How One Nonprofit Dominated Their Giving Day

JD Lasica and I had the honor of working with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity to plan and prepare for Give To The Max Day in Minnesota, which was on November 14, 2013.

GTMD13 Results for Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity

Giving days are becoming a popular way for local nonprofits to share resources, expertise and experience to achieve more together than they would individually. And Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity achieved amazing results!

A few highlights:

Total donations via GiveMN: $215,973 (compared to $55,000 in 2012)
Total donors via GiveMN: 694 (compared to 350 in 2012)
Matching gifts: $110,000 (compared to $15,000 in 2012)

Can you believe it? A 4X increase in donations and a 7X increase in matching donations.

How Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity Dominated GTMD13

According to Brian Juntti, Director Marketing & Communications, there were several things Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity did to achieve their massive results:

1. Create a strong message – Clear, consistent message (across channels and social platforms) that people care about: “Give to the Max. Impact a child’s life forever” (see below).
2. Make it easy to share – We had shareable video about this impact, with links embedded to take viewers to our GiveMn page. Website takeover week of, directing every visitor to our GiveMn page to schedule or make a gift.
3. Start early – Started promoting the day earlier than ever, first week in October. Got over 100 people signed up to get a reminder email.
4. Schedule gifts – Actively promoted the Give to the Max Day scheduled giving option, acheiving over $80,000 in scheduled gifts going into GTMD.
5. Leverage matches – Recruited a major donor to set a matching gift of $75,000.
6. Leverage friend networks – Promoted a peer-to-peer option, “Habitat Builders” (individual fundraisers) who created their own pages off the main Twin Cities Habitat page and raised funds from their personal networks. Habitat Builders raised over $50k.
7. Stay on top – All of these strategies enabled them to stay on the Razoo Leaderboard the entire day of GTMD. This visibility created even more exposure for organization during GTMD13.

I’ll add that they took GTMD13 seriously. Brian and his team (along with JD and me) planned the campaigned months in advance over the course of several meetings. During 2012, they made a serious effort to improve their website and use social channels much more strategically.

If you’re considering a giving day in 2014, make a point of exploring how TCHabitat used Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to get their community amped up!

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