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Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I'm your host, Rhea Wong. Hey, what's up, non profit fam? It is Rhea coming to you the day after Thanksgiving. If you celebrate, I hope that you enjoyed. I personally am full of pie right now. I may not eat for the next week, but really enjoyed the time off. I hope you did as well. I hope you took the opportunity to put your feet up, have a glass of wine, eat some pie, relax. Anyway, I'm coming to you because I had something that was on my heart today that I just really wanted to share with you. So if you're listening to this, it's the Monday Before Giving Tuesday, which kicks off what I like to think of as a Super bowl of fundraising, but the last sprint to the end of the year. And I just wanted to pop in here because I see you. I talk to fundraisers every single day and you all are out here hustling, trying to make it happen, trying to make the world a better place. And it has been a tough year in so many ways. Things that are happening politically, socially, economically. It has been a whirlwind out here. And I just wanted to say I see you and I want you to give yourself a little bit of grace because we're out here trying to make the best of a tough situation. And I know heading to the last sprint of the year, you're putting a lot of pressure on yourselves. Your boards might be putting pressure on you. You're looking at your end of year goals and it is a lot. So I just wanted to say I see you, I feel you. You're out here doing all the things, do what you can do and let it go. I think we need to divorce ourselves a little bit from the outcome because at the end of the day, we have no direct control over the outcome. All we can do is what we can do and what we can control. So I know you're probably not going to breathe A sigh until January 1st, when the year is over and all of the gifts are in. But I just want to remind you to give yourself just a little bit of grace. And here's the other thing. I'm out here just as you are. I'm out here on LinkedIn, I'm reading all the emails. I know there are all these people out here giving you advice about Giving Tuesday, what you should do, what you shouldn't do. It's all very, very confusing. So here's my other piece of advice to you, which is pay attention to a couple things and let it go. You could literally make yourself crazy trying to follow everybody's advice. Pick one, two or three things and then let it go. See how those work. And then next year try a couple more. So trying to boil the ocean in one year is not going to be a recipe for success. Now that being said, I don't want to be a hypocrite out here, but if you are listening to this the Monday before Giving Tuesday, I just wanted to pop in for a quick couple of suggestions which of course you can choose to ignore before you hit send on that Giving Tuesday campaign. And these are just easy, low hanging fruit things that you can do while you're thinking about it. And if none of these things feel doable, that's okay. Just let it go. By the way, before I get into these tips, I also wanted to let you all know that if you are a listener to the podcast, I on December 10th, I'm hosting a free VIP session for Ria Wong Insiders. So this will be a chance to reflect on the year that we just did and to think about the questions that we should be asking in the year ahead. So if this is of interest to you, you've been a loyal listener, you want to get in on some early 2026 planning? Subscribe to my newsletter link is below in the Show Notes and you will get an invitation to this insider only VIP December 10th session. Okay, I'm going to keep it short and sweet because I know y' all got a lot of things going on. So three things that I would love for you to think about before you hit send on that Giving Tuesday campaign. 1. Let's talk about subject lines, y'. All. I get a lot of notes, nonprofit emails, as I'm sure you do as well, and I'm actually genuinely shocked at how often I see things like update such and such newsletter, learn about our programs. Like these are subject lines that are very boring to me and don't really tell me anything about what's in it for me. They don't spark curiosity, they don't spark interest and so one easy thing that you can do is go through all of the subject lines that you're sending in your emails on giving Tuesday or through the end of the year if you're doing a longer campaign and ask yourself, does this sound like an interesting subject line? Does this inspire me to open it? Does this spark curiosity? Does this spark intrigue? If none of those things are true, I would recommend that you rewrite your subject line. So there are three things you can ask yourself. Would I open this? Does this create urgency or curiosity? And is the pre header actually something or is it just view in browser like a sad little afterthought? So here's some examples. Things like your gift is triple today. We're 37 girls away. First name Lindsay. This is your moment, right? So think of subject lines like the preview to a movie. If the preview is boring, I'm likely not going to see the movie. And I think one of the mistakes that we all make, and look, I make it too is that we spend so much time on the content of the email and then we think of the subject as an afterthought. And in fact I would flip it the other way around. What is the subject line that is going to be enticing enough to get people to open your email? You can use your friend Chattygpt for this. Run your subject lines through your GPT to see if they're interesting. Because if they're not interesting, people are going to move on and delete. There are a lot of things coming at us during giving. Your goal is to get eyeballs and attention as much as you can to rise above the noise of the inbox. 2. This is a big one. I know you all are probably out here with all of the things to do. I'm going to say this. I want you to take a breath. Don't freak out on me. But. But go omnichannel. But keep it simple. Unless you are a very sophisticated job, you probably don't have a whole team ready to execute a campaign. Maybe you have a couple of people, 1, 2 or 3. So we're not looking at a 12 touch multimedia campaign with smoking machines and interpretive dance. Here are a couple things that you can do because the thing is, if I get it, one email, that might be the shot over the boat, so to speak. If I get an email and a voicemail or an email and a text reminder or an email and a dm, that will spark to actually take action. If I'm so inclined to take action most of the time assume that the reason why people don't respond to appeals is not because they don't like the organization, not because they don't intend to give. It's just literally that they forgot because how many times. And I know y' all are feeling me out here, I get an email, I totally intend to respond. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get to it. I even star it, right? And then life gets in the way. I sort of forget. So I'm not saying to be a nuisance here, but some gentle nudges go a long way. So here are a couple things you can do. Obviously you're going to be sending out the email on Giving Tuesday. Maybe you then do a social media post pinned at the top. Maybe you send a short text message to your top donors. If you have permission to do so with something great, something easy, hey, it's Giving Tuesday. Your gift gets tripled today. Want the link? And if you want extra credit and you have the bandwidth, you can have some of your board members and staff members personally email. Personally email. Not a blast. A real human email to your top donors. Maybe you even set aside some time to do personal phone calls. Likely you're going to get voicemails, but that personal touch and hearing a human's voice on the other end will go a long way. And then let's talk about my third suggestion here. This is really simple to do. It astounds me how often we send out email but we don't actually ask for any kind of engagement. We don't ask for a reply back. And reply backs are the most reliable source of engagement. So easy thing you can do when you're sending out your emails, add a reply back PS. Now PS's are magic. PSS are what people read. So generally speaking, when people open an email, they scan the top and then they go to the bottom and read the ps. So if you're not using your ps, that is a missed opportunity. Always use a psych. So if you want to add a ps, add something that says questions. Want to dedicate your gift? Just hit reply. I read every message. Here's what this does. It makes your email feel personal, gives your nervous donors a safety valve and three it trains inboxes to think your emails matter because you're getting a reply back. So your actually offering your donors at that moment an opportunity to engage with you like a human being. What we want to do is think about all of the communications that we're sending, whether it's our newsletter, whether it's Our solicitation, whether it's our social media, as a way to invite conversation. Remember, you're not closing a gift. You're opening a relationship. And I have yet to talk to a fundraiser who's like, I have way too many donors to talk to. People are blowing up my inbox. The truth is, most of you probably need to get more donor conversations on the books. And I know I can already hear you all say, like, I don't have time for donor conversations. First of all, if you don't have time for donor conversations, what are you making time to do? But second of all, in order to scale, we have to do things that do not scale. And part of doing things that do not scale is talking to human beings who want to talk to you, who want to support you, who have means and capacity to support the work that you do. So anytime you're sending something out, use that as a way to invite a conversation. Okay, last thing. I know I said three, but I lied. Last thing. If you have a donate button, make sure that donate button in your emails, on your website, whatever is big, you want a big old button. Probably an obnoxious color, because people scan. So you want to make sure that they know where to find the donate button. I know, it sounds so obvious, but again, remember, we're dealing with people who have very full inboxes. We need to catch their attention and make it obvious what we want them to do. Okay, so that's it for me, friends. That's your Giving Tuesday punch list. It's quick, it's effective, there's zero drama. Remember, it's not about doing all the things. It's about doing the right things that get people to open, click and and give. So remember, if you want to be invited to this VIP session on December 10th, register for my newsletter. In the show notes, you will get an invitation, but it's only available to newsletter subscribers. And good luck out there. You've got this. And if you want more nerdy fundraising gold, follow me, subscribe. We'll see you next time. And good luck out there. Go get that bunny, honey. Hey, you.