GivingTuesday is a critical day for all fundraising organizations, including higher education development teams. This global generosity movement provides an opportunity to engage various donor segments, from alumni to parents to friends of the university, and kick off the year-end giving season with excitement and momentum.

However, for your university’s GivingTuesday campaign to succeed, you also need to practice proper financial management. It can be tempting to dive straight into planning your fundraisers and trying to maximize revenue without considering upfront costs or contingency plans, but you’ll be more likely to achieve your goals if you consider financial aspects as you lay out your strategy.

Let’s look at three tips for integrating financial planning into your higher ed institution’s GivingTuesday strategy so you can boost your fundraising success—responsibly.

1. Create a Campaign Budget

Your university likely creates several different types of budgets to lay out projected revenue and expenses for its annual operations, departmental or program-specific needs, and capital campaigns. You’ll likely also find fundraising campaign budgets helpful, especially when planning large-scale initiatives like GivingTuesday. This budget details the upfront costs associated with your fundraiser and explains how you’ll fund those expenses.

The old saying “you have to spend money to make money” rings true with fundraising. Your university might put resources toward the following expenditures as you plan for GivingTuesday:

• Fundraising software, whether you want to upgrade your existing donor management and engagement tools or add specialized solutions to your toolkit for certain aspects of your campaign (peer-to-peer fundraising, virtual events, etc.)
• Event planning—while software will be your main virtual event expense, you may need to budget for equipment rentals, catering, decorations, and similar aspects of in-person events, as well as format-specific costs (e.g., auction items or walkathon t-shirts).
• Marketing communications across your university’s website, social media, email, SMS, direct mail, flyers, paid advertising, and other channels so you can reach as many potential donors as possible.
• Payments to outsourced professionals, such as fundraising consultants who assist with campaign strategy, freelance graphic designers who create marketing materials, or financial advisors who provide a third-party perspective on your budget and reports.

On the revenue side of your budget, securing sponsorships and marketing grants can help you cover some of these campaign expenses, but you’ll mostly need to use other unrestricted funding sources (i.e., contributions that donors didn’t designate for specific purposes). Additionally, ensure your total expenses are significantly lower than your fundraising goal to allow for a positive return on investment (ROI) on GivingTuesday.

2. Diversify Your GivingTuesday Revenue

Like with general fundraising, it isn’t a good idea to put all of your revenue generation eggs in one basket for your university’s GivingTuesday campaign. As Jitasa’s guide to GivingTuesday best practices explains, “By generating revenue in multiple ways, you’ll be more likely to reach your goal. You’ll engage more supporters with different giving preferences and have a stronger safety net [for achieving that positive ROI] in case one source falls short of expectations.”

Here are a few ideas for diversifying your GivingTuesday funding, organized according to the major categories of revenue for exempt organizations:

• Individual donations: These contributions will probably make up the bulk of your GivingTuesday funds, but you can generate them in many ways, from sending out fundraising letters to running crowdfunding campaigns to creating a unique GivingTuesday text-to-give keyword. Event revenue also bridges this category and the earned income category, since you may collect donations while also selling tickets, merchandise, refreshments, auction prizes, or other items.
• Corporate philanthropy: Besides securing corporate sponsorships, which are especially useful for financing events, you can also leverage programs like matching gifts, volunteer grants, and internal employee fundraising efforts at your donors’ workplaces to get local businesses involved in your GivingTuesday campaign.
• Earned income: Designing and selling a special line of branded merchandise is the most straightforward way for higher ed institutions to generate earned income on GivingTuesday, although other forms of product fundraising are also possible, especially if specific programs take them on.
• Investments and grants: The only easily applicable revenue options to Giving Tuesday in these categories are the aforementioned marketing grants and challenge grants, where a high-impact supporter (whether it’s a major donor, company, or foundation) pledges to donate a specific amount once your university hits a fundraising target. However, it’s always a good idea to check on your long-term grants and investments at year-end, and GivingTuesday planning can serve as a reminder to do so!

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Many community members also like getting involved with the organizations and causes they support in non-monetary ways on GivingTuesday, such as through volunteering, advocacy, or in-kind contributions. Ensure these avenues are open to your university’s supporters so you can benefit from different types of support and engage more individuals in your efforts. 

3. Track Data Throughout the Campaign

Well before GivingTuesday, you should have systems in place to track various types of data on your campaign—revenue generated, expenses incurred, participation in each aspect of the day, marketing conversions, supporter feedback, and any other insights you may find useful. Doing so allows you to:

• Evaluate your success. Concrete numbers let you know whether you achieved your goals and provide some insights into why you got those results. Then, you can use your analysis to capitalize on your strengths and improve where necessary as you plan for future GivingTuesdays.
• Demonstrate impact. Including GivingTuesday statistics in your follow-up messages to supporters, your university’s annual report, and future campaign marketing materials (e.g., using messaging like “We raised a historic $25,000 last GivingTuesday—will you help us break our record again this year?”) can boost your higher ed fundraising team’s credibility and inspire more contributions down the line.
• Report your university’s finances. You’ll need organized records of your GivingTuesday spending and revenue generation for your accountants to create accurate financial statements and file annual tax returns for your institution.

Make sure to practice good data hygiene (i.e., keep your records organized and free of extraneous or inconsistent information) and integrate your software (e.g., connecting your donor database to your fundraising and accounting tools) to make the collection and analysis processes as seamless as possible.

Wrapping it up

Planning a higher ed GivingTuesday campaign requires managing many moving parts, including its financial impacts. But by adapting the tips above to your university’s unique needs and goals, you’ll be well on your way to making this global fundraising day the best one yet for your team.

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About the author

Since joining Jitasa in 2010, Jon Osterburg has helped hundreds of nonprofits around the world effectively manage their finances through tailored, outsourced bookkeeping and accounting services. He currently serves as Jitasa’s Chief Operating Officer, is a member of two nonprofit boards, and has earned a certificate for Executive Education from the Yale School of Management.