labor
• $0.50 through fundraising events, not including labor
• $0.25 through planned giving, including labor
• $0.25 through direct mail renewal with a 50 percent or higher return rate, including labor
• $0.20 through grant writing, including labor
• $0.10 through major gifts and capital campaigns, including labor

Having a staff person spend six months coordinating a GT Campaign not only eats up time but also incurs the cost of what might have been done instead. Consider how much you might have raised if that staff person had spent six months scheduling appointments and asking for major gifts. You can easily raise over hundreds of thousands during a one-hour major gifts call. In fact, you will raise more five, six, and seven-figure gifts through individuals than you can from any other form of fundraising.

There are thousands of millionaires who make their home in your community. They already live in give in your community but they don’t know about you. Large nonprofits have pursued game-changing gifts for decades. However, most small to midsized nonprofits do not know how to identify people of wealth in their community. Nor do they know how to get these people interested in their cause, familiar with their organization, and connected with their agency.

We do, and we can show you. Join me at a MAJOR GIFTS RAMP-UP EVENT to discover how you can invite them to invest in your important work. I won’t let you down.

Here’s my personal challenge to you and your leadership. NONPROFIT CEOS and BOARD CHAIRS who read this article will announce on January 1st that Giving Tuesday is over! (You’ll have the 2024 data you need to back this up). Use Giving Tuesday 2024 as a memorial. Five years from now look back and say EVERYTHING ABOUT ARE CHARITABLE INCOME CHANGED ON GIVING TUESDAY 2024.

Let December 3, 2024 mark the end of your involvement wasteful fundraising events that donors dislike. Instead, raise the millions you need to accomplish your important mission.

Giving Tuesday Is Bad For Charity was first posted at INSIDE CHARITY

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