Nonprofit Lowdown – Episode #367

Title: Giving Tuesday Flop...Now What?
Host: Rhea Wong
Release Date: December 8, 2025

Overview

Rhea Wong supports nonprofit leaders in making sense of a Giving Tuesday campaign that didn’t deliver as hoped. She frames the episode as a “post-mortem,” unpacking the most common reasons for a flop across four key pillars: audience, offer, execution, and follow-up. Rhea provides practical, actionable advice for course-correcting in the final weeks of the year—turning disappointment into a revitalized, data-driven end-of-year campaign.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Giving Tuesday Is Not the End

• Purpose: The episode opens with reassurance—Giving Tuesday’s outcome isn’t final. Instead, it marks the beginning of the nonprofit’s year-end push.
• Encouragement: Rhea stresses giving yourself grace amid a noisy, overwhelming fundraising environment (01:55).
• Quote:
  “Your Giving Tuesday didn’t fail because donors don’t care. It did not fail because your mission isn’t compelling. And it did not fail because you didn’t work hard. It failed because fundraising is a system and somewhere in the system, some parts broke down.” (03:51)

2. The Four Pillars Where Campaigns Fail

A. Audience

[07:18]

• Dirty List: Out-of-date or unengaged email lists drastically reduce deliverability and giving.
  • “Dirty lists mean bad results.” (07:30)
• Lack of Segmentation: Not tailoring communications for major donors, monthly givers, lapsed supporters, or first-timers leads to generic, ineffective asks.
  • “A generic ask equals generic results which equals low conversion.” (09:57)
• No Use of Last Year’s Data: Not analyzing past performance means you’re “guessing instead of targeting” (13:11).
• No Pre-heat/Warmup: Jumping into Giving Tuesday cold, without building anticipation or priming, limits emotional connection and urgency.

B. Offer

[18:13]

• Weak or Generic Offer: Campaigns relying on “please give” lack clarity, specificity, and urgency.
  • Offer should have:
    • Compelling reason to give NOW (e.g., a match)
    • Clear impact per dollar
    • Emotional and narrative stakes
    • Specific deadline
  • “Campaigns don’t win on please give.” (18:26)

C. Execution

[21:51]

• Lack of Omnichannel Presence: Over-reliance on a single channel (usually email) means low visibility; omnipresence builds familiarity and action.
  • Example: “Wicked,” the musical/film, is everywhere, so you can’t NOT see it (22:33).
• Low Frequency: If people see you once, they don’t act—multiple touches (7–14) are needed.
• Weak/Inconsistent Messaging: Messaging without a clear story arc, protagonist, emotional journey, or call to action won’t move donors.
• Timing Misses: Late starts, poor send times, and “single day” pushes waste opportunities for buildup and post-campaign follow up.

D. Follow Up

[34:02]

• Lack of Follow-Up: Stopping after Giving Tuesday leaves money on the table; most revenue comes the day after.
  • “If you stopped when the day ended... you didn’t have a 24 hour post-Giving Tuesday push.” (34:15)
• No Personal Touches: Generic emails underperform compared to texts, personal calls, and board involvement.
• No Real-Time Optimization: Not monitoring open rates, experimenting subject lines, or adjusting messaging during the campaign means missed opportunities.
  • “If none of that happened, you were not adjusting the airplane while it was flying.” (36:47)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Failure:
  “It’s a learning opportunity... fundraising, like marketing, like sales, is a learning game. It’s an iterative process.” (11:57)
• On Offers:
  “Matches are magic—in any campaign I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend you have a match.” (35:11)
• On Messaging:
  “Assuming they look at our emails, but if they don’t get the emotional payoff of feeling like they need to move now? They likely will not.” (29:44)
• On Boards:
  “Your board members are your strongest volunteer force—use accordingly.” (43:25)
• On Urgency:
  “They don’t need perfection. They need clarity, consistency, and a reason to care. Give them that and they will show up.” (47:15)

Actionable Fixes & Recommendations

[39:14]

• Clean the List: Remove disengaged contacts, merge duplicates, tag donors, and fix bad data.
• Segment Audiences: Major, mid-level, monthly, lapsed, first-time, and corporate matchers—each needs a tailored approach.
• Use Last Year’s Data: Identify who gave, what worked, when, and which channels performed.
• Compelling Year-End Offer:
  • Tie dollars to impact (“$140 sends one girl to school for a month”)
  • Match funding, clear deadline, and a reason to give NOW.
• Omnichannel Plan:
  • 3–4 emails/week, SMS, social media, phone calls, direct mail, website, peer-to-peer, and possibly digital ads.
  • Start small; pick 2–3 channels if staffing is an issue.
• Aggressive Follow-Up:
  • Text after emails, personal video thanks, “here’s where we stand” updates, relentless countdowns.
• Board Activation:
  • Board makes year-end gifts, sends emails, posts on social media twice/week, makes donor calls, and shares campaign assets.
• Midlevel Donor Focus:
  • Personal outreach by email and calls; tailored offers.
• Major Donor VIP Treatment:
  • Do not include major donors in mass appeals!
• Narrative Arc:
  • Story unfolds over campaign days: protagonist, barrier, breakthrough, match, vision, donor role, countdown, celebration.
  • “Think about your campaign like a Netflix show. It should all hang together...” (45:44)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:25] – Rhea introduces the episode and the problem (Giving Tuesday flop)
• [02:30] – Why campaign failure is not hopeless
• [05:21] – The four pillars: Audience, Offer, Execution, Follow-Up
• [07:18] – Audience failures (dirty lists, no segmentation, lack of data, no warmup)
• [18:13] – Offer failures (weak ask, lack of urgency or specificity)
• [21:51] – Execution failures (lack of channels, poor frequency, bad timing)
• [34:02] – Follow-up failures (no post-campaign push, lack of personal touch, missed optimization)
• [39:14] – Step-by-step fixes for year-end recovery
• [47:15] – Final encouragement and central takeaway

Tone and Language

Rhea maintains a warm, energetic, and pragmatic tone throughout. She’s direct, honest, and supportive, mixing humor (“If you like big asks and you cannot lie...”) with practical, no-nonsense advice. She avoids blame and positions every failure as a learning opportunity.

Summary & Central Takeaway

Your Giving Tuesday flop isn’t final—it’s a data point and a call to action. By systematically diagnosing where your system broke down in audience targeting, offer construction, campaign execution, or follow-up, you can course-correct and still win the year-end. Rhea arms listeners with a step-by-step checklist and the reminder: “You’re not behind. You’re just rebuilding the plane you’ll need to fly in 2026.” (46:37)

Checklist download and more resources available in the episode show notes.